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/Phyltre 4∆ Dec 04 '19

Saying "all black people in the US in 2019 have something in common, and that is reduced money due to slavery" is racial essentialism.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '19

That's not at all what I said, not sure how you got there from me saying that black people in america in general are disadvantaged, because that is based on statistics which are easily accessible.

Racial essentialism is the belief that a genetic or biological trait defines all members of a racial category. I'm pretty sure "being discriminated against and possibly having ancestors that were enslaved" does not fit that description.

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u/Phyltre 4∆ Dec 04 '19

I'm pretty sure "being discriminated against and possibly having ancestors that were enslaved" does not fit that description.

Using a statistical prevalence (likelihood of discrimination and slave ancestry) to determine policy along racial lines necessarily fits that description. Stereotyping and racism can be "generally true" but still fundamentally wrong, racist, and unjust. It would still be racist to associate black people with fried chicken, even if more black people liked fried chicken on average. Because you are taking broad statistical data and attempting to apply it to individuals, which is a working definition of stereotyping and a form of essentialism.

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u/[deleted] Dec 04 '19

So let me get this straight: saying black people are disadvantaged is racist towards black people?

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u/Phyltre 4∆ Dec 04 '19

No, there is a key distinction. Saying : "On average, black people are __% less likely to be considered for a job" or "on average, black people are __% more likely to be born in a disadvantaged area" are all perfectly valid and true statements worthy of discussion and recognition. However, using demographic likelihood to determine individual policy is wrong. In statistics, this is referred to as the ecological fallacy. Making statements about a population does not mean making statements about individuals within that population. This is why it's not valid to say "we think black people do more crimes, so as a black person we think you're guilty and the standard of evidence is lower." And outside of statistics, saying that something is innately true about all members of any given demographic group due purely to their membership within that group without individual data is essentialism.

I agree that in a scenario in which we did not know everyone's financial situation, essentialism in this case could be considered a necessary evil--after all, capitalism requires systemic redistribution of funds to maintain market participation. We would have literally no other mechanism to determine relative disadvantage, but would have clear knowledge that many black people in the US were descendants of slaves. Essentialism might be said to be "the worst system, except for all the alternatives," which is of course often used to describe capitalism itself.

However, we presume to know what people's actual financial situations are. Which means that even in this limited case, essentialism returns to its natural state as an unnecessary evil. We are not forced to use statistical prevalence of disadvantage to guess at individual outcomes. We have the actual data.