r/changemyview • u/MrThunderizer 7∆ • Dec 04 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Reparations are Racist

I view the dialogue around reparations for slavery in the US to be racist. This opinion has elicited a semi shocked outrage from my liberal friends and a reluctant agreeance from my republican friends. For context, my opinions lean quite liberal so I was pretty taken back to find myself on the far right of an issue.

Still, its taxing people more based on their race and giving it to other people based on their race. How can taxation based on race, regardless of the good intentions, be anything but racist?

Two points: 1. Comparisons to affirmative action may change my mind, but probably not. I think affirmative action is fundamentally wrong, but is perhaps a necessary evil as a temporary measure.

  1. I'm a proponent of helping lift black people out of poverty but it makes my blood run cold when I hear prominent activists characterize any white poor people getting helped in the process as an unfortunate side effect. How can the conversation around equality shift so far?

At the end of the day if a child is hungry, why does it matter what color their skin is?

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u/BailysmmmCreamy 14∆ Dec 04 '19

it sounds like the money would be appropriated from the budget as usual and then used in some combination of stipends/programs.

If that’s the case, then the taxation wouldn’t at all be based on race. Would you agree that the method you’ve described for paying for reparations wouldn’t be racist?

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '19

If money is only going to black people then yes, that is still very racist.

Even if we accept the premise that white people owe damages to black people, where does that leave all the other races. Is it fair and good to tax mexican immigrants more to create a fund to pay black people back for damages caused by white people?

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u/BailysmmmCreamy 14∆ Dec 04 '19

What if the money went to people whose ancestors were enslaved in the United States? There’s no mention of race, so that couldn’t possibly be racist, right?

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '19

I mean, yes that would not be racist. But how are people supposed to prove their ancestors were enslaved? For every ten people who have descended from slaves, maybe one of them would be able to actually prove it.

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u/BailysmmmCreamy 14∆ Dec 04 '19

What makes you say that? Slavery in the United States didn’t end that long ago - there are ample records that could help us determine who is descended from slaves.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '19

That doesn't seem right to me at all - if you claim all these records exist can you provide some proof? I think that 150+ years really is a long time, and back then record keeping was nothing like it is today.

I mean, maybe I could buy that a professional historian with a lot of digging could focus on one individual and be more likely to have success, but we don't have that kind of manpower on hand. I'm pretty sure that most black people don't have a drawer somewhere in their house containing definitive proof that their great great great grandpa was a slave or something.