comment: >
  
  I think a fair system to resolve that would be to tax all organisations on employee count, and use that money to pay child bearers directly.
  That way there’s no individuals that can be retaliated against, and is funded by those who are benefiting from that (currently unpaid) work, although shifted by a generation or two.
  This is ofc in addition to parental leave.
  If this is coupled with appropriate overtime compensation and have it extend into unemployment of fired workers it also disincentivises the casualisation of work, and incentivises employers fostering healthy careers.
context: /u/Viceroy1994 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  Poverty is an issue to be sure, but the root causes tend to be far different from racial inequalities.
  A prime example I use to illustrate is the GI Bill post World War 2. While written in a seemingly race-neutral language, the execution was handed to state governments for fund distribution, with laws that stymied loan offers despite federal backing e.g. many banks just wouldn't make loans for Black Americans at a state level. This resulted in only a few thousand of the 1.2 million Black Americans who served gaining any benefit from the GI bill, and this had generational effects; one estimate puts that descendants of WWII Black Veterans would need $180,000 a piece to have the same benefit level that white vet descendants received over the subsequent eight decades. >
  
  !delta
  You bring up an interesting point, people in-charge of enforcing these laws might have a racial bias, but that's not an issue with the laws themselves, the idea is still sound, it will just need a good, carefully monitored execution. >
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  It's easy to point at the specific laws and policies and say they're not racist in themselves.
  Sure. But things exist in a context, and are often even written with that in mind.
  It's not automatically racist to penalize one drug far more harshly than other, for example, but it sure might be if the harshly penalized drug was used a lot more by people of one racial background. >
  
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  
  Exactly. It's also what collegiate level critical race theory explores (not the bogeyman panic rhetoric the political right likes to frighten with). Essentially, examine a law with neutral language, compare demographics of groups affected, and determine what factors affect certain groups more sharply than others. >
  
  Who demographics affect shouldnt affect laws though. Opioids typically affect white people but I want a crack down on it. It wouldnt be racist it would be logical and good for poor community's. Same with meth, cocaine etc. >
  
  That all depends on what the law is targeting. Let's look at Marijuana for instance. When crackdowns on Marijuana started under the Nixon administration, we now have quotes from Nixon's counsel stating things to the lines of we know it's not illegal to be poor or black in the US but we also know a common thread between them is they enjoy Marijuana. So we criminalized it against what out own experts said so we could break up their activist groups. 
  Like even though Marijuana law is written neutrally, it was created and enforced in a way specifically because it would be easy to target minorities. So you may want a "crackdown", but if the institutions that are enforcing those laws are inherently racist, it's going to become an issue of race. >
  
  In the case of MJ the law isnt racist so its not a racist law its a racist enforcer. No one is in the streets over planned parenthood or abortions because they were designed to "curve the black population" a literally racist policy.
  The problem with CRT (real one not booggyman one) is it assumes that at some level everything is racist.
  Just because X affects Y more doenst make X anti Y it just is an observation.
  When we have proof, like we have for war on drugs THEN and only then is it worth a discussion otherwise its of no merit or positive value >
  
  I would agree if we had no information apart from "law targets marijuana users", however in this case we have more information about why the law was inacted.
  If a racist creates a law with the purpose of reinforcing said racist view and we can prove it, and prove that it doesn't positively said negative racist affect in some other way, I think it's fair to say the law contributes to racism and is somewhat racist in kind.
  We're basically arguing about the chain of causality and assigning blame. It's the same argument as saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Guns are a tool which enables people to kill other people more easily, therefore they contribute to murders. Isn't that the same here? This law contributes to racism. If the law was erased, the gaps between races would be reduced, and basically nothing else would get worse in society (as has been shown with the myriad of other successful examples of countries legalizing marijuana). Therefore, the law is in some part racist since it contributes to a racist outcome. >
  
  The ruling class poisons the well by simply throwing identity politics at something. It creates the divisive rift that they want and destroys progress on popular communist/ socialist causes. Class politics and real solutions to these issues are off limits. The goal is to pin people on each other, and shift blame away from the ruling class. The ruling class should absolutely do this for themselves. It’s a genius move. They have think tanks for a reason. It’s the best thing for them to prop up the idea that handouts should be based on race because it destroys the entire notion. This is the system we have and it should be this way if we fall for the identity politics trap every time. >
  
  Where did you get the term handouts? Government assistance you mean? Lots of poor white people especially in southern states receive assistance. These are the ones who vote against their own interests by voting in government officials who would to cut assistance to those in need.
  There is also the issue of systemic and generational assistance.  The system is broken and needs to overhauled. >
  
  Yeah this entire thought process was flawed from the start by using the term handouts >
  
  Generally, handouts are given based on poverty level. It might seem that handouts are given out "by race', but this is because poverty affects minorities substantially more than the average person. Virtually every study on the matter proves this. As such, even if handouts were given by race, they would still be given to most of the same people. >
  
  
  As such, even if handouts were given by race, they would still be given to most of the same people.
  
  That's precisely my point, stop giving or demanding handouts or government assistance based on race (Which is still happening in the US) and instead do it by social class, you'd get more or less the same result with less unfairness. >
  
  Who is demanding government handouts by race? And which government handouts are given as a function of race? >
  
  Are you reading this thread? As for your second question I can't think of any, but I do have an issue with them being demanded. >
  
  So there aren't government handouts by race as you have no evidence to provide as much. 
  Now back to demands, who, specifically, is asking for government handouts by race? >
  
  Would the people not asking for slavery reparations not be classed as people asking for government handouts based on race? >
  
  No. Reparations are an act to correct past wrongs. They are not a social safety net that people generally refer to when talking about government handouts.
  Yes, it would literally be money coming from the government, but it's not the general intention in the discussion nor would it be an ongoing action. >
  
  I suppose I interpreted "government handout" to mean money coming from the government at all, regardless of the causal factors behind it. And if that money is based on race, it would be government handouts based on race. 
  I'm not sure how useful it is to differentiate between the reasons why the government is handing money out, when the cmv is about handing money out based on race. >
  
  Because reparations wouldn't be money handed out based on race. It would be money handed out to the descendants of those who had incredible atrocities committed to them. The fact that the victims were all of one race is due to the actions of the past.
  Whereas this CMV seems to be more about race oriented laws. >
  
  Because race isn't always the middle man. 
  Guess the amount of VC that goes to black business owners in America. Don't look it up...just guess. What's your percentage?
  James smith and Jamal smith don't get treated the same when it comes to job interviews. Black students get suspended for the same behavior white students get verbal warnings for. We still have black lawyers evaluated lower than white lawyers for the exact same work. 
  While we can pretend that we have gotten rid of racism that's simply not a true statement. 
  The answer is 1.2 percent.  How close were you? >
  
  These are social issues, in-group preference is a fundamental fact of humanity, it's not something you can legislate away, but you can dampen the harmful effects of it by helping its victims. You can identify the victims again by wealth level, it doesn't have to be race.
  Edit: Assuming that what you're saying is the whole truth. >
  
  How does giving money to the poor get a black lawyer a job or a black middle class family a home, when both is denied to them based on their race?
  If you think "in-group preference is a fundamental fact of humanity", how do you explain that different cultures show differing degrees of racism? Just take a look at American history: Would you say that black people are better off than 100 years ago? Societies are changing, evolving and it's not like racism is always going to be the same, no matter what you do. >
  
  
  How does giving money to the poor get a black lawyer a job or a black middle class family a home, when both is denied to them based on their race?
  
  Those actually are punishable crimes. >
  
  They may be unlawful, but they aren't crimes and they are difficult to prove because nearly everyone is smart enough not to say they're denying them because of their race. >
  
  You don't have to prove intent in racial discrimination.  The law already considers disparate impact. >
  
  Is it still as punishable without intent? >
  
  Very much so.  Look up that term, "disparate impact," to learn more. >
  
  This is true, but it's also costly and time consuming to bring these issues up in court, prove it, and get a good resolution to the problem. Add in the risk that you can't actually convince the court that there was wrongdoing. 
  Now, it's great that its in the law and it does prevent the worst abuses, but it hasn't and can't solve the issue society wide. It's just not enough. I don't have answers for what is enough/what is fair. It's super complex. But I feel like your response kind of brushes aside all that to give the impression that this is a solved issue. >
  
  It's not costly for the plaintiff; many lawyers will take a good case ~~pro bono~~ on contingency.
  
  But I feel like your response kind of brushes aside all that to give the impression that this is a solved issue.
  
  It's not solved, but the solution isn't to reinscribe race into the law at ever more fine-grained levels.  The solution is closing the cracks which people of all skin colors fall through.
  
  Policies of social-democratic redistribution that reduce the effective income differentials between top and bottom, combined with serious anti-discrimination measures and increased public investment that restores and expands the public sector where black and brown workers are disproportionately employed, it turns out, would do more to reduce even the racial wealth gap than genuine pipe-dream proposals like reparations or other Rube Goldberg-like asset-building strategies. Resistance to such an approach throws into relief the extent to which antiracism as a politics is an artifact and engine of neoliberalism. It does a better job legitimizing market-based principles of social justice than increasing racial equality. And a key component of that work of legitimation is deflection of social-democratic alternatives. [...]
  Every time we cast the objectionable inequality in terms of disparity we make the fundamental injustice—the difference between what ... workers make and what their bosses and the shareholders in the corporations their bosses work for make—either invisible, or worse. Because if your idea of social justice is making wages for underpaid black women equal to those of slightly less underpaid white men, you either can’t see the class structure or you have accepted the class structure.
  The extent to which even nominal leftists ignore this reality is an expression of the extent of neoliberalism’s ideological victory over the last four decades. Indeed, if we remember Margaret Thatcher’s dictum, “Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul,” the weaponizing of antiracism to deploy liberal morality as the solution to capitalism’s injustices makes it clear it’s the soul of the left she had in mind. >
  
  
  I propose that the same justification would work on gender and sexual minorities as well.
  
  I think you're mostly right but there are exceptions regarding sex, for example maternity pay for women taking time off work after childbirth, not just to look after the newborn baby but also to recover after what is an incredibly strenuous experience. Unlike women who adopt or are the non-birthing partner in a same-sex couple, who may still have the capacity for childbirth and chose otherwise, men can't give birth at all and therefore would never need that recovery time, so may be eligible for slightly fewer allowances relating to time off work to spend time with their newborn. >
  
  I'd argue that paternity leave is necessary for a few reasons. It's great for the mom to have help around the house and with the new baby while recovering from a very intensive experience. Paternity leave reduces stress on the mom and contributes to more equal households. Most importantly, paternity leave helps fathers and their children bond better. >
  
  Definitely agree with this. And I think parental leave in general should be more generous than it is in most countries. Though many European ones tend to do better than most. >
  
  Another advantage to having equally generous paternity leave is that it helps reduce sex discrimination in employment. If child-bearing-age women are more likely to take long leaves from work than their male counterparts, then it reduces the incentive to hire them. If men and women get the same leave for having children, then there is less of an incentive to avoid hiring women. >
  
  That is a good, pragmatic point. Though it would be better if this unique, essential and significant role that women have in actually creating the next generation of humanity was honoured and celebrated on its own terms, rather than being seen as an unprofitable burden to be mitigated. >
  
  I think a fair system to resolve that would be to tax all organisations on employee count, and use that money to pay child bearers directly.
  That way there’s no individuals that can be retaliated against, and is funded by those who are benefiting from that (currently unpaid) work, although shifted by a generation or two.
  This is ofc in addition to parental leave.
  If this is coupled with appropriate overtime compensation and have it extend into unemployment of fired workers it also disincentivises the casualisation of work, and incentivises employers fostering healthy careers. >
  
  "The payout from a class action lawsuit should be given to poor people, not the victims of the crime."
  These efforts are meant to address specific past wrongs. Generic poverty is a separate matter entirely. >
  
  
  These efforts are meant to address specific past wrongs 
  
  If we look at ethic groups that experienced trauma from the mid 20th century or earlier you see that
  
  2/3rds of the global Jewish population was sentenced to death and chased off of a content
  Asian Americas were sent to interment camps and experienced a shitload of racism associated to WW2, Korea, and Vietnam
  
  Yet there are no corrective measures being proposed for Jewish or Asian people.
  This suggests the rationale isn’t actually historical victimization, but instead current outcomes with the built in presupposition that the different outcomes must be heavily attributable racism.
  Mind you it’s not at all unreasonable to say you want make efforts to close gaps in racial outcomes.
  It’s just if we’re not honest and in agreement in the why, then we’ll never agree on the how.
  Compensating historical trauma as opposed to closing current gaps will have different people compensated to different degrees, with different outcomes and success criteria. The distinction is meaningful and not me nit picking. >
  
  
  2/3rds of the global Jewish population was sentenced to death and chased off of a content
  
  Israel received, and Holocaust survivors continue to receive, reparations from the German government.
  
  Asian Americas were sent to interment camps
  
  Japanese-Americans were granted reparations in the Reagan era.
  
  Yet there are no corrective measures being proposed for Jewish or Asian people.
  
  We don't have to propose them because they've already been enacted. >
  
  
  Israel received, and Holocaust survivors received reparations from the German government
  
  Germany has paid an aggregate of 86 billion dollars in Holocaust reparations, which is about $14,000 for each of the 6 million Jews killed and not counting those whom fled. Thats in 2022 dollars, factored in for inflation. 
  That’s substantially less than what a life is valued at for insurance/accident payouts or most statistical risk assessments (usually closer to 90k at minimum and up to 500k-1.5m on the higher end)
  Similarly, Japanese internment survivors were paid $20,000 each. Direct linage survivors only (to about 100k people) not all Asians whom experienced racism in the second half of the 20th century.
  Since you believe these amounts sufficient for the suffering of Jews & Asians, then it sounds like you believe a similar lump sum will pay the entire debt owed to African Americans.
  At time of emancipation there were 3.8 million black people and about 12 at the end of Jim Crow.  In terms of absolute number of people impacted, we’re talking similar orders of magnitude number of people.
  So given that, is it fair to say you think reparations should be considered done and paid for once about 86 billion dollars have been delivered to African Americans specifically (via preferred opportunities or direct cash)? >
  
  Whoah there, you're making a ton of assumptions about what I believe, based on things I never said.
  It seemed like you were saying, essentially, "it's not the case that we pay money to groups of people based on historical victimization, because these particular groups were victimized and we didn't give any money to them."
  Apologies if I misunderstood what you were saying. >
  
  Oh, sorry, I’m not trying to put words in your moth.
  Your statement was “we don’t have to propose them because they’ve already been enacted” where ‘they’ was referring to reparations for Jews & Asians.
  Saying we don’t need to make additional reparations at all for Jews implies you believe the efforts to date sufficient. Sorry if I misinterpreted.
  So like elaborate a bit for me:
  
  Do you accept my assertion that the Holocaust and American Slavery + Jim Crowe have reasonable comparisons in terms of absolute number of humans impacted, their absolute horribleness, and comparable timelines in that they ‘ended’ in the mid 20th century?
  Do you believe the debt to the Jews to to have been appropriately paid?
  If no, then why shouldn’t we offer them similar preference in ways that you suggest we should for black people?
  When applying restitutions for historical victimization, how do you quantify the amount owed / declare debt paid?
  
  It’s my belief that the are are impossible questions to answer consistently, and thus I have no problem taking a more pragmatic outcome / current situation based approach to the problem - but doing so means you lose the ability to cite past victimization as your rationale. >
  
  Short answer is I don't really know -- I was just driving by, saw a statement that seemed weird, and responded to it. >
  
  And handouts ARE given on the amount of income you have. As a white person who gets social services I can attest to that. Everyone who applies and meets the criteria gets help. I constantly hear white people complain about themselves being victims but they are really saying, I want a bigger share for me!!!! >
  
  Source on this? You seem to have jumped a few steps to reach that conclusion.. >
  
  The source is me being in the actual system for 10 plus years. I haven’t ever gotten enough that I could stop working and get anything free. At least not in my state. Nor did I get any special perks like jobs or free boosts above anyone else. And I know a lot of other people in the system they can also tell you the truth. Most of what the op proposed is regular conservative myth spinning. And, my kid is black. She hasn’t gotten any special help or boosts from being black. I see people getting boosts from their athletic or intellectual prowess in her hs more than race. And from having well off parents. I don’t see any benefits given to black people over white people. I do see prejudice in hiring practices and renting still. All poor people have to fight prejudice and that needs to change but thinking certain poor people are getting more help is a white man fear of losing their power thing. Period >
  
  I would say the best argument against this is that it doesn't go far enough; you're right that racially defined policies create backlash and fail to help some who need it, but the reality is that poverty focused policies will have similar problems, for different reasons. 
  The better solution by far is to institute something like a UBI - no possibility for systemic discrimination in distribution, and no one gets to feel like someone is unfairly being helped more than they are. >
  
  That's not absurd, but I sort of doubt that the people who oppose helping the poor will support UBI. >
  
  If you have X eligibility, you’re automatically qualified for Y. If you’re not, then good (no) luck. The middle class is struggling, too. Where I live, it now costs $4,000/month to rent a 3bd/1.5ba condo. How can many even in the middle class afford that? Yet the poverty cutoff remains stagnant. >
  
  Bum-fuck nowhere. I immediately picture "that" scene in the movie Deliverance. Ugh, thanks a lot. >
  
  A few issues I would suggest.
  Firstly I would argue these are not handouts in the sense handouts are usually thought of, ot at all. Let's say a company screws over its employees by having them work with chemicals it knows have dangerous intergenerational side effects. It causes cancer in those who work with it and birth defects in their children and potentially grandchildren.
  If that company is sued and has to pay 1.3 million to each family who had a member working under these conditions this is not a handout, it is an attempt at some form of justice.
  Let's say 5% of those families who receive their 1.3 million were actually already independently wealthy as they had started their own successful businesses since then. They still get their money anyway because it's not saying "you don't have much money, so here is some help", it's saying "these people fucked you over, now we are making them pay something to you for it".
  There is such a thing as intergenerational trauma. It can sound like a silly buzzword, but it's actually a pretty simple well demonstrated fact. When people go through severe trauma, say during a war, this causes psychological harm which means this group, on average, have more mental health issues, more substance abuse issues and so on. This of course, on average, then affects parenting style. The behaviours of the parents then effect the psychological makeup of the children as well. This can run for multiple generations.
  So the first argument I would make is that, in poverty or not, people should, in principle, be compensated for being intergenerationally fucked over by a company, government, other individual etc.
  The second argument I would make is that multiple things can be true at once. You should also be trying to create societies with as little poverty as possible. Getting people out of poverty should NOT be based on race, or in fact on anything but poverty.
  As it happens there tends to be more poverty in black communities due to a mixture of factors. 
  The first is the overtly discriminatory laws and rules that were put in place well into the 60s, and that different variants of had existed for a few hundred years. Not treating people legally equally meant several groups were highly disadvantaged based on race.
  Then there are the intergenerational trauma issues and the psychological issues that are well documented to be caused by poverty. These also mean more black people in poverty, as a percent of their race.
  My third argument would be that reversing a policy that was discriminating based on race is attempting to undo that issue, as far as possible. This doesn't make it "more racism".
  Example. Let's say you have a religious group, any will do, and this group for a couple of hundred years was banned from having property, was given greatly reduced wages, was banned from being educated in certain ways, could generally be beaten, raped, tortured etc with little chance of the perpetrators being punished. 250 years after this started, and around 60 years after a large amount of it was stopped, and with some of it still continuing now in subtler forms such as this group still getting longer prison sentences for the same crimes etc, it is decided to try and reverse the effect of these crimes by giving these people some degree of the wealth they were deliberately stopped from accumulating.
  This isn't favouring that religious group, this is just going some part of the way to undoing the way they were disfavoured to put them at about the same social location as everyone else. It's setting them back on a equal keel, or as close as reasonably possible.
  I would say if you are African American but your family moved to the USA in the 80s you are not entitled to this. Your family was not hit by all this historical stuff. Of course you are entitled to push back against any racism that exists now.
  So is it based on race? In a sense no. It's based on if you or your recent relatives were fucked over badly by a government and much of a nation's people for hundreds of years, in such a way that the effects can still clearly be seen in many of your social issues in inequalities now. The only reason for this having the racial element is because the people who did the fucking over chose race as the factor it was to be based on.
  Whilst this is all going on white people, and people in every other race, should be getting assistance if they are struggling with mental health, if all of the industry in their area collapses, if they were fucked over by a company they work for etc. They are not mutually exclusive. Should this be done by actual handouts, by a decent minimum wage, by changes to the economy, by changes to tax systems etc? Well exactly how all of these things are done involved lots of questions and specifics, and those are another debate.
  The short version. If your family is overtly fucked over by the government and corporations in such a way it greatly effects you, your kids, your grand kids, their opportunities, wealth, social mobility etc, then this should be undone as far as possible. If the criteria for the fucking over, chosen by the people who did the fucking over, is if your are black or not, then the undoing is going to share this characteristic as well, but that's on the people who chose it to begin with.
  This isn't intended to address everything you mention, mostly some of the financial side for now, as opposed to educational opportunities etc. >
  
  $6.15 trillion is a little steep, basing hourly pay at $15 an hour would be an inaccurate repayment basis. inflation adjusted that's what a doctor made back in the 1860s. An average laborer in 1860 made around $7 per week or close to 15 cent an hour. Inflation adjusted that would be around $6 an hour today. That data on the 10 million slaves starts in 1660, 116 years before the United States existed, don't know if goverment reparations should start before there was a government. The work of African ancestors did get their descendents citizenship of the United States, that should be taken into account, indentured servants from Europe slaved 4-6 years for it. I understand that Slaves didn't come willingly, but since the majority were purchased after being captured by opposing tribes in Africa their other option was most likely death. Without slavery many of the African bloodlines alive in the US today would have been extinguished as casualties of tribal warfare. Don't know how to factor that into pay or reparations. If anyone in the US today owes reparations it's the descendants of slave owners, not every white family benefited from slavery. True privilege is being born into a family with generational wealth, which slavery did help provide for a very small percentage of the population. I think it would be completely fair to seek out the families that benefited from slave labor and let them be responsible for a portion of reparations. My family didn't come to the US until the 1900s, I don't feel like I owe any slave decendant any form or reparation. But I strongly feel that descendants of planation owners who still benefit today from the free labor their ancestors aquired, well not technically "free" slaves were inflation adjusted ~$100k investment each. Reparations are due, maybe the descendants of slave traders should be held partially accountable, maybe the descendants of the tribal leaders in Africa that originally captured and sold them. It's all very complicated, just tallying up hours over 200 years of estimated labor, and slapping a modern day hourly wage on it should not be the formula to calculate reparations. >
  
  I'm not claiming to have accurate figures or any real solutions whatsoever. I'm just changing the framing from "handouts" to unpaid wages. 
  Regardless, and slightly off topic, the prosperity of this nation was built on the back of slave labor, African or otherwise. Slavery that happened before the founding created the wealth used for the founding so I'd say there's still some responsibility even if there was a name change. The US has spent at least $300B per year on our military budget since the 90s. While the military is important to our national interests, if we were to reallocate a fraction of that towards some sort of meaningful reparations to SOMEBODY then many of these animosities would be alleviated in the coming generations. It could honestly be seen as national defense spending as it's known that our racial tensions are a weak spot in our national unity and those tensions have been alleged to have been exploited by outside propaganda campaigns. 
  We've got the money, we've got the means, we just don't have the priority for some reason. Imagine if those wages had just been paid on time to free workers or invested completely into those cultural communities right after the civil war. I would think that much of our nation's racial animosity or tension would be a thing of the past and everybody would be able to engage with the American dream without the baggage. >
  
  We, as a country, are more than $30 trillion in debt. Under no circumstances do we "have the money" >
  
  Again, I'm not here to argue the nitty gritty of solutions or economics. Just looking to reframe "handouts" as returned stolen wages and making up for denied economic prosperity. 
  That's said, "I stole the money, spent the money, and spent even more money. I'm broke now, sorry!" is a poor reason to avoid doing the right thing. Also, spending $300B/yr on our military shows that we CAN generate and allocate vast sums of money. We just choose not to prioritize using that money to right our national wrongdoings. >
  
  But it's not returning wages, because the person benefitting is not the person who was actually harmed. Further, you are not taking those funds from the people who committed a deed, but from the general population. 
  So, your taking from someone who has done no specific wrong and giving it to someone who has not suffered a specific, concrete wrong. That's 2 wrongs, and it doesn't make a right. 
  By the way, that $300 billion you site is significantly smaller than the approximately $1.3 trillion that our government redistributes already. >
  
  So a couple hundred years of slavery, hundred some years of institutional and totally legal discrimination, redlining and continued housing discrimination, overpolicing of certain neighborhoods, etc, is without harm? So much has been taken from these communities and the best we can do is government housing and a scholarship here and there?
  As for the people paying for it, the prosperity of this nation was built on slave labor and we all benefit from that. Some more than others.
  So we're looking at two separate yet simultaneous systems. In one system things are taken from you and you have no recourse to be made whole and neither do the people who would inherit that. In the other system I can take everything from you and multiple other people and then give that to my children, who did not earn it. 
  There are ways to rectify this, but giving up on doing the right thing because it's expensive or unfair is a cop out. Two wrongs don't make a right, but hundreds of years of immoral and heinous wrongs done to millions of people also does not make a right. >
  
  Arguing that a wrong happened in the past and therefore I deserve this in the present is terrible.  Every group has been wronged at some point in time. Should Germany be paying for all the ills of World War 2?  What about the British for their colonization?  Maybe Rome owes reparations to Carthage too. But once you go down that path, there is no logical reason to stop after any particular group. 
  Face it, you want something for nothing. You want to be owed, to take credit for any benefits that could, however tangentially, be related to someone in your distant pass. Spin that however you want, you don't want things made fair, you want the best possible results with absolutely no work, and that isn't fair to both the people you want to have benefit and those you want to leave holding the bill. >
  
  Trever Noah grew up during apartheid.
  Sure he's mixed, but apartheid wasn't something that inherently prevented any bad effects so long as you had one white parent.
  He absolutely grew up in one of the most disadvantaged positions in the entire world, save for those with darker skin than he.
  Does he not deserve to have a greater chance of getting into a decent school because he made it? Because he's successful now, that means he always would have been successful if people didn't specifically work to right the wrongs of society?
  Trevor isn't from America, his ancestry isn't linked to slave trade in the US, but only looking for people to raise up due to issues of poverty largely ignores the circumstances that people find them in.
  The most equitable way, other than providing free college around the world, would be to assist people based on individual need rather than solely on one aspect of life.
  And, people's individual need can be impacted by where they are due to aspects of race--particularly in America.
  The issues of slavery and racism were never fixed and everything else that has been done was ultimately a bandaid. But a bandaid is better than a festering wound. >
  
  Slavery was never fixed? Do we still have black slavers in America still? Your statement that “the issue of slavery and racism were never fixed” is untrue. America has made great strides. Slavery is illegal and racism is less prevalent (you will always have racist people on all sides). >
  
  Slavery is legal under the 13th amendment, states are just now rectifying this--but federally that isn't true.
  America has made great strides, but slavery and the effects of slavery are very much alive >
  
  I think the issue with this conversation in general is that everything is labeled as a “handout”. 
  While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I think starting there doesn’t allow for a good conversation for race vs poverty level “handouts”. Meaning which ones might be specific to race and which ones might be specific to poverty level. >
  
  It’s not either or, it should be both. But guess what? The larger percentage of poorer people are black in the US. >
  
  It definitely shouldn't be both. 
  We can't promote people to not judge others based on their race and then make governmental legislation based on a person's race. 
  It is simple and illogical. >
  
  You're looking at these things as some sort of merit-based system, when they just aren't.
  Take college admissions, for example, since that's usually where this issue is brought up.  What determines if you get into a school?  Well... the admissions department determines that.  Their goal is to create a student body that will provide value to the students, and that value could be societal: students might decide that a school that creates its student body to maximize the benefit to society is a good school to attend.  What it isn't is a meritocracy.  You don't get into a school because you "deserve" to.  You're not really owed anything.
  So, you have one of these communities where college attendance is very low, and a member of that community applies to your college.  If you accept that member, you'll do a kind of double whammy: first, you'll help that community raise its average education level, as other people in the community will see this person going to college and realize that they too can do that, and also, you'll have that community member on campus, making friends with people from other communities and making other members of that community feel more welcome.  So now, if you're another member of that community considering college, you'll know someone who went and you'll know that you won't be the only member of your community there so you won't be alone.  But at the same time, you need to consider if this community member will actually be a hindrance to the student body in other ways.  If you have a high standard of academic achievement, someone who doesn't meet it will feel alienated, and their presence in classes will force the class to go slower to fit their needs, not to mention that they won't be as productive in conversations.  So you weigh those potential negatives against the potential positives.  Of course, sometimes it's a no-brainer; the person would obviously fit in quite well.  Other times, you might need to prioritize the needs of the community and accept someone whom you might not otherwise accept due to these benefits to the student body as a whole.  Still other times, the applicant simply won't fit and you have to move on.
  Everyone has something to contribute, and for some people, one of their contributions is their membership in a marginalized community.  That shouldn't be treated differently than other contributions, but it sure sounds like racism to conservatives, doesn't it? >
  
  Your entire argument rests on the idea that there's a benefit to including someone for no reason other being part of a marginalized community. I posit that that provides no inherent value and is of 0 benefit. More often than not it's a detriment as you mentioned in your post of the class going slower or the applicant feeling alienated. >
  
  You made a claim and provided no evidence. On the simple idea that you learn more in a group than alone because an exchanging of ideas challenges you to think of a better ideas, diversity definitely has value. What you are positing is an opinion. >
  
  Lynchings shouldn't have been handed out based on race either, but here we are in the USA with a nasty history of racial lynchings. You want a perfect world where race doesn't matter? That's great. Now you gotta *create" a perfect world where race doesn't matter. Ignoring history with colorblind policies is not being anti-racist, it's just a goddamn cover-up for crimes committed. >
  
  I assume lynchings disproportionately affect black people, but they were far from the only victims of it. Be that as it may, why are hundred year old grievances relevant to this discussion? >
  
  The last reported lynching of a black man in the USA was committed by KKK members in 1981, and lynchings were widespread from 1882 up until 1968, so not "hundred year old grievances" really, your grandparents and your parents were alive when were lynchings were still a thing. >
  
  I can certainly see your point but why is equity your target and not equality? 
  From a non-american perspective the answer seems decently simple. Use the money that you would use in handouts to build systems that raise the opportunity people have access to.
  Now only using handout money might not be enough but there are a lot of other places where you can delegate money from. Not the military cuz it secures general global peace(more peaceful now than practically any other period in his history since Pax Romana. 
  You could use the money usually used for foreign aid to help your own citizens. It might sound cynical but the highest priority of any well working nation should be its own people and when a lot of them are struggling then that should take precedence over foreign aid.
  Use all that gathered money to create institutions like NAV( Norwegian system that helps people get jobs and education and they get a monthly allowance that they can live on until they don't need it anymore) 
  I'm no politician but surely there are better ways to secure equality for its own citizens. >
  
  Because the US has equality on paper more or less, and yet a lot of people are still struggling. I want something near economic equity because I don't want people to suffer, and we should help those who can't help themselves, my problem comes from defining "those who can't help themselves" to "black people." I see a huge problem with this on many levels. >
  
  
  my problem comes from defining "those who can't help themselves" to "black people." I see a huge problem with this on many levels.
  
  nobody's doing that, you only think they are because you don't want to acknowledge the effect racism has on opportunities for minorities, and keep desperately trying to claim its all purely based on racial backgrounds as if that's the only factor. >
  
  It might seem that government handouts are given because of race because issues like poverty tend to affect minorities at a disproportionate level compared to white Americans. >
  
  "Racism is a huge problem! Let's work on it. Any ideas?"
  "Let's offer loans/benefits/handouts, but only to people with the right color skin!"  
  "Um, aren't we trying to STOP being racists? Just asking since that's one of the most blatantly racist things I've ever heard..."  
  "YOU'RE A RACIST! You don't want to use skin color to decide whether or not someone qualifies for assistance so you must be a huge racist!"  
  "Wtf..." >
  
  
  Now if we want all people to be on an equitable or near equitable level, there are so many things we can adjust for: Poverty level, upbringing, intelligence level, geographic location, etc. Race is not one of them, to posit that race is a factor would imply that racial minorities are inherently inferior to white people, and not in a worst standing due to circumstance.
  
  I don’t understand your logic here. Are you saying that poor people are inherently inferior to rich people?  That people born in a foreign country are inherently inferior to those born domestically?  Why are you signaling race out for that logic? >
  
  The difference is that your place of birth or the poverty level of your parents and all the other factors I listed are circumstances surrounding you and your inherent qualities in you like race is. >
  
  But being born into a given race is literally a circumstance of birth conveyed upon you by your parents. What makes race more “inherent” than poverty?  And why should we be rendering assistance to things which are merely “circumstantial” as opposed to “inherent”. I’m not sure the distinction is real or important, but to the extent that it is, doesn’t the “inherent” category require more assistance? >
  
  We should give people assistance based on inherent characteristics, for example birth defects, disabilities, mental illnesses, etc. Now do you see the problem with including race in that camp? 
  A black person is not inherently less capable than a white person in the same way a person with a crippling birth defect is inherently less capable than a person without any disabilities. >
  
  
  We should give people assistance based on inherent characteristics, for example birth defects, disabilities, mental illnesses, etc. Now do you see the problem with including race in that camp? 
  
  So you're switching positions?  You're saying that we should help based on inherent characteristics but not circumstantial characteristics like poverty, family background, nationality, etc.?
  
  A black person is not inherently less capable than a white person in the same way a person with a crippling birth defect is inherently less capable than a person without any disabilities.
  
  You've just flipped your whole reasoning.  So now you say we should only be helping people with disabilities and not those other categories then? >
  
  We absolutely should help people based on both inherent and circumstantial characteristics that disadvantage them, that was never in contention, the point of the CMV is that skin color is not an inherent disadvantage, to claim it is puts it in the same category as birth defects and mental illnesses, and we shouldn't take it into account when assisting people. 
  Do you enjoy purposefully interpreting my every statement in the worst possible light? All this conversation did is reiterate the body of the post, thanks. >
  
  This logic makes no sense. One is not arguing that race is an inherent disadvantage in a physiological manner, but in a social manner. Race is a social construct that is used to group people. In many places, especially America, this social construct has been used to explicitly and implicitly harm these groups throughout history. Thus, one's race is an inherit disadvantage or advantage, not based on physiological differences, but social ones. You basically argue that saying race can be a disadvantage is supporting eugenics, which is far from the truth. 
  Many people get frustrated when they feel cheated, but in every class, from dirt poor to filthy rich, non-white individuals face far more challenges in America than white ones. This is a fact. 
  Further, there are little to no government handouts based on race. America has one of the worst social safety nets in the western world, despite the highest GDP per capita in the world. If you are truly concerned about poverty you should look into issues like universal healthcare, changing the way we measure poverty (it is archaic, obsolete and fails many) and wealth inequality (see gini index). Few argue for your so called "race-based handouts" unless you're referring to reparations which is not a proposed solution to poverty but a justice initiative. You may be conflating "handouts" with affirmative action which aims to address issues created by historical discrimination, racism and segregation in education (and housing among other areas). 
  I do not understand the issue with helping a group of people that have far more challenges than others? Slavery was not that long ago. Many older black Americans have grandparents who were slaves, legal discrimination/segregation has only been abolished for 60-70 years. There was still a school in Cleveland, MS segregated until 2016. Redlining was (is?) enforced well after it was banned in 1968. These effects are closer than you think. 
  Some quality reading for you to learn why your logic fails: 
  "Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality" - Oliver & Shapiro 
  "Medical Apartheid" - Harriet A. Washington
  "Progress for the Poor" - Lane Kenworthy
  "The New Jim Crow" - Michelle Alexander >
  
  Just wanted to point out that Trevor Noah had a very rough child hood. He grew up in a single parent household with the help of his grandparents. He did gainxa step father at some point who beat him and his mom. His step father also shot his mother, which she barely survived. Oh... and he got a slap on the wrist because "she must have done something". As a teenager he learned to hussle stolen goods (he didn't steal them, but did buy them cheap), and leverage other people's job access to get discounted goods. He networked the slums to figure out what everyone needed, and connected the dots to make his sales. He also ran a bootleg music business because he was one of the few people in the early 2000's with the knowhow.
  He's someone who absolutely should have been given priority due to his socioeconomic status. >
  
  It’s because you can’t erase bias in humans, and in all of these programs humans are decision makers.  When you have group A in control and they administrate a program, the benefits will skew toward group A because of human nature.  It happens subconsciously if not consciously.
  So if we start from the premise that different races, ethnicities and genders have similar abilities sufficient for similar capacity for achievement, and we observe that groups B, C, etc are disproportionately disadvantaged, the only way to actually address that is to purposefully facilitate a change.
  In “How to be an anti-Racist”, Ibram Kendi says (paraphrasing) that because of this, every policy either explicitly combats racism in this way or it implicitly promotes existing racism by not doing so.  It’s a good book.
  The Cletus comment was pretty lame btw.  And biased.  For all you know that guy’s IQ is higher than yours. >
  
  
  In “How to be an anti-Racist”,
  
  From the same author who openly criticised interracial adoption. Opinion disregarded. >
  
  But certain races also face verifiable additional hardships due to their race. >
  
  Certain races are stuck in certain classes due to systemic racism, but now it’s less about the race and more about being stuck in a class.
  So let’s focus on helping out people based on class (because that has the highest impact on one’s life).
  In other words, a rich black person should not be receiving more handouts than a poor white person. Let’s focus on class. >
  
  They don't >
  
  They do though. If a black kid has rich parents but for some odd reason they don't wanna pay for his college tuition, the black kid will have access to far more scholarships than a white kid with poor parents who actually NEEDS the scholarship. >
  
  … you realize majority of these scholarships still look At financial need? They don’t just look at race. They aren’t giving them to rich black students, they are giving it to poor black students. >
  
  Umm wtf. Trevor Noah grew up very poor in apartheid South Africa. If you are trying to come up with some poster child for people raised with a silver spoon in their mouth and never discriminated on based on his race he is not it. >
  
  No, treating everyone equally is racist. >
  
  How? >
  
  I dont know but a bunch of people here are arguing for just that :D >
  
  It seems so >
  
  That you view this problem as wrong and want your view changed shows you don’t understand the underlying reason for why these incentives ( calling them handouts sounds wrong ( sounds as if you’re giving them charity/ they’re begging for it ) are given in the first place. >
  
  None of it implies racial inferiority. It's not about white folks paying for the wrongs of our ancestors either. It's not about the past at all. It's about the world we live in now, that grew from a place of slavery. It's an unconscious bias baked into almost everything. Life is literally more difficult if you're not white. You're last in line thru no fault of your own. Statistically you're in a lower property value neighborhood. Your kids won't get anywhere near as much value selling the home you're not at all likely to have in the first place. I don't mean currently. Ever. Your grandparents didn't buy that 5000 dollar house in the 50s. The grocery store, post office, fire department, all on the other side of town. You get liquor stores though. Tons. From outside maybe it looks like supply and demand. Do a little research if this seems hard to believe. Those liquor stores didn't spring up, they were systematically placed there. Those are facts that you can look up, and no, nobody is out there rewriting history if you do. How would they? It's the winners that rewrite history. The point was to have cheap labor to do the jobs nobody wants to. It worked, but it's never enough. Over time all the minimum wage workers were retasked as drones. For the same wages their parents earned, in a much more expensive world. It took a pandemic to shake that up. This would be a novel if I listed all the differences in the background that white people rarely have to see up close. It's just accepted. Like minimum wage was. With the fraction I covered you're already left with your kids hanging out in liquor stores and never having the chance to trade up and out of that intentionally depressed community. You're funneled like an animal at a slaughter house into your drone job from the moment you're born. The point of handouts aimed at those depressed communities is that those are the places that require them. And they require them to an egregiously extreme degree you are almost certainly unaware of if you're not there with them. The reason race is a useful determinant is because they were literally targeted to be minimum wage workers. Their circumstances reflect it, and need to be rectified. >
  
  You say "handouts" as if they are gifts, when the reality is we are talking about recompense. Let's say the state, either through incompetence or actual malice against you specifically, bulldozed your house one day. The state has wronged you and now has an obligation to make you whole. You wouldn't tolerate someone coming around and saying, "we don't need to to give money to Viceroy1994 specifically, we just need to create a program to help all homeless people." Or worse "Viceroy1994 managed to not be poor despite the state bulldozing his house, so we don't need to compensate him."
  Both of those are nonsense. The state wronged you and it can't make compensating you hinge on passing some program to help others. It can't decide you aren't poor enough so you don't actually need recompense. When the state wrongs a person, or a group of people I needs to make them whole. Even if the state has kicked the can down the road for decades. The obligation is still there. >
  
  The state didn't wrong racial minorities, an old version of the state ran by an entirely different set of people wronged the ancestors of some racial minorities, the consequences of this on modern day black people in america is not clear-cut and not all bad. >
  
  The state is a constant entity. You can't just hand wave away something because the personnel are different. Can we default on all our debt because it was agreed to by a previous version of the state? That is not how anything works. >
  
  You're looking at equity purely in terms of socioeconomic status, as if the only goal of social equity were to make certain groups wealthier. Instead, social equity is intended to build up certain groups to give them the same opportunity as others. Opportunity to pursue happiness however they want, even if it may not necessarily be socioeconomically advantageous (e.g. working in a prestigious research institution studying quantum particles). 
  This brings me to another point, you don't typically need to add equity to something that already has equity. You don't build a nice kitchen in a house that already has a nice kitchen. You build a nice kitchen in a house that's been neglected and needs its value increased. This concept of equity translates to minority groups that have been systematically neglected, or worse systematically torn down. Poor white people may have a rough life, and I fully sympathize with that, but their poverty is not as a result of a centuries-old system that sought to keep them downtrodden. 
  Capitalism does play a role in systematically keeping poor people poor, and this applies to any race, gender identity, or sexual orientation. But we need to also be aware that systemic racism contributes an additional burden on black people, which is why they need additional aid from government and institutions to be able to have the same opportunity as a poor white person. >
  
  
  But we need to also be aware that systemic racism contributes an additional burden on black people, which is why they need additional aid from government and institutions to be able to have the same opportunity as a poor white person.
  
  No, you need to flush out the systemic racism, instead of adding more systemic racism to the system in the hopes it will compensate the other systemic racism. >
  
  It is not handed out by race don't believe the republican propaganda man. >
  
  AMEN!! >
  
  I understand where you're coming from, but there are a couple issues with that approach:
  
  Aid programs in a capitalist society have a severely limited amount of resources with which to help people, and that amount keeps getting constrained by conservative parties.
  Race does add obstacles to someone's life in addition to those created by poverty level.
  
  Race or ethnicity should be taken into account because of those additional issues, and because you have to prioritize which people to help somehow.
  They shouldn't be the sole factor, and in fact they never are: Trevor Noah would never qualify for any aid programs in the US today, and he wouldn't have qualified for any either if he'd gone to well-ranked private schools here when he was a child. 
  Most aid programs have a much longer list of requirements than just race, ethnicity, or gender: Even the few attempts at reparations or UBI in the US took other factors into account since they didn't want to apply equally to Beyonce as well as a poor single mother. >
  
  yup. >
  
  The problem with this view is that it dismisses the social factors, like race, that feed into poverty. Black Americans are more likely to be poor. This is because of various systems designed to deny the black community the accrual of generational wealth. Look at redlining - for years black Americans were denied mortgages for homes in white majority neighborhoods while the homes they were approved to buy were consistently undervalued. Even today, there are countless stories of appraisers valuing homes very differently depending on the race of the owner trying to sell. This disparity means that it’s not a simple issue of money but rather which parts of the field need to be leveled to achieve equity. >
  
  I think you’ll find that the largest beneficiaries of college admissions affirmative action are white makes. This is because of the desire for gender parity in universities. Males are admitted to programs they do not qualify for to maintain a 50-50 gender balance. Or as close as possible. Absent this admission preference, competitive universities would be at 70 percent female. 
  Finally, racial preferences in admission or other benefits does not signal inferiority. It seeks to address current and historical structural disadvantages. 
  You also might consider sports like golf, tennis and swimming (not to mention, ice hockey, curling, skiing) which all favor white makes over those of other races due to financial and cultural factors. There is also the legacy admissions which are deeply problematic. >
  
  Okay what would you do if the government started a program to relief proverty and 99% of the recipients were white. Even in centers that were stationed in neighborhoods with a black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc population? >
  
  Halt it, investigate everyone responsible, hand out some prison time, do it better next time. >
  
  Then would you introduce racial guidelines of would you be willing to let it happen again?
  Historically that is what's has happen. Like the community reinvestment act.
  The government aims for a racially neutral program to lift the economy, the program is disproportionately benefits white people even in primarily black areas and no one cares about it until years after the program is discontinued.
  Not saying that programs meant exclusively for black people always work out. Those tend to start strong until an administrative change and then those in charge steal the money put in because the new administrative actively wants it to fail and no one is really going to look into it because it's just happening to black people. Like what happened to Haiti relief or Nixon and most of the desegregation programs. >
  
  Handouts really shouldn't be given at all, because when no body get anything, the matter of who gets what is dead simple: they don't. Correcting for past injustices with further injustices only creates greater disparity and disunity. Even then, welfare doesn't help to fight poverty. If anything, it prolongs it. I don't think anyone truly benefits from handouts in the long run, not even Cletus. We'd probably be better off just letting people keep what they earn, as that's the most fair and least racist way to go about it. >
  
  
  Even then, welfare doesn't help to fight poverty. If anything, it prolongs it.
  
  I suppose, in the strictest sense, it does keep poor people alive for longer.... >
  
  
  Due to a history of white supremacy or systematic racism or whatever, 
  
  When people give this argument, they are either trying to simplify so as to explain their view better, or do not know all the details. First of all, it's not a history of white supremacy or systemic racism. It's current white supremacy, systemic racism, and additionally unconscious bias. I'll leave it at that because this issue is incredibly complex. But if you want I will write some paragraphs giving more details and examples and research.
  
  racial minorities now have a lower socioeconomic status than white people, and should be given assistance to reach equity.
  
  This is also an oversimplification. It's not merely about money. It's about other prejudices and lack of opportunity that can affect advancement and achievement for minorities. And when it is about money, it's not just about having the money, but also about hurdles that make it difficult to keep it. Which is what people mean when they say the problem is systemic.
  
  Now if we want all people to be on an equitable or near equitable level, there are so many things we can adjust for: Poverty level, upbringing, intelligence level, geographic location, etc
  
  These things are often used in addition to race. Although intelligence level is a weird one because intelligence cannot be fully measured and even if it could it is partly a learned skill.
  
  to posit that race is a factor would imply that racial minorities are inherently inferior to white people,
  
  When people say that "race is a factor," they do not mean that there is an inherent quality that people of different races have that make them disadvantaged. What they mean is that due to racism they face disadvantages.
  
  I propose that the same justification would work on gender and sexual minorities as well.
  
  Again, the problem is that these groups face difficulties outside of money. Let's imagine, for instance, that in this case we are talking about a gay man. Gay kids are more often abused by their parents for being gay, bullied by their peers, beat up, and kicked out of their house by their parents and forced to stay in one of the many LGBT kids' shelters across the country (if in the US). They may also be told that their whole identity is wrong and sinful, and forced never to see their families again. All these things can affect the strength of their application. They may have had falling grades due to such circumstances, for instance. Despite being very studious and smart. These problems are not due to poverty. >
  
  Intersectionality has become something of a buzzword but good luck trying to understand this stuff without it.
  A poor white person will have some advantages a rich black person doesn't have and some disadvantages they don't have. Cletus from bum-fuck nowhere is never going to be president of the USA but he can hail a cab at any time of day and his kids are less likely to be shot by the cops than Obama's. An intersectional approach gives a helping hand to those from oppressed social classes when it comes to barriers they face because of social class and a helping hand to those from oppressed races when it comes to barriers they face because of race. >
  
  I have been poor where I couldn't feed myself I never took a hand out that's what's wrong with this world people want everything for nothing get off your asses and get a job >
  
  If you’re white and poor it’s completely your fault. Sorry not sorry. You had a perfect set of cards and blew it. >
  
  
  If you’re white and poor it’s completely your fault. Sorry not sorry. You had a perfect set of cards and blew it.
  
  Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud.
  This is really a perfect example of what happens to Americans' brains when we focus on racism while ignoring capitalism.
  You are racist, but it is probably the result of ignorance.  You have been lied to about the degree of opportunity available to poor people who don't share your skin color.
  Capitalism wants a significant number of people to be unemployed and underemployed, to serve as a reserve army of labor, to compete to keep the cost of wages down.  Not only is it not possible for every African American to earn a living wage in our current economic system, it is not even possible for every European American to earn a living wage.  The goal of antiracist capitalism is for poverty to become more and more proportionately distributed by skin color: "the point of eliminating horizontal inequality is to justify individual inequality." >
  
  College admissions are not handouts. Hand outs are not usually thought of as merit based. Nobody is handing out admissions to Stanford or Harvard - except perhaps the children of the wealthiest donors and some athletes. For one, everyone who gains admission to Universities must meet that school's entry requirements. They are not lowering them for anyone. Every year schools get hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified applications. Choosing any one of them for whatever reason is not a hand out because meeting those admission qualifications was earned. The notion that unqualified minorities are getting into colleges, law schools, and medical schools is racist B.S. There are an abundance of qualified minorities for those opportunities.
  Another reason it is not a handout is that admitting minorities also serves the school and society as a whole. For example, we know that every selective college in America gives preferences to men. This is not a result of the patriarchy, but the result of a need for diversity. Women consistently have better grades and score higher on standardized test scores than men do. However, if the percentage of students a school passes a certain threshold, men no longer want to apply there. Then qualified applicants start going where there is a balance. Not everyone wants to go to a single-sex school. The same is true for racial minorities. If you don't have vibrant racial communities on campus, minorities will just stop applying to your school. I've seen it play out where minorities are miserable and want to leave because they don't see anyone like themselves on a campus. 
  And we want campuses that are diverse because they provide a better educational experience. I am so happy that my kids go to schools with a lot of students not like themselves. Some evidence indicates that the very best way to break racism is for students to have exposure to other students from different backgrounds. >
  
  /u/Viceroy1994 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  Poverty is an issue to be sure, but the root causes tend to be far different from racial inequalities.
  A prime example I use to illustrate is the GI Bill post World War 2. While written in a seemingly race-neutral language, the execution was handed to state governments for fund distribution, with laws that stymied loan offers despite federal backing e.g. many banks just wouldn't make loans for Black Americans at a state level. This resulted in only a few thousand of the 1.2 million Black Americans who served gaining any benefit from the GI bill, and this had generational effects; one estimate puts that descendants of WWII Black Veterans would need $180,000 a piece to have the same benefit level that white vet descendants received over the subsequent eight decades. >
  
  !delta
  You bring up an interesting point, people in-charge of enforcing these laws might have a racial bias, but that's not an issue with the laws themselves, the idea is still sound, it will just need a good, carefully monitored execution. >
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  It's easy to point at the specific laws and policies and say they're not racist in themselves.
  Sure. But things exist in a context, and are often even written with that in mind.
  It's not automatically racist to penalize one drug far more harshly than other, for example, but it sure might be if the harshly penalized drug was used a lot more by people of one racial background. >
  
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  
  Exactly. It's also what collegiate level critical race theory explores (not the bogeyman panic rhetoric the political right likes to frighten with). Essentially, examine a law with neutral language, compare demographics of groups affected, and determine what factors affect certain groups more sharply than others. >
  
  Who demographics affect shouldnt affect laws though. Opioids typically affect white people but I want a crack down on it. It wouldnt be racist it would be logical and good for poor community's. Same with meth, cocaine etc. >
  
  That all depends on what the law is targeting. Let's look at Marijuana for instance. When crackdowns on Marijuana started under the Nixon administration, we now have quotes from Nixon's counsel stating things to the lines of we know it's not illegal to be poor or black in the US but we also know a common thread between them is they enjoy Marijuana. So we criminalized it against what out own experts said so we could break up their activist groups. 
  Like even though Marijuana law is written neutrally, it was created and enforced in a way specifically because it would be easy to target minorities. So you may want a "crackdown", but if the institutions that are enforcing those laws are inherently racist, it's going to become an issue of race. >
  
  In the case of MJ the law isnt racist so its not a racist law its a racist enforcer. No one is in the streets over planned parenthood or abortions because they were designed to "curve the black population" a literally racist policy.
  The problem with CRT (real one not booggyman one) is it assumes that at some level everything is racist.
  Just because X affects Y more doenst make X anti Y it just is an observation.
  When we have proof, like we have for war on drugs THEN and only then is it worth a discussion otherwise its of no merit or positive value >
  
  I would agree if we had no information apart from "law targets marijuana users", however in this case we have more information about why the law was inacted.
  If a racist creates a law with the purpose of reinforcing said racist view and we can prove it, and prove that it doesn't positively said negative racist affect in some other way, I think it's fair to say the law contributes to racism and is somewhat racist in kind.
  We're basically arguing about the chain of causality and assigning blame. It's the same argument as saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Guns are a tool which enables people to kill other people more easily, therefore they contribute to murders. Isn't that the same here? This law contributes to racism. If the law was erased, the gaps between races would be reduced, and basically nothing else would get worse in society (as has been shown with the myriad of other successful examples of countries legalizing marijuana). Therefore, the law is in some part racist since it contributes to a racist outcome. >
  
  The ruling class poisons the well by simply throwing identity politics at something. It creates the divisive rift that they want and destroys progress on popular communist/ socialist causes. Class politics and real solutions to these issues are off limits. The goal is to pin people on each other, and shift blame away from the ruling class. The ruling class should absolutely do this for themselves. It’s a genius move. They have think tanks for a reason. It’s the best thing for them to prop up the idea that handouts should be based on race because it destroys the entire notion. This is the system we have and it should be this way if we fall for the identity politics trap every time. >
  
  Where did you get the term handouts? Government assistance you mean? Lots of poor white people especially in southern states receive assistance. These are the ones who vote against their own interests by voting in government officials who would to cut assistance to those in need.
  There is also the issue of systemic and generational assistance.  The system is broken and needs to overhauled. >
  
  Yeah this entire thought process was flawed from the start by using the term handouts >
  
  Generally, handouts are given based on poverty level. It might seem that handouts are given out "by race', but this is because poverty affects minorities substantially more than the average person. Virtually every study on the matter proves this. As such, even if handouts were given by race, they would still be given to most of the same people. >
  
  
  As such, even if handouts were given by race, they would still be given to most of the same people.
  
  That's precisely my point, stop giving or demanding handouts or government assistance based on race (Which is still happening in the US) and instead do it by social class, you'd get more or less the same result with less unfairness. >
  
  Who is demanding government handouts by race? And which government handouts are given as a function of race? >
  
  Are you reading this thread? As for your second question I can't think of any, but I do have an issue with them being demanded. >
  
  So there aren't government handouts by race as you have no evidence to provide as much. 
  Now back to demands, who, specifically, is asking for government handouts by race? >
  
  Would the people not asking for slavery reparations not be classed as people asking for government handouts based on race? >
  
  No. Reparations are an act to correct past wrongs. They are not a social safety net that people generally refer to when talking about government handouts.
  Yes, it would literally be money coming from the government, but it's not the general intention in the discussion nor would it be an ongoing action. >
  
  I suppose I interpreted "government handout" to mean money coming from the government at all, regardless of the causal factors behind it. And if that money is based on race, it would be government handouts based on race. 
  I'm not sure how useful it is to differentiate between the reasons why the government is handing money out, when the cmv is about handing money out based on race. >
  
  Because reparations wouldn't be money handed out based on race. It would be money handed out to the descendants of those who had incredible atrocities committed to them. The fact that the victims were all of one race is due to the actions of the past.
  Whereas this CMV seems to be more about race oriented laws. >
  
  Because race isn't always the middle man. 
  Guess the amount of VC that goes to black business owners in America. Don't look it up...just guess. What's your percentage?
  James smith and Jamal smith don't get treated the same when it comes to job interviews. Black students get suspended for the same behavior white students get verbal warnings for. We still have black lawyers evaluated lower than white lawyers for the exact same work. 
  While we can pretend that we have gotten rid of racism that's simply not a true statement. 
  The answer is 1.2 percent.  How close were you? >
  
  These are social issues, in-group preference is a fundamental fact of humanity, it's not something you can legislate away, but you can dampen the harmful effects of it by helping its victims. You can identify the victims again by wealth level, it doesn't have to be race.
  Edit: Assuming that what you're saying is the whole truth. >
  
  How does giving money to the poor get a black lawyer a job or a black middle class family a home, when both is denied to them based on their race?
  If you think "in-group preference is a fundamental fact of humanity", how do you explain that different cultures show differing degrees of racism? Just take a look at American history: Would you say that black people are better off than 100 years ago? Societies are changing, evolving and it's not like racism is always going to be the same, no matter what you do. >
  
  
  How does giving money to the poor get a black lawyer a job or a black middle class family a home, when both is denied to them based on their race?
  
  Those actually are punishable crimes. >
  
  They may be unlawful, but they aren't crimes and they are difficult to prove because nearly everyone is smart enough not to say they're denying them because of their race. >
  
  You don't have to prove intent in racial discrimination.  The law already considers disparate impact. >
  
  Is it still as punishable without intent? >
  
  Very much so.  Look up that term, "disparate impact," to learn more. >
  
  This is true, but it's also costly and time consuming to bring these issues up in court, prove it, and get a good resolution to the problem. Add in the risk that you can't actually convince the court that there was wrongdoing. 
  Now, it's great that its in the law and it does prevent the worst abuses, but it hasn't and can't solve the issue society wide. It's just not enough. I don't have answers for what is enough/what is fair. It's super complex. But I feel like your response kind of brushes aside all that to give the impression that this is a solved issue. >
  
  It's not costly for the plaintiff; many lawyers will take a good case ~~pro bono~~ on contingency.
  
  But I feel like your response kind of brushes aside all that to give the impression that this is a solved issue.
  
  It's not solved, but the solution isn't to reinscribe race into the law at ever more fine-grained levels.  The solution is closing the cracks which people of all skin colors fall through.
  
  Policies of social-democratic redistribution that reduce the effective income differentials between top and bottom, combined with serious anti-discrimination measures and increased public investment that restores and expands the public sector where black and brown workers are disproportionately employed, it turns out, would do more to reduce even the racial wealth gap than genuine pipe-dream proposals like reparations or other Rube Goldberg-like asset-building strategies. Resistance to such an approach throws into relief the extent to which antiracism as a politics is an artifact and engine of neoliberalism. It does a better job legitimizing market-based principles of social justice than increasing racial equality. And a key component of that work of legitimation is deflection of social-democratic alternatives. [...]
  Every time we cast the objectionable inequality in terms of disparity we make the fundamental injustice—the difference between what ... workers make and what their bosses and the shareholders in the corporations their bosses work for make—either invisible, or worse. Because if your idea of social justice is making wages for underpaid black women equal to those of slightly less underpaid white men, you either can’t see the class structure or you have accepted the class structure.
  The extent to which even nominal leftists ignore this reality is an expression of the extent of neoliberalism’s ideological victory over the last four decades. Indeed, if we remember Margaret Thatcher’s dictum, “Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul,” the weaponizing of antiracism to deploy liberal morality as the solution to capitalism’s injustices makes it clear it’s the soul of the left she had in mind. >
  
  
  I propose that the same justification would work on gender and sexual minorities as well.
  
  I think you're mostly right but there are exceptions regarding sex, for example maternity pay for women taking time off work after childbirth, not just to look after the newborn baby but also to recover after what is an incredibly strenuous experience. Unlike women who adopt or are the non-birthing partner in a same-sex couple, who may still have the capacity for childbirth and chose otherwise, men can't give birth at all and therefore would never need that recovery time, so may be eligible for slightly fewer allowances relating to time off work to spend time with their newborn. >
  
  I'd argue that paternity leave is necessary for a few reasons. It's great for the mom to have help around the house and with the new baby while recovering from a very intensive experience. Paternity leave reduces stress on the mom and contributes to more equal households. Most importantly, paternity leave helps fathers and their children bond better. >
  
  Definitely agree with this. And I think parental leave in general should be more generous than it is in most countries. Though many European ones tend to do better than most. >
  
  Another advantage to having equally generous paternity leave is that it helps reduce sex discrimination in employment. If child-bearing-age women are more likely to take long leaves from work than their male counterparts, then it reduces the incentive to hire them. If men and women get the same leave for having children, then there is less of an incentive to avoid hiring women. >
  
  That is a good, pragmatic point. Though it would be better if this unique, essential and significant role that women have in actually creating the next generation of humanity was honoured and celebrated on its own terms, rather than being seen as an unprofitable burden to be mitigated. >
  
  I think a fair system to resolve that would be to tax all organisations on employee count, and use that money to pay child bearers directly.
  That way there’s no individuals that can be retaliated against, and is funded by those who are benefiting from that (currently unpaid) work, although shifted by a generation or two.
  This is ofc in addition to parental leave.
  If this is coupled with appropriate overtime compensation and have it extend into unemployment of fired workers it also disincentivises the casualisation of work, and incentivises employers fostering healthy careers. >
  
  "The payout from a class action lawsuit should be given to poor people, not the victims of the crime."
  These efforts are meant to address specific past wrongs. Generic poverty is a separate matter entirely. >
  
  
  These efforts are meant to address specific past wrongs 
  
  If we look at ethic groups that experienced trauma from the mid 20th century or earlier you see that
  
  2/3rds of the global Jewish population was sentenced to death and chased off of a content
  Asian Americas were sent to interment camps and experienced a shitload of racism associated to WW2, Korea, and Vietnam
  
  Yet there are no corrective measures being proposed for Jewish or Asian people.
  This suggests the rationale isn’t actually historical victimization, but instead current outcomes with the built in presupposition that the different outcomes must be heavily attributable racism.
  Mind you it’s not at all unreasonable to say you want make efforts to close gaps in racial outcomes.
  It’s just if we’re not honest and in agreement in the why, then we’ll never agree on the how.
  Compensating historical trauma as opposed to closing current gaps will have different people compensated to different degrees, with different outcomes and success criteria. The distinction is meaningful and not me nit picking. >
  
  
  2/3rds of the global Jewish population was sentenced to death and chased off of a content
  
  Israel received, and Holocaust survivors continue to receive, reparations from the German government.
  
  Asian Americas were sent to interment camps
  
  Japanese-Americans were granted reparations in the Reagan era.
  
  Yet there are no corrective measures being proposed for Jewish or Asian people.
  
  We don't have to propose them because they've already been enacted. >
  
  
  Israel received, and Holocaust survivors received reparations from the German government
  
  Germany has paid an aggregate of 86 billion dollars in Holocaust reparations, which is about $14,000 for each of the 6 million Jews killed and not counting those whom fled. Thats in 2022 dollars, factored in for inflation. 
  That’s substantially less than what a life is valued at for insurance/accident payouts or most statistical risk assessments (usually closer to 90k at minimum and up to 500k-1.5m on the higher end)
  Similarly, Japanese internment survivors were paid $20,000 each. Direct linage survivors only (to about 100k people) not all Asians whom experienced racism in the second half of the 20th century.
  Since you believe these amounts sufficient for the suffering of Jews & Asians, then it sounds like you believe a similar lump sum will pay the entire debt owed to African Americans.
  At time of emancipation there were 3.8 million black people and about 12 at the end of Jim Crow.  In terms of absolute number of people impacted, we’re talking similar orders of magnitude number of people.
  So given that, is it fair to say you think reparations should be considered done and paid for once about 86 billion dollars have been delivered to African Americans specifically (via preferred opportunities or direct cash)? >
  
  Whoah there, you're making a ton of assumptions about what I believe, based on things I never said.
  It seemed like you were saying, essentially, "it's not the case that we pay money to groups of people based on historical victimization, because these particular groups were victimized and we didn't give any money to them."
  Apologies if I misunderstood what you were saying. >
  
  Oh, sorry, I’m not trying to put words in your moth.
  Your statement was “we don’t have to propose them because they’ve already been enacted” where ‘they’ was referring to reparations for Jews & Asians.
  Saying we don’t need to make additional reparations at all for Jews implies you believe the efforts to date sufficient. Sorry if I misinterpreted.
  So like elaborate a bit for me:
  
  Do you accept my assertion that the Holocaust and American Slavery + Jim Crowe have reasonable comparisons in terms of absolute number of humans impacted, their absolute horribleness, and comparable timelines in that they ‘ended’ in the mid 20th century?
  Do you believe the debt to the Jews to to have been appropriately paid?
  If no, then why shouldn’t we offer them similar preference in ways that you suggest we should for black people?
  When applying restitutions for historical victimization, how do you quantify the amount owed / declare debt paid?
  
  It’s my belief that the are are impossible questions to answer consistently, and thus I have no problem taking a more pragmatic outcome / current situation based approach to the problem - but doing so means you lose the ability to cite past victimization as your rationale. >
  
  Short answer is I don't really know -- I was just driving by, saw a statement that seemed weird, and responded to it. >
  
  And handouts ARE given on the amount of income you have. As a white person who gets social services I can attest to that. Everyone who applies and meets the criteria gets help. I constantly hear white people complain about themselves being victims but they are really saying, I want a bigger share for me!!!! >
  
  Source on this? You seem to have jumped a few steps to reach that conclusion.. >
  
  The source is me being in the actual system for 10 plus years. I haven’t ever gotten enough that I could stop working and get anything free. At least not in my state. Nor did I get any special perks like jobs or free boosts above anyone else. And I know a lot of other people in the system they can also tell you the truth. Most of what the op proposed is regular conservative myth spinning. And, my kid is black. She hasn’t gotten any special help or boosts from being black. I see people getting boosts from their athletic or intellectual prowess in her hs more than race. And from having well off parents. I don’t see any benefits given to black people over white people. I do see prejudice in hiring practices and renting still. All poor people have to fight prejudice and that needs to change but thinking certain poor people are getting more help is a white man fear of losing their power thing. Period >
  
  I would say the best argument against this is that it doesn't go far enough; you're right that racially defined policies create backlash and fail to help some who need it, but the reality is that poverty focused policies will have similar problems, for different reasons. 
  The better solution by far is to institute something like a UBI - no possibility for systemic discrimination in distribution, and no one gets to feel like someone is unfairly being helped more than they are. >
  
  That's not absurd, but I sort of doubt that the people who oppose helping the poor will support UBI. >
  
  If you have X eligibility, you’re automatically qualified for Y. If you’re not, then good (no) luck. The middle class is struggling, too. Where I live, it now costs $4,000/month to rent a 3bd/1.5ba condo. How can many even in the middle class afford that? Yet the poverty cutoff remains stagnant. >
  
  Bum-fuck nowhere. I immediately picture "that" scene in the movie Deliverance. Ugh, thanks a lot. >
  
  A few issues I would suggest.
  Firstly I would argue these are not handouts in the sense handouts are usually thought of, ot at all. Let's say a company screws over its employees by having them work with chemicals it knows have dangerous intergenerational side effects. It causes cancer in those who work with it and birth defects in their children and potentially grandchildren.
  If that company is sued and has to pay 1.3 million to each family who had a member working under these conditions this is not a handout, it is an attempt at some form of justice.
  Let's say 5% of those families who receive their 1.3 million were actually already independently wealthy as they had started their own successful businesses since then. They still get their money anyway because it's not saying "you don't have much money, so here is some help", it's saying "these people fucked you over, now we are making them pay something to you for it".
  There is such a thing as intergenerational trauma. It can sound like a silly buzzword, but it's actually a pretty simple well demonstrated fact. When people go through severe trauma, say during a war, this causes psychological harm which means this group, on average, have more mental health issues, more substance abuse issues and so on. This of course, on average, then affects parenting style. The behaviours of the parents then effect the psychological makeup of the children as well. This can run for multiple generations.
  So the first argument I would make is that, in poverty or not, people should, in principle, be compensated for being intergenerationally fucked over by a company, government, other individual etc.
  The second argument I would make is that multiple things can be true at once. You should also be trying to create societies with as little poverty as possible. Getting people out of poverty should NOT be based on race, or in fact on anything but poverty.
  As it happens there tends to be more poverty in black communities due to a mixture of factors. 
  The first is the overtly discriminatory laws and rules that were put in place well into the 60s, and that different variants of had existed for a few hundred years. Not treating people legally equally meant several groups were highly disadvantaged based on race.
  Then there are the intergenerational trauma issues and the psychological issues that are well documented to be caused by poverty. These also mean more black people in poverty, as a percent of their race.
  My third argument would be that reversing a policy that was discriminating based on race is attempting to undo that issue, as far as possible. This doesn't make it "more racism".
  Example. Let's say you have a religious group, any will do, and this group for a couple of hundred years was banned from having property, was given greatly reduced wages, was banned from being educated in certain ways, could generally be beaten, raped, tortured etc with little chance of the perpetrators being punished. 250 years after this started, and around 60 years after a large amount of it was stopped, and with some of it still continuing now in subtler forms such as this group still getting longer prison sentences for the same crimes etc, it is decided to try and reverse the effect of these crimes by giving these people some degree of the wealth they were deliberately stopped from accumulating.
  This isn't favouring that religious group, this is just going some part of the way to undoing the way they were disfavoured to put them at about the same social location as everyone else. It's setting them back on a equal keel, or as close as reasonably possible.
  I would say if you are African American but your family moved to the USA in the 80s you are not entitled to this. Your family was not hit by all this historical stuff. Of course you are entitled to push back against any racism that exists now.
  So is it based on race? In a sense no. It's based on if you or your recent relatives were fucked over badly by a government and much of a nation's people for hundreds of years, in such a way that the effects can still clearly be seen in many of your social issues in inequalities now. The only reason for this having the racial element is because the people who did the fucking over chose race as the factor it was to be based on.
  Whilst this is all going on white people, and people in every other race, should be getting assistance if they are struggling with mental health, if all of the industry in their area collapses, if they were fucked over by a company they work for etc. They are not mutually exclusive. Should this be done by actual handouts, by a decent minimum wage, by changes to the economy, by changes to tax systems etc? Well exactly how all of these things are done involved lots of questions and specifics, and those are another debate.
  The short version. If your family is overtly fucked over by the government and corporations in such a way it greatly effects you, your kids, your grand kids, their opportunities, wealth, social mobility etc, then this should be undone as far as possible. If the criteria for the fucking over, chosen by the people who did the fucking over, is if your are black or not, then the undoing is going to share this characteristic as well, but that's on the people who chose it to begin with.
  This isn't intended to address everything you mention, mostly some of the financial side for now, as opposed to educational opportunities etc. >
  
  $6.15 trillion is a little steep, basing hourly pay at $15 an hour would be an inaccurate repayment basis. inflation adjusted that's what a doctor made back in the 1860s. An average laborer in 1860 made around $7 per week or close to 15 cent an hour. Inflation adjusted that would be around $6 an hour today. That data on the 10 million slaves starts in 1660, 116 years before the United States existed, don't know if goverment reparations should start before there was a government. The work of African ancestors did get their descendents citizenship of the United States, that should be taken into account, indentured servants from Europe slaved 4-6 years for it. I understand that Slaves didn't come willingly, but since the majority were purchased after being captured by opposing tribes in Africa their other option was most likely death. Without slavery many of the African bloodlines alive in the US today would have been extinguished as casualties of tribal warfare. Don't know how to factor that into pay or reparations. If anyone in the US today owes reparations it's the descendants of slave owners, not every white family benefited from slavery. True privilege is being born into a family with generational wealth, which slavery did help provide for a very small percentage of the population. I think it would be completely fair to seek out the families that benefited from slave labor and let them be responsible for a portion of reparations. My family didn't come to the US until the 1900s, I don't feel like I owe any slave decendant any form or reparation. But I strongly feel that descendants of planation owners who still benefit today from the free labor their ancestors aquired, well not technically "free" slaves were inflation adjusted ~$100k investment each. Reparations are due, maybe the descendants of slave traders should be held partially accountable, maybe the descendants of the tribal leaders in Africa that originally captured and sold them. It's all very complicated, just tallying up hours over 200 years of estimated labor, and slapping a modern day hourly wage on it should not be the formula to calculate reparations. >
  
  I'm not claiming to have accurate figures or any real solutions whatsoever. I'm just changing the framing from "handouts" to unpaid wages. 
  Regardless, and slightly off topic, the prosperity of this nation was built on the back of slave labor, African or otherwise. Slavery that happened before the founding created the wealth used for the founding so I'd say there's still some responsibility even if there was a name change. The US has spent at least $300B per year on our military budget since the 90s. While the military is important to our national interests, if we were to reallocate a fraction of that towards some sort of meaningful reparations to SOMEBODY then many of these animosities would be alleviated in the coming generations. It could honestly be seen as national defense spending as it's known that our racial tensions are a weak spot in our national unity and those tensions have been alleged to have been exploited by outside propaganda campaigns. 
  We've got the money, we've got the means, we just don't have the priority for some reason. Imagine if those wages had just been paid on time to free workers or invested completely into those cultural communities right after the civil war. I would think that much of our nation's racial animosity or tension would be a thing of the past and everybody would be able to engage with the American dream without the baggage. >
  
  We, as a country, are more than $30 trillion in debt. Under no circumstances do we "have the money" >
  
  Again, I'm not here to argue the nitty gritty of solutions or economics. Just looking to reframe "handouts" as returned stolen wages and making up for denied economic prosperity. 
  That's said, "I stole the money, spent the money, and spent even more money. I'm broke now, sorry!" is a poor reason to avoid doing the right thing. Also, spending $300B/yr on our military shows that we CAN generate and allocate vast sums of money. We just choose not to prioritize using that money to right our national wrongdoings. >
  
  But it's not returning wages, because the person benefitting is not the person who was actually harmed. Further, you are not taking those funds from the people who committed a deed, but from the general population. 
  So, your taking from someone who has done no specific wrong and giving it to someone who has not suffered a specific, concrete wrong. That's 2 wrongs, and it doesn't make a right. 
  By the way, that $300 billion you site is significantly smaller than the approximately $1.3 trillion that our government redistributes already. >
  
  So a couple hundred years of slavery, hundred some years of institutional and totally legal discrimination, redlining and continued housing discrimination, overpolicing of certain neighborhoods, etc, is without harm? So much has been taken from these communities and the best we can do is government housing and a scholarship here and there?
  As for the people paying for it, the prosperity of this nation was built on slave labor and we all benefit from that. Some more than others.
  So we're looking at two separate yet simultaneous systems. In one system things are taken from you and you have no recourse to be made whole and neither do the people who would inherit that. In the other system I can take everything from you and multiple other people and then give that to my children, who did not earn it. 
  There are ways to rectify this, but giving up on doing the right thing because it's expensive or unfair is a cop out. Two wrongs don't make a right, but hundreds of years of immoral and heinous wrongs done to millions of people also does not make a right. >
  
  Arguing that a wrong happened in the past and therefore I deserve this in the present is terrible.  Every group has been wronged at some point in time. Should Germany be paying for all the ills of World War 2?  What about the British for their colonization?  Maybe Rome owes reparations to Carthage too. But once you go down that path, there is no logical reason to stop after any particular group. 
  Face it, you want something for nothing. You want to be owed, to take credit for any benefits that could, however tangentially, be related to someone in your distant pass. Spin that however you want, you don't want things made fair, you want the best possible results with absolutely no work, and that isn't fair to both the people you want to have benefit and those you want to leave holding the bill. >
  
  Trever Noah grew up during apartheid.
  Sure he's mixed, but apartheid wasn't something that inherently prevented any bad effects so long as you had one white parent.
  He absolutely grew up in one of the most disadvantaged positions in the entire world, save for those with darker skin than he.
  Does he not deserve to have a greater chance of getting into a decent school because he made it? Because he's successful now, that means he always would have been successful if people didn't specifically work to right the wrongs of society?
  Trevor isn't from America, his ancestry isn't linked to slave trade in the US, but only looking for people to raise up due to issues of poverty largely ignores the circumstances that people find them in.
  The most equitable way, other than providing free college around the world, would be to assist people based on individual need rather than solely on one aspect of life.
  And, people's individual need can be impacted by where they are due to aspects of race--particularly in America.
  The issues of slavery and racism were never fixed and everything else that has been done was ultimately a bandaid. But a bandaid is better than a festering wound. >
  
  Slavery was never fixed? Do we still have black slavers in America still? Your statement that “the issue of slavery and racism were never fixed” is untrue. America has made great strides. Slavery is illegal and racism is less prevalent (you will always have racist people on all sides). >
  
  Slavery is legal under the 13th amendment, states are just now rectifying this--but federally that isn't true.
  America has made great strides, but slavery and the effects of slavery are very much alive >
  
  I think the issue with this conversation in general is that everything is labeled as a “handout”. 
  While I don’t necessarily disagree with you, I think starting there doesn’t allow for a good conversation for race vs poverty level “handouts”. Meaning which ones might be specific to race and which ones might be specific to poverty level. >
  
  It’s not either or, it should be both. But guess what? The larger percentage of poorer people are black in the US. >
  
  It definitely shouldn't be both. 
  We can't promote people to not judge others based on their race and then make governmental legislation based on a person's race. 
  It is simple and illogical. >
  
  You're looking at these things as some sort of merit-based system, when they just aren't.
  Take college admissions, for example, since that's usually where this issue is brought up.  What determines if you get into a school?  Well... the admissions department determines that.  Their goal is to create a student body that will provide value to the students, and that value could be societal: students might decide that a school that creates its student body to maximize the benefit to society is a good school to attend.  What it isn't is a meritocracy.  You don't get into a school because you "deserve" to.  You're not really owed anything.
  So, you have one of these communities where college attendance is very low, and a member of that community applies to your college.  If you accept that member, you'll do a kind of double whammy: first, you'll help that community raise its average education level, as other people in the community will see this person going to college and realize that they too can do that, and also, you'll have that community member on campus, making friends with people from other communities and making other members of that community feel more welcome.  So now, if you're another member of that community considering college, you'll know someone who went and you'll know that you won't be the only member of your community there so you won't be alone.  But at the same time, you need to consider if this community member will actually be a hindrance to the student body in other ways.  If you have a high standard of academic achievement, someone who doesn't meet it will feel alienated, and their presence in classes will force the class to go slower to fit their needs, not to mention that they won't be as productive in conversations.  So you weigh those potential negatives against the potential positives.  Of course, sometimes it's a no-brainer; the person would obviously fit in quite well.  Other times, you might need to prioritize the needs of the community and accept someone whom you might not otherwise accept due to these benefits to the student body as a whole.  Still other times, the applicant simply won't fit and you have to move on.
  Everyone has something to contribute, and for some people, one of their contributions is their membership in a marginalized community.  That shouldn't be treated differently than other contributions, but it sure sounds like racism to conservatives, doesn't it? >
  
  Your entire argument rests on the idea that there's a benefit to including someone for no reason other being part of a marginalized community. I posit that that provides no inherent value and is of 0 benefit. More often than not it's a detriment as you mentioned in your post of the class going slower or the applicant feeling alienated. >
  
  You made a claim and provided no evidence. On the simple idea that you learn more in a group than alone because an exchanging of ideas challenges you to think of a better ideas, diversity definitely has value. What you are positing is an opinion. >
  
  Lynchings shouldn't have been handed out based on race either, but here we are in the USA with a nasty history of racial lynchings. You want a perfect world where race doesn't matter? That's great. Now you gotta *create" a perfect world where race doesn't matter. Ignoring history with colorblind policies is not being anti-racist, it's just a goddamn cover-up for crimes committed. >
  
  I assume lynchings disproportionately affect black people, but they were far from the only victims of it. Be that as it may, why are hundred year old grievances relevant to this discussion? >
  
  The last reported lynching of a black man in the USA was committed by KKK members in 1981, and lynchings were widespread from 1882 up until 1968, so not "hundred year old grievances" really, your grandparents and your parents were alive when were lynchings were still a thing. >
  
  I can certainly see your point but why is equity your target and not equality? 
  From a non-american perspective the answer seems decently simple. Use the money that you would use in handouts to build systems that raise the opportunity people have access to.
  Now only using handout money might not be enough but there are a lot of other places where you can delegate money from. Not the military cuz it secures general global peace(more peaceful now than practically any other period in his history since Pax Romana. 
  You could use the money usually used for foreign aid to help your own citizens. It might sound cynical but the highest priority of any well working nation should be its own people and when a lot of them are struggling then that should take precedence over foreign aid.
  Use all that gathered money to create institutions like NAV( Norwegian system that helps people get jobs and education and they get a monthly allowance that they can live on until they don't need it anymore) 
  I'm no politician but surely there are better ways to secure equality for its own citizens. >
  
  Because the US has equality on paper more or less, and yet a lot of people are still struggling. I want something near economic equity because I don't want people to suffer, and we should help those who can't help themselves, my problem comes from defining "those who can't help themselves" to "black people." I see a huge problem with this on many levels. >
  
  
  my problem comes from defining "those who can't help themselves" to "black people." I see a huge problem with this on many levels.
  
  nobody's doing that, you only think they are because you don't want to acknowledge the effect racism has on opportunities for minorities, and keep desperately trying to claim its all purely based on racial backgrounds as if that's the only factor. >
  
  It might seem that government handouts are given because of race because issues like poverty tend to affect minorities at a disproportionate level compared to white Americans. >
  
  "Racism is a huge problem! Let's work on it. Any ideas?"
  "Let's offer loans/benefits/handouts, but only to people with the right color skin!"  
  "Um, aren't we trying to STOP being racists? Just asking since that's one of the most blatantly racist things I've ever heard..."  
  "YOU'RE A RACIST! You don't want to use skin color to decide whether or not someone qualifies for assistance so you must be a huge racist!"  
  "Wtf..." >
  
  
  Now if we want all people to be on an equitable or near equitable level, there are so many things we can adjust for: Poverty level, upbringing, intelligence level, geographic location, etc. Race is not one of them, to posit that race is a factor would imply that racial minorities are inherently inferior to white people, and not in a worst standing due to circumstance.
  
  I don’t understand your logic here. Are you saying that poor people are inherently inferior to rich people?  That people born in a foreign country are inherently inferior to those born domestically?  Why are you signaling race out for that logic? >
  
  The difference is that your place of birth or the poverty level of your parents and all the other factors I listed are circumstances surrounding you and your inherent qualities in you like race is. >
  
  But being born into a given race is literally a circumstance of birth conveyed upon you by your parents. What makes race more “inherent” than poverty?  And why should we be rendering assistance to things which are merely “circumstantial” as opposed to “inherent”. I’m not sure the distinction is real or important, but to the extent that it is, doesn’t the “inherent” category require more assistance? >
  
  We should give people assistance based on inherent characteristics, for example birth defects, disabilities, mental illnesses, etc. Now do you see the problem with including race in that camp? 
  A black person is not inherently less capable than a white person in the same way a person with a crippling birth defect is inherently less capable than a person without any disabilities. >
  
  
  We should give people assistance based on inherent characteristics, for example birth defects, disabilities, mental illnesses, etc. Now do you see the problem with including race in that camp? 
  
  So you're switching positions?  You're saying that we should help based on inherent characteristics but not circumstantial characteristics like poverty, family background, nationality, etc.?
  
  A black person is not inherently less capable than a white person in the same way a person with a crippling birth defect is inherently less capable than a person without any disabilities.
  
  You've just flipped your whole reasoning.  So now you say we should only be helping people with disabilities and not those other categories then? >
  
  We absolutely should help people based on both inherent and circumstantial characteristics that disadvantage them, that was never in contention, the point of the CMV is that skin color is not an inherent disadvantage, to claim it is puts it in the same category as birth defects and mental illnesses, and we shouldn't take it into account when assisting people. 
  Do you enjoy purposefully interpreting my every statement in the worst possible light? All this conversation did is reiterate the body of the post, thanks. >
  
  This logic makes no sense. One is not arguing that race is an inherent disadvantage in a physiological manner, but in a social manner. Race is a social construct that is used to group people. In many places, especially America, this social construct has been used to explicitly and implicitly harm these groups throughout history. Thus, one's race is an inherit disadvantage or advantage, not based on physiological differences, but social ones. You basically argue that saying race can be a disadvantage is supporting eugenics, which is far from the truth. 
  Many people get frustrated when they feel cheated, but in every class, from dirt poor to filthy rich, non-white individuals face far more challenges in America than white ones. This is a fact. 
  Further, there are little to no government handouts based on race. America has one of the worst social safety nets in the western world, despite the highest GDP per capita in the world. If you are truly concerned about poverty you should look into issues like universal healthcare, changing the way we measure poverty (it is archaic, obsolete and fails many) and wealth inequality (see gini index). Few argue for your so called "race-based handouts" unless you're referring to reparations which is not a proposed solution to poverty but a justice initiative. You may be conflating "handouts" with affirmative action which aims to address issues created by historical discrimination, racism and segregation in education (and housing among other areas). 
  I do not understand the issue with helping a group of people that have far more challenges than others? Slavery was not that long ago. Many older black Americans have grandparents who were slaves, legal discrimination/segregation has only been abolished for 60-70 years. There was still a school in Cleveland, MS segregated until 2016. Redlining was (is?) enforced well after it was banned in 1968. These effects are closer than you think. 
  Some quality reading for you to learn why your logic fails: 
  "Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality" - Oliver & Shapiro 
  "Medical Apartheid" - Harriet A. Washington
  "Progress for the Poor" - Lane Kenworthy
  "The New Jim Crow" - Michelle Alexander >
  
  Just wanted to point out that Trevor Noah had a very rough child hood. He grew up in a single parent household with the help of his grandparents. He did gainxa step father at some point who beat him and his mom. His step father also shot his mother, which she barely survived. Oh... and he got a slap on the wrist because "she must have done something". As a teenager he learned to hussle stolen goods (he didn't steal them, but did buy them cheap), and leverage other people's job access to get discounted goods. He networked the slums to figure out what everyone needed, and connected the dots to make his sales. He also ran a bootleg music business because he was one of the few people in the early 2000's with the knowhow.
  He's someone who absolutely should have been given priority due to his socioeconomic status. >
  
  It’s because you can’t erase bias in humans, and in all of these programs humans are decision makers.  When you have group A in control and they administrate a program, the benefits will skew toward group A because of human nature.  It happens subconsciously if not consciously.
  So if we start from the premise that different races, ethnicities and genders have similar abilities sufficient for similar capacity for achievement, and we observe that groups B, C, etc are disproportionately disadvantaged, the only way to actually address that is to purposefully facilitate a change.
  In “How to be an anti-Racist”, Ibram Kendi says (paraphrasing) that because of this, every policy either explicitly combats racism in this way or it implicitly promotes existing racism by not doing so.  It’s a good book.
  The Cletus comment was pretty lame btw.  And biased.  For all you know that guy’s IQ is higher than yours. >
  
  
  In “How to be an anti-Racist”,
  
  From the same author who openly criticised interracial adoption. Opinion disregarded. >
  
  But certain races also face verifiable additional hardships due to their race. >
  
  Certain races are stuck in certain classes due to systemic racism, but now it’s less about the race and more about being stuck in a class.
  So let’s focus on helping out people based on class (because that has the highest impact on one’s life).
  In other words, a rich black person should not be receiving more handouts than a poor white person. Let’s focus on class. >
  
  They don't >
  
  They do though. If a black kid has rich parents but for some odd reason they don't wanna pay for his college tuition, the black kid will have access to far more scholarships than a white kid with poor parents who actually NEEDS the scholarship. >
  
  … you realize majority of these scholarships still look At financial need? They don’t just look at race. They aren’t giving them to rich black students, they are giving it to poor black students. >
  
  Umm wtf. Trevor Noah grew up very poor in apartheid South Africa. If you are trying to come up with some poster child for people raised with a silver spoon in their mouth and never discriminated on based on his race he is not it. >
  
  No, treating everyone equally is racist. >
  
  How? >
  
  I dont know but a bunch of people here are arguing for just that :D >
  
  It seems so >
  
  That you view this problem as wrong and want your view changed shows you don’t understand the underlying reason for why these incentives ( calling them handouts sounds wrong ( sounds as if you’re giving them charity/ they’re begging for it ) are given in the first place. >
  
  None of it implies racial inferiority. It's not about white folks paying for the wrongs of our ancestors either. It's not about the past at all. It's about the world we live in now, that grew from a place of slavery. It's an unconscious bias baked into almost everything. Life is literally more difficult if you're not white. You're last in line thru no fault of your own. Statistically you're in a lower property value neighborhood. Your kids won't get anywhere near as much value selling the home you're not at all likely to have in the first place. I don't mean currently. Ever. Your grandparents didn't buy that 5000 dollar house in the 50s. The grocery store, post office, fire department, all on the other side of town. You get liquor stores though. Tons. From outside maybe it looks like supply and demand. Do a little research if this seems hard to believe. Those liquor stores didn't spring up, they were systematically placed there. Those are facts that you can look up, and no, nobody is out there rewriting history if you do. How would they? It's the winners that rewrite history. The point was to have cheap labor to do the jobs nobody wants to. It worked, but it's never enough. Over time all the minimum wage workers were retasked as drones. For the same wages their parents earned, in a much more expensive world. It took a pandemic to shake that up. This would be a novel if I listed all the differences in the background that white people rarely have to see up close. It's just accepted. Like minimum wage was. With the fraction I covered you're already left with your kids hanging out in liquor stores and never having the chance to trade up and out of that intentionally depressed community. You're funneled like an animal at a slaughter house into your drone job from the moment you're born. The point of handouts aimed at those depressed communities is that those are the places that require them. And they require them to an egregiously extreme degree you are almost certainly unaware of if you're not there with them. The reason race is a useful determinant is because they were literally targeted to be minimum wage workers. Their circumstances reflect it, and need to be rectified. >
  
  You say "handouts" as if they are gifts, when the reality is we are talking about recompense. Let's say the state, either through incompetence or actual malice against you specifically, bulldozed your house one day. The state has wronged you and now has an obligation to make you whole. You wouldn't tolerate someone coming around and saying, "we don't need to to give money to Viceroy1994 specifically, we just need to create a program to help all homeless people." Or worse "Viceroy1994 managed to not be poor despite the state bulldozing his house, so we don't need to compensate him."
  Both of those are nonsense. The state wronged you and it can't make compensating you hinge on passing some program to help others. It can't decide you aren't poor enough so you don't actually need recompense. When the state wrongs a person, or a group of people I needs to make them whole. Even if the state has kicked the can down the road for decades. The obligation is still there. >
  
  The state didn't wrong racial minorities, an old version of the state ran by an entirely different set of people wronged the ancestors of some racial minorities, the consequences of this on modern day black people in america is not clear-cut and not all bad. >
  
  The state is a constant entity. You can't just hand wave away something because the personnel are different. Can we default on all our debt because it was agreed to by a previous version of the state? That is not how anything works. >
  
  You're looking at equity purely in terms of socioeconomic status, as if the only goal of social equity were to make certain groups wealthier. Instead, social equity is intended to build up certain groups to give them the same opportunity as others. Opportunity to pursue happiness however they want, even if it may not necessarily be socioeconomically advantageous (e.g. working in a prestigious research institution studying quantum particles). 
  This brings me to another point, you don't typically need to add equity to something that already has equity. You don't build a nice kitchen in a house that already has a nice kitchen. You build a nice kitchen in a house that's been neglected and needs its value increased. This concept of equity translates to minority groups that have been systematically neglected, or worse systematically torn down. Poor white people may have a rough life, and I fully sympathize with that, but their poverty is not as a result of a centuries-old system that sought to keep them downtrodden. 
  Capitalism does play a role in systematically keeping poor people poor, and this applies to any race, gender identity, or sexual orientation. But we need to also be aware that systemic racism contributes an additional burden on black people, which is why they need additional aid from government and institutions to be able to have the same opportunity as a poor white person. >
  
  
  But we need to also be aware that systemic racism contributes an additional burden on black people, which is why they need additional aid from government and institutions to be able to have the same opportunity as a poor white person.
  
  No, you need to flush out the systemic racism, instead of adding more systemic racism to the system in the hopes it will compensate the other systemic racism. >
  
  It is not handed out by race don't believe the republican propaganda man. >
  
  AMEN!! >
  
  I understand where you're coming from, but there are a couple issues with that approach:
  
  Aid programs in a capitalist society have a severely limited amount of resources with which to help people, and that amount keeps getting constrained by conservative parties.
  Race does add obstacles to someone's life in addition to those created by poverty level.
  
  Race or ethnicity should be taken into account because of those additional issues, and because you have to prioritize which people to help somehow.
  They shouldn't be the sole factor, and in fact they never are: Trevor Noah would never qualify for any aid programs in the US today, and he wouldn't have qualified for any either if he'd gone to well-ranked private schools here when he was a child. 
  Most aid programs have a much longer list of requirements than just race, ethnicity, or gender: Even the few attempts at reparations or UBI in the US took other factors into account since they didn't want to apply equally to Beyonce as well as a poor single mother. >
  
  yup. >
  
  The problem with this view is that it dismisses the social factors, like race, that feed into poverty. Black Americans are more likely to be poor. This is because of various systems designed to deny the black community the accrual of generational wealth. Look at redlining - for years black Americans were denied mortgages for homes in white majority neighborhoods while the homes they were approved to buy were consistently undervalued. Even today, there are countless stories of appraisers valuing homes very differently depending on the race of the owner trying to sell. This disparity means that it’s not a simple issue of money but rather which parts of the field need to be leveled to achieve equity. >
  
  I think you’ll find that the largest beneficiaries of college admissions affirmative action are white makes. This is because of the desire for gender parity in universities. Males are admitted to programs they do not qualify for to maintain a 50-50 gender balance. Or as close as possible. Absent this admission preference, competitive universities would be at 70 percent female. 
  Finally, racial preferences in admission or other benefits does not signal inferiority. It seeks to address current and historical structural disadvantages. 
  You also might consider sports like golf, tennis and swimming (not to mention, ice hockey, curling, skiing) which all favor white makes over those of other races due to financial and cultural factors. There is also the legacy admissions which are deeply problematic. >
  
  Okay what would you do if the government started a program to relief proverty and 99% of the recipients were white. Even in centers that were stationed in neighborhoods with a black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc population? >
  
  Halt it, investigate everyone responsible, hand out some prison time, do it better next time. >
  
  Then would you introduce racial guidelines of would you be willing to let it happen again?
  Historically that is what's has happen. Like the community reinvestment act.
  The government aims for a racially neutral program to lift the economy, the program is disproportionately benefits white people even in primarily black areas and no one cares about it until years after the program is discontinued.
  Not saying that programs meant exclusively for black people always work out. Those tend to start strong until an administrative change and then those in charge steal the money put in because the new administrative actively wants it to fail and no one is really going to look into it because it's just happening to black people. Like what happened to Haiti relief or Nixon and most of the desegregation programs. >
  
  Handouts really shouldn't be given at all, because when no body get anything, the matter of who gets what is dead simple: they don't. Correcting for past injustices with further injustices only creates greater disparity and disunity. Even then, welfare doesn't help to fight poverty. If anything, it prolongs it. I don't think anyone truly benefits from handouts in the long run, not even Cletus. We'd probably be better off just letting people keep what they earn, as that's the most fair and least racist way to go about it. >
  
  
  Even then, welfare doesn't help to fight poverty. If anything, it prolongs it.
  
  I suppose, in the strictest sense, it does keep poor people alive for longer.... >
  
  
  Due to a history of white supremacy or systematic racism or whatever, 
  
  When people give this argument, they are either trying to simplify so as to explain their view better, or do not know all the details. First of all, it's not a history of white supremacy or systemic racism. It's current white supremacy, systemic racism, and additionally unconscious bias. I'll leave it at that because this issue is incredibly complex. But if you want I will write some paragraphs giving more details and examples and research.
  
  racial minorities now have a lower socioeconomic status than white people, and should be given assistance to reach equity.
  
  This is also an oversimplification. It's not merely about money. It's about other prejudices and lack of opportunity that can affect advancement and achievement for minorities. And when it is about money, it's not just about having the money, but also about hurdles that make it difficult to keep it. Which is what people mean when they say the problem is systemic.
  
  Now if we want all people to be on an equitable or near equitable level, there are so many things we can adjust for: Poverty level, upbringing, intelligence level, geographic location, etc
  
  These things are often used in addition to race. Although intelligence level is a weird one because intelligence cannot be fully measured and even if it could it is partly a learned skill.
  
  to posit that race is a factor would imply that racial minorities are inherently inferior to white people,
  
  When people say that "race is a factor," they do not mean that there is an inherent quality that people of different races have that make them disadvantaged. What they mean is that due to racism they face disadvantages.
  
  I propose that the same justification would work on gender and sexual minorities as well.
  
  Again, the problem is that these groups face difficulties outside of money. Let's imagine, for instance, that in this case we are talking about a gay man. Gay kids are more often abused by their parents for being gay, bullied by their peers, beat up, and kicked out of their house by their parents and forced to stay in one of the many LGBT kids' shelters across the country (if in the US). They may also be told that their whole identity is wrong and sinful, and forced never to see their families again. All these things can affect the strength of their application. They may have had falling grades due to such circumstances, for instance. Despite being very studious and smart. These problems are not due to poverty. >
  
  Intersectionality has become something of a buzzword but good luck trying to understand this stuff without it.
  A poor white person will have some advantages a rich black person doesn't have and some disadvantages they don't have. Cletus from bum-fuck nowhere is never going to be president of the USA but he can hail a cab at any time of day and his kids are less likely to be shot by the cops than Obama's. An intersectional approach gives a helping hand to those from oppressed social classes when it comes to barriers they face because of social class and a helping hand to those from oppressed races when it comes to barriers they face because of race. >
  
  I have been poor where I couldn't feed myself I never took a hand out that's what's wrong with this world people want everything for nothing get off your asses and get a job >
  
  If you’re white and poor it’s completely your fault. Sorry not sorry. You had a perfect set of cards and blew it. >
  
  
  If you’re white and poor it’s completely your fault. Sorry not sorry. You had a perfect set of cards and blew it.
  
  Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud.
  This is really a perfect example of what happens to Americans' brains when we focus on racism while ignoring capitalism.
  You are racist, but it is probably the result of ignorance.  You have been lied to about the degree of opportunity available to poor people who don't share your skin color.
  Capitalism wants a significant number of people to be unemployed and underemployed, to serve as a reserve army of labor, to compete to keep the cost of wages down.  Not only is it not possible for every African American to earn a living wage in our current economic system, it is not even possible for every European American to earn a living wage.  The goal of antiracist capitalism is for poverty to become more and more proportionately distributed by skin color: "the point of eliminating horizontal inequality is to justify individual inequality." >
  
  /u/Viceroy1994 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  Poverty is an issue to be sure, but the root causes tend to be far different from racial inequalities.
  A prime example I use to illustrate is the GI Bill post World War 2. While written in a seemingly race-neutral language, the execution was handed to state governments for fund distribution, with laws that stymied loan offers despite federal backing e.g. many banks just wouldn't make loans for Black Americans at a state level. This resulted in only a few thousand of the 1.2 million Black Americans who served gaining any benefit from the GI bill, and this had generational effects; one estimate puts that descendants of WWII Black Veterans would need $180,000 a piece to have the same benefit level that white vet descendants received over the subsequent eight decades. >
  
  !delta
  You bring up an interesting point, people in-charge of enforcing these laws might have a racial bias, but that's not an issue with the laws themselves, the idea is still sound, it will just need a good, carefully monitored execution. >
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  It's easy to point at the specific laws and policies and say they're not racist in themselves.
  Sure. But things exist in a context, and are often even written with that in mind.
  It's not automatically racist to penalize one drug far more harshly than other, for example, but it sure might be if the harshly penalized drug was used a lot more by people of one racial background. >
  
  
  This is, I think, what people often mean when they talk about structural racism.
  
  Exactly. It's also what collegiate level critical race theory explores (not the bogeyman panic rhetoric the political right likes to frighten with). Essentially, examine a law with neutral language, compare demographics of groups affected, and determine what factors affect certain groups more sharply than others. >
  
  Who demographics affect shouldnt affect laws though. Opioids typically affect white people but I want a crack down on it. It wouldnt be racist it would be logical and good for poor community's. Same with meth, cocaine etc. >
  
  That all depends on what the law is targeting. Let's look at Marijuana for instance. When crackdowns on Marijuana started under the Nixon administration, we now have quotes from Nixon's counsel stating things to the lines of we know it's not illegal to be poor or black in the US but we also know a common thread between them is they enjoy Marijuana. So we criminalized it against what out own experts said so we could break up their activist groups. 
  Like even though Marijuana law is written neutrally, it was created and enforced in a way specifically because it would be easy to target minorities. So you may want a "crackdown", but if the institutions that are enforcing those laws are inherently racist, it's going to become an issue of race. >
  
  In the case of MJ the law isnt racist so its not a racist law its a racist enforcer. No one is in the streets over planned parenthood or abortions because they were designed to "curve the black population" a literally racist policy.
  The problem with CRT (real one not booggyman one) is it assumes that at some level everything is racist.
  Just because X affects Y more doenst make X anti Y it just is an observation.
  When we have proof, like we have for war on drugs THEN and only then is it worth a discussion otherwise its of no merit or positive value >
  
  I would agree if we had no information apart from "law targets marijuana users", however in this case we have more information about why the law was inacted.
  If a racist creates a law with the purpose of reinforcing said racist view and we can prove it, and prove that it doesn't positively said negative racist affect in some other way, I think it's fair to say the law contributes to racism and is somewhat racist in kind.
  We're basically arguing about the chain of causality and assigning blame. It's the same argument as saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Guns are a tool which enables people to kill other people more easily, therefore they contribute to murders. Isn't that the same here? This law contributes to racism. If the law was erased, the gaps between races would be reduced, and basically nothing else would get worse in society (as has been shown with the myriad of other successful examples of countries legalizing marijuana). Therefore, the law is in some part racist since it contributes to a racist outcome. >
  
  The ruling class poisons the well by simply throwing identity politics at something. It creates the divisive rift that they want and destroys progress on popular communist/ socialist causes. Class politics and real solutions to these issues are off limits. The goal is to pin people on each other, and shift blame away from the ruling class. The ruling class should absolutely do this for themselves. It’s a genius move. They have think tanks for a reason. It’s the best thing for them to prop up the idea that handouts should be based on race because it destroys the entire notion. This is the system we have and it should be this way if we fall for the identity politics trap every time. >
  
  Where did you get the term handouts? Government assistance you mean? Lots of poor white people especially in southern states receive assistance. These are the ones who vote against their own interests by voting in government officials who would to cut assistance to those in need.
  There is also the issue of systemic and generational assistance.  The system is broken and needs to overhauled. >
  
  Yeah this entire thought process was flawed from the start by using the term handouts >
  
  Generally, handouts are given based on poverty level. It might seem that handouts are given out "by race', but this is because poverty affects minorities substantially more than the average person. Virtually every study on the matter proves this. As such, even if handouts were given by race, they would still be given to most of the same people. >
  
  
  As such, even if handouts were given by race, they would still be given to most of the same people.
  
  That's precisely my point, stop giving or demanding handouts or government assistance based on race (Which is still happening in the US) and instead do it by social class, you'd get more or less the same result with less unfairness. >
  
  Who is demanding government handouts by race? And which government handouts are given as a function of race? >
  
  Are you reading this thread? As for your second question I can't think of any, but I do have an issue with them being demanded. >
  
  So there aren't government handouts by race as you have no evidence to provide as much. 
  Now back to demands, who, specifically, is asking for government handouts by race? >
  
  Would the people not asking for slavery reparations not be classed as people asking for government handouts based on race? >
  
  No. Reparations are an act to correct past wrongs. They are not a social safety net that people generally refer to when talking about government handouts.
  Yes, it would literally be money coming from the government, but it's not the general intention in the discussion nor would it be an ongoing action. >
  
  I suppose I interpreted "government handout" to mean money coming from the government at all, regardless of the causal factors behind it. And if that money is based on race, it would be government handouts based on race. 
  I'm not sure how useful it is to differentiate between the reasons why the government is handing money out, when the cmv is about handing money out based on race. >
  
  Because reparations wouldn't be money handed out based on race. It would be money handed out to the descendants of those who had incredible atrocities committed to them. The fact that the victims were all of one race is due to the actions of the past.
  Whereas this CMV seems to be more about race oriented laws. >
  
  Because race isn't always the middle man. 
  Guess the amount of VC that goes to black business owners in America. Don't look it up...just guess. What's your percentage?
  James smith and Jamal smith don't get treated the same when it comes to job interviews. Black students get suspended for the same behavior white students get verbal warnings for. We still have black lawyers evaluated lower than white lawyers for the exact same work. 
  While we can pretend that we have gotten rid of racism that's simply not a true statement. 
  The answer is 1.2 percent.  How close were you? >
  
  These are social issues, in-group preference is a fundamental fact of humanity, it's not something you can legislate away, but you can dampen the harmful effects of it by helping its victims. You can identify the victims again by wealth level, it doesn't have to be race.
  Edit: Assuming that what you're saying is the whole truth. >
  
  How does giving money to the poor get a black lawyer a job or a black middle class family a home, when both is denied to them based on their race?
  If you think "in-group preference is a fundamental fact of humanity", how do you explain that different cultures show differing degrees of racism? Just take a look at American history: Would you say that black people are better off than 100 years ago? Societies are changing, evolving and it's not like racism is always going to be the same, no matter what you do. >
  
  
  How does giving money to the poor get a black lawyer a job or a black middle class family a home, when both is denied to them based on their race?
  
  Those actually are punishable crimes. >
  
  They may be unlawful, but they aren't crimes and they are difficult to prove because nearly everyone is smart enough not to say they're denying them because of their race. >
  
  You don't have to prove intent in racial discrimination.  The law already considers disparate impact. >
  
  Is it still as punishable without intent? >
  
  Very much so.  Look up that term, "disparate impact," to learn more. >
  
  This is true, but it's also costly and time consuming to bring these issues up in court, prove it, and get a good resolution to the problem. Add in the risk that you can't actually convince the court that there was wrongdoing. 
  Now, it's great that its in the law and it does prevent the worst abuses, but it hasn't and can't solve the issue society wide. It's just not enough. I don't have answers for what is enough/what is fair. It's super complex. But I feel like your response kind of brushes aside all that to give the impression that this is a solved issue. >
  
  It's not costly for the plaintiff; many lawyers will take a good case ~~pro bono~~ on contingency.
  
  But I feel like your response kind of brushes aside all that to give the impression that this is a solved issue.
  
  It's not solved, but the solution isn't to reinscribe race into the law at ever more fine-grained levels.  The solution is closing the cracks which people of all skin colors fall through.
  
  Policies of social-democratic redistribution that reduce the effective income differentials between top and bottom, combined with serious anti-discrimination measures and increased public investment that restores and expands the public sector where black and brown workers are disproportionately employed, it turns out, would do more to reduce even the racial wealth gap than genuine pipe-dream proposals like reparations or other Rube Goldberg-like asset-building strategies. Resistance to such an approach throws into relief the extent to which antiracism as a politics is an artifact and engine of neoliberalism. It does a better job legitimizing market-based principles of social justice than increasing racial equality. And a key component of that work of legitimation is deflection of social-democratic alternatives. [...]
  Every time we cast the objectionable inequality in terms of disparity we make the fundamental injustice—the difference between what ... workers make and what their bosses and the shareholders in the corporations their bosses work for make—either invisible, or worse. Because if your idea of social justice is making wages for underpaid black women equal to those of slightly less underpaid white men, you either can’t see the class structure or you have accepted the class structure.
  The extent to which even nominal leftists ignore this reality is an expression of the extent of neoliberalism’s ideological victory over the last four decades. Indeed, if we remember Margaret Thatcher’s dictum, “Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul,” the weaponizing of antiracism to deploy liberal morality as the solution to capitalism’s injustices makes it clear it’s the soul of the left she had in mind. >
  
  
  I propose that the same justification would work on gender and sexual minorities as well.
  
  I think you're mostly right but there are exceptions regarding sex, for example maternity pay for women taking time off work after childbirth, not just to look after the newborn baby but also to recover after what is an incredibly strenuous experience. Unlike women who adopt or are the non-birthing partner in a same-sex couple, who may still have the capacity for childbirth and chose otherwise, men can't give birth at all and therefore would never need that recovery time, so may be eligible for slightly fewer allowances relating to time off work to spend time with their newborn. >
  
  I'd argue that paternity leave is necessary for a few reasons. It's great for the mom to have help around the house and with the new baby while recovering from a very intensive experience. Paternity leave reduces stress on the mom and contributes to more equal households. Most importantly, paternity leave helps fathers and their children bond better. >
  
  Definitely agree with this. And I think parental leave in general should be more generous than it is in most countries. Though many European ones tend to do better than most. >
  
  Another advantage to having equally generous paternity leave is that it helps reduce sex discrimination in employment. If child-bearing-age women are more likely to take long leaves from work than their male counterparts, then it reduces the incentive to hire them. If men and women get the same leave for having children, then there is less of an incentive to avoid hiring women. >
  
  That is a good, pragmatic point. Though it would be better if this unique, essential and significant role that women have in actually creating the next generation of humanity was honoured and celebrated on its own terms, rather than being seen as an unprofitable burden to be mitigated.