Restitution Then and Now

America made a costly compromise in allowing slavery but I believe that they believed that it was the best way to compete with other large countries. When they decided to end slavery and rightly so they should have paid restitution to the aggrieved parties, both the slaves and slave owners. In my mind, the slave owners would not get nearly what the slaves would but just enough to recognize that the government is to blame for the hardship that will ensue*. 

The problem is that the government didn't do enough to own their responsibility for slavery and to make it right when they could have. The problem is that with time restitution becomes impossible to calculate. When the aggrieved party is deceased who should the money go to? Their children? And in what amount? And what can people now do with random amounts of money thrown at them for no reason? This is what the government did with welfare and that isn't working out very well. The government should have treated freed slaves as citizens who are wrongfully imprisoned and paid as a lump sum or periodic payment but with terms and conditions. Such as the money ends with the individual. It would not be welfare for all but specific restitution for a specific person for a specific crime inflicted on them.

What should happen if you are taken out of your home and enslaved today? When you are freed it would be reasonable to allow you to sue for damages in restitution and the kidnapper would be held accountable. They would be jailed but the problem comes when your government is the kidnapper. You can try to sack members of the government or the government in whole but they are a loyal crew and not easily other thrown. It may be cost many lives to cause an effective coo and in the end, there have been no real solutions to the issue and measures taken to ensure it doesn't happen again.

So the peaceful way to hold the government accountable is to have them pay for their crimes in restitution. The downside to this is that the cost to the government due to this kind of grievance is really the cost of the people through taxes or debt.

If the government is to act as the countries ultimate leadership then it must take responsibility for everything that occurs within its scope of control. In the modern state, this means that when it unjustly imprisons people for crimes that should never have been crimes, such as marijuana possession, and if that crime is decriminalized, they should release those whose crimes were only that, and then pay restitution in an amount that is reasonable based on what an average person in that city would have made plus a penalty fee paid from the personal pockets of the tribe that caused it, the politicians. This might incentivize the government from taking laws more seriously or it might incentivize them to never change laws. I am not sure. 

Here is the last problem I see in regards to restitution now for slavery back then in the form of racially based special programs. I don't think it can be done logically, financially or effectively and so the crimes of the past must remain in the past. There are plenty of new crimes that we should hold the government accountable for. If the government displays some Extreme Ownership (as described by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's book by that name) as a foundational guiding standard then we might see real change and real leadership from the government.

To explain the previous paragraph:

It is not logical because it is too far removed from its original recipients and too complicated to make work. It is not financially possible due to the same reasons and due to inflation, current living conditions and the massive population that exists compared to those originally aggrieved. Either you would have to spread the money too thin or too thick on those that would have gained from it had it been distributed thoughtfully in the past. It wouldn't be effective for same reasons.

And of all the descendants on either side of the issue whom would be to blame and whom would be entitled to compensation? In mind, it is either all descendants, 1 descendant or none. This is all hypothetical and really just an exercise in thinking about restorative justice, I suppose. I do not think that anyone is actually promoting giving restitution now to descendants of people who were enslaved. Maybe someone is but I doubt it is more than a few people. This is not a debate against a real opponent. It is just a thought experiment about what can be done to ensure that African Americans feel that their government is on their side just as it is on the side of all its citizens. 

The government has done what it will do about slavery and the Native American conquering (as another example of complicated political crimes), and it does seem that if it is too late for restitution for slavery so I am not sure what else the government can do to appease the descendants of the aggrieved.  I certainly do not see the government succeeding in unifying the country as a citizenry that works together toward a common cause.

I also see many people blaming others for their problems and not taking it on themselves to be successful. I see people who want to use the government to enact their self-interested justice instead of holding the government accountable for its crimes. It also seems that people forget the difference between the private and governmental sectors as more wish to adopt a governmental control over all aspects of life. I do not see people working to come up with counters to power run amock and remembering to keep freedoms from being lost in the chaos. 

*Revision on 6/29/2018: Slave owners that profited from slavery should not receive compensation for losing their slaves because they have already benefited so much. I suppose I just wanted a symbol of responsibility from the government. It is not the fault of the slave owner that they were able to own slaves, as the government allowed and facilitated it and I don't know how to justify taking the money from the slave owners to pay the restitution because they did nothing illegal at the time. They certainly benefited from something immoral but at the time was not seen as immoral by many. 

I Don't Relate to Racial Solidarity

After watching the newest stand up special by Dave Chappelle I realized that while I understand why there is racial solidarity among many black Americans I will never really understand what it is like to share a collective burden with those that share my skin color. I respect Dave Chappelle and find him to be very intelligent and exceptionally funny so I had to ask myself, "why does he fight for his race?"

If I think about it I can see why the potential for solidarity amongst black people in America is so strong. This is due to two main factors; the history of slavery and their proportion in the population. Even today the history of slavery seems to be on the mind of the majority of black people, especially in the generation that is attempting to go out into the world for the first time. Those two aspects seem to combine to produce a unique solidarity among many black people and it is nearly impossible for me to relate to as a white person in America.

When you grow up and see others that look like yourself you gravitate toward them. If you are a minority it is easy to see the one or two others like you in a school classroom and because you already have something in common you can group up with them with little effort. If you are white and most of the other kids are white then you have to come up with other characteristics to justify affiliation. An immediate characteristic that divides groups, other than race, is sex. Boys tend to group up with boys and girls with girls. Or you might group up based on economic class, shared homerooms, sports, clubs, religion, neighborliness, or a myriad of other factors. I think most of my friends growing up were found in sports, religion, and neighborliness.

I can't truly understand what it would be like for a minority child going to school and dealing with life. I don't know what it is like to so quickly be identified as less common, less understood, and less represented by the general population. To be thrust into a historical environment that is tainted with injustice and resentment and not knowing exactly where you fit into all of it.

I can imagine a young black student learning about American's history of slavery and racial violence. The young man seeing the poverty and violence in black communities and not knowing what to do or how to help. Seeing the white group as "in charge" or oppressive. The funny thing is that most white people do not give a fuck about white people or keeping the race going. We just don't think about it. There are so many white people running around and most are ethnic mutts so racial identity just doesn't show up until you start to learn about it on the news and on social media. Everything is Black this and White that and you have to sit back and think, "what the fuck are they talking about?" because you don't actually understand what it is like to care about your color or the people that share that color.

I can see that when you are in a minority group you know a larger percentage of that group's total population and you take on more responsibility to represent that population. This kind of group identity is reinforced and fostered in conversations that people have day to day. If you can be a champion for your group you can garner significance in your own mind and you may be rewarded by your group for acting in a way that bolsters your group's position. The critical question is whether it is actually significant and worthwhile. To what end?

When I was growing up and I hung out with my friends we never talked about color. We never talked about how we had that in common because there was nothing to say about it. I didn't know the ethnicities of my friends and I didn't care. I remember talking about how I was a jew but I was one of the only jews in my small town and we didn't practice Judaism so I didn't hang out with other jews. I suppose if I had I might have talked about what it was like being a Jew. I did have a period of time where I felt like I was Jewish. I learned about the history of the Jews and I felt a connection to all of it. I wore a yarmulke to school, I watched a lot of World War II stuff, I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and I thought that it all mattered.

As I thought about it more I realized that the Jewish people didn't care about me and that I had no right to take credit for anything that I didn't do. I was never enslaved or persecuted other than by those around me and the government I was born under. No Jews knew I existed or cared that I cared about their group. What benefit was it for me to identify as Jewish anyway? It seems that the benefit is only in the continuation of an ideology based on race and religion and not to the individuals that prop it up. At least not in secular America. In the past, it was essential that groups maintain power in order to defend against groups and maybe that is what the black community is expressing with Black Lives Matter and the like.

If the goal is to create peace then harboring and sustaining modes of thinking that divide peoples will have the opposite outcome. If the goal is racial superiority then, by all means, stick to maintaining the significance of your racial identity. If the goal is legal equality and your race is not being treated equally by the law then you will find allies from many groups as legal equality benefits humanity as a whole. If the goal is to have equal outcomes for all people then you will have to work hard to turn us all into identical robots and even then the uncertainty of life will emerge and bewilder your delusional mind.

You don't get to take credit for a group's virtue, only your own. If you identify with a group then you have to take on all the good and bad connotations that identity entails. If you see yourself as a white person then you have to take on all the good and bad done by white people but that is an impossible task and one that can only lead to dysfunction and pain. Take responsibility for yourself, be a part of groups that produce positive results for humanity, and be wary of those that take on the guilt and pain of others.

I do not want to dismiss the plight and angst of anyone just because I don't relate to it, so I try to understand it from their perspective and I think I understand how it would be enticing and rewarding to defend one's racial group. I genuinely do not have a group, other than my loved ones, that I would fight for at this time and I think that America is one of the best places to live. The future that I hope for is not one marked by group divisions but of individual peace, trade, and collaboration but there are still battles to be fought and it seems that humanity will continue to progress toward prosperity because of those battles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1VhigA7o88