Hey there! Tool checking in from the fighting 14th — home of AOC, the DSA, and a fertile ground for advocating the most leftward position out there! I love Queens!
I’d like to talk a little today about reparations and how smart democrats could run on the issue. During the last debate Joe Biden offered a word salad of an answer when directly asked about reparations in the country. He smirked, smiled (in my mind to access information as a behavior + laughing/smiling is a biological way humans cope with being confronted with the unexpected), and dismissed the question. He could not even say the phrase institutional racism & instead mashed it with institutional segregation (which one could argue are within the same domain but I digress). Joe Biden showed the worst way that a democratic president could address this issue. His tone was paternalistic, condescending, and lacked empathy for a guy supposed to have boundless empathy.
Reparations is supported by a solid majority of African Americans. Upwards of 73% (some polls peg the support around 80%) within the AA community. They support direct cash assistance from the government which is reasonable given history.
- 67% say government should not provide cash payments to slaves' descendants
- Most blacks support cash-based reparations from the government
- Democrats are divided on the question.
news.gallup.com/...
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In June, the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties held a hearing on reparations to African Americans for the first time in more than in a decade. While reparations could take many forms, the most straightforward would be cash payments by the government to descendants of American slaves. Most Americans (67%) say the government should not make such payments, but 29% say it should, including the solid majority of black Americans (73%).
If I was a democratic contender during the debates and this question was posed to me:
DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.
Mr. Vice president, I want to come to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race. In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, "I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago."
You said that some 40 years ago. But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?
- Hypothetical dem response or Biden response: I did say that 40 years ago and we have seen the legacy of institutional racism play out in every aspect of U.S culture. I am sorry for that and I was wrong to hold that view. Democrats have tried to solve institutional racism with federal programs like affirmative action and other patchwork solutions. Republicans have fought us tooth and nail over trying to make progress for all communities of color. Right now African American women make 64 cents for every 84 cents a white woman makes to the dollar of a white man. Right now we have to try and level the playing field. Republicans will always be committed to what they can take away. Poor white farmers before the civil war justified their slavery and commitment to slavery by at least having somebody else below them that they thought they could lord over.
- So as a democrat — we have to take the view in this modern era that we can’t leave anybody out. When I take my moral guidance on what is just and right — I look at the legacy of MLK and what he spent the last year of his life fighting for:
- MLK said:
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- “I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a new widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”
- So my answer on how do we repair the legacy of slavery is that we follow through on the dream of MLK from his final book before he was assassinated a year later. We do basic income for everyone that is meaningful (30k — 72k pp) and follow through on the real dream of MLK to lift everyone up together.
That would be an incredible powerful answer on the topic of reparations in my opinion. I don’t see any democrat making this argument. Not even Yang (who I do not support) has really made this argument.
Do you think there are any democrats out there that when addressing racism who will be able to bring the concept of UBI into the debate? I can’t imagine what it would have been like or history would be like had MLK had an opportunity to truly lead a poor peoples campaign and if all the lefts leaders like Bobby had not been assassinated.