iNow

I’d support means testing if that’s a sticking point Some sort of graduated scale

Please permit me to take this opportunity to remind you that the enslavement of entire civilizations was only ONE single piece of what’s under discussion here in terms of reparation. For centuries, even after emancipation and even after amending the constitution itself to ensure equal rights and opportunities for all, despite those steps we’ve seen how the enforced rights and systemic experiences of millions upon millions of US born citizens have remained very much unequal. For generations and with appalling consistency and based solely on the melanin content of one’s skin. And let’s recall that it’s not like we need to engage in some archeological dig or interpret barely visible hieroglyphics to see evidence of these skin color based inequalities. We need only to drive today across the tracks down any MLK Blvd in any major US city, open our eyes, and look around. Right now. Today. In the summer of 2023. We still see it everywhere. 2 years since Daunte Wright was killed by uniformed officials of the US government. 3 years since George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. 5 years since Stephon Clark. 7 years since Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. 8 years since Walter Scott. 9 years since Tamil Rice, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner… and that’s only a subset of what we’ve seen this last decade. It’s not comprehensive, and it’s only a tiny sliver of this much larger puzzle under discussion in this thread. These asymmetries in rights and experiences across the US system are still happening right now today 50 years AFTER the equal rights amendment. 150 years AFTER the 14th amendment and reconstruction began. 160 years AFTER the emancipation proclamation was signed. Not measured in days, weeks, months, or years. Not even measured in decades. It’s measured in CENTURIES these segregated Jim Crow KKK redline underfunded asymmetries. Can we please agree that mention of what to do in Africa is a bit of a red herring here and remain focused / not intentionally throw wrenches into the gears? Can we please agree that historic slavery is a related, but very much separate topic? Will you please join me in AT LEAST recognizing that continuously reintroducing that separate thing is NOT helpful toward progressing THIS discussion HERE about MODERN issues? Will you please consider that doing so only further distracts from our attempts to nourish threads of consensus across diverse minds? How you and me already agree that we both can and should be better as a community of citizens, and that one possible path for getting there together involves reparations?

Part of me wonders if Prigozhin may have been offered leadership/control over Belarus as part of his deal with Putin

Thank you for responding. One other part of my post was asking about mechanisms to determine "yes - reparations are appropriate" versus "no - reparations are not appropriate." I asked this bc you've been encouraging us all NOT to use skin color when making reparations decisions. I'm certainly open to using better metrics, but struggle to envision what those might be. Are you able to please elaborate on your thinking on this "threshold for reparations appropriateness" so I may better understand what alternative mechanisms may be workable here?

It does seem likely he’ll be found in a hotel room or airport lounge having died of “natural causes” in a soonish timeline.

Agreed, and it also seems to be a convergent trait across several distinct genetic lineages

I notice you never bothered elaborating on this despite being asked.

Are they no longer edible nor subject to standard predator optics when they’re no longer trawling the sand and are instead floating though much higher columns of water? The white bottom and dark tops were selected. Do you have an alternative / counter explanation for why this is so if it’s not simply to reduce visibility of prey animals in dark ocean conditions… conditions where down is darker and up is lighter?

This is the correct answer

Yes. Watching. Value of ruble c ashes last night. Putin military hunting him for coup attempt. He won’t be the last. When Putin is ultimately gone (whatever the cause and timing), we’ll be able to hear the sound of wind whooshing past us to fill the power vacuum.

Yes

You can perceive whatever you want, this persecution complex you seem to experience is limiting your ability to learn and correct errors in thinking. It's not personal when I or others correct you. It's a gift. I'm sharing with you ways you can be more accurate and better, and you're responding to that gift by pretending you've been attacked. That's a You problem, not a Me problem.

What mechanism would you propose then? We're dealing with often invisible unmeasurable daily injustices, both micro and macro-aggressions, due to how they look (skin color) and not who they are nor how they acted personally. We can perhaps detect and respond to some of those macro aggressions, but when considered in context and over the course of centuries, to me that seems horribly insufficient. If I stipulate your point, however, and wish to align with you to move this forward despite those concerns, it still remains unclear to me how we'd identify them. You suggest a different mechanism is needed here. What practical / useable / available mechanism might that be? I'm willing to be convinced, but honestly have my doubts any such mechanism exists. But I suspect you might acknowledge, at least if Mike were black here in the United States, that his daily experiences and the experiences of all of his similarly black family elders has been far different than yours as a white man if you also lived in the US. I'm sympathetic to the fact that you're not in the US, and I fully agree that our love and friendships ought to have nothing to do with skin color. I likewise agree that we must approach each other as individuals and not skin color based stereotypes. We are partners and allies there... But... the fact that you're NOT in the United States DOES mean that some of your points here miss important underlying truths about how the experience of black americans has been much different than the experience of non-black americans... and that's what most of us in the thread are talking about... the United States which has suffered from this original sin since our founding.

You certainly do No. It’s more complex than that.

Rest and hydration, but not necessarily in that order

I feel that way too, and I don’t find that marginal risk of marginal racist asshats to be sufficient reason for the rest of us not to proceed with a policy that would bring enormous benefits and equity of experience to enormous numbers of families.

Whereas others find the human tendency to see patterns where none actually exist and to draw false conclusions based on their limited exposure to the evidence landscape IS the simplest explanation.

I’ve been interpreting that 2nd part as “we need to end racism.” Where is my interpretation inaccurate? We ALL would like that, but it seems that only SOME of us see that as pollyannish or as unworkable, impossible, and almost useless to even attempt.

I see. Thank you. I believe there is not a single path which won’t lead some yahoos to feel MORE racist if reparations move forward. Therefore, I accept that some marginal increase in racism will happen and that it’s an acceptable risk given the overwhelming benefit reparations would provide. The tangible widespread benefits IMO far outweigh the small potential (even likely) social cost.

Ugh… It’s happened again! Another trans person… using the natural advantages of their biology went ahead and changed sex and beat another cis gendered person in competition. Why do we allow this to persist!?! https://gayexpress.co.nz/2023/06/worlds-first-trans-male-boxer-wins-third-fight-over-cis-man/ Born female

Reading this in context, it appears you thought my position was that we SHOULDN’T seek to end racism and racist policies moving forward and that we should instead ONLY focus on reparations? This is how you’ve perceived my stance in this thread, is that correct? That I want reparations but also for racism and racist policies to persist?

Makes sense. Why did you think I needed this explained to me?

It definitely did and likely still does. Doctors in the US were given huge bonuses by some pharmaceutical giants for prescribing more of a specific medication they produced and this exasperated the issue of opioid addition in the US

What, you mean the DeSantis controlled private army that he tripled in size despite the lack of obvious need or reason? Nah… nothing to see here, folks. Move along.