I suggest that there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward. If you want to move to a different paradigm, that’s fine, but condemnation of the past is performative compared to putting forward laws and resolutions to benefit others. The Bill of Human Rights was forward-looking, this condemnation is backward-looking. Emphasize where we want to go and why we want to be there, rather than where we were and the mistakes we made as a society.
Slavery was evil, so was the destruction of indigenous peoples across the world. But we can’t yet change the past. We should reinforce that we will work to eliminate slavery (chattel and indenture), human trafficking, and the abuses related to it. Focus on what we can improve today and how we can improve things.
I suggest that there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward.
Okay, as long as we also take away all the historical family wealth that goes back generations too.
But that’s not how it works, is it? Great great great grandad gets to get rich off having slave plantations and his son gets to get rich off of Jim Crow sharecropping, and his great great great grandson gets to inherit that wealth without any complications.
This „punishment“ or rather responsibility would not be something that the average wage earning person has to worry about financially whatsoever. There is however a lot of accumulated wealth, that could be used for much better things than the third luxury Yacht in Monaco. So if this extraordinary luxurious wealth can be traced back to exploitation and slavery, and the government would enforce this money to be used for reparations in forms of community centers, museums, research for those who’s ancestors freedom, cultural heritage and often lives were taken, this would not be a punishment.
As a German I think there is good reason to individually act responsibly concerning the crimes of e.g. my great grandfather. It is not my crime, but it’s my responsibility to call it such, to do my best in every day live that something like it will not happen again. Calling that a punishment would be unfair compared to the suffering of the victims and their living relatives.
I suggest that there’s no meaningful benefit to be gained by looking backward rather than forward. If you want to move to a different paradigm, that’s fine, but condemnation of the past is performative compared to putting forward laws and resolutions to benefit others. The Bill of Human Rights was forward-looking, this condemnation is backward-looking. Emphasize where we want to go and why we want to be there, rather than where we were and the mistakes we made as a society.
Slavery was evil, so was the destruction of indigenous peoples across the world. But we can’t yet change the past. We should reinforce that we will work to eliminate slavery (chattel and indenture), human trafficking, and the abuses related to it. Focus on what we can improve today and how we can improve things.
Okay, as long as we also take away all the historical family wealth that goes back generations too.
But that’s not how it works, is it? Great great great grandad gets to get rich off having slave plantations and his son gets to get rich off of Jim Crow sharecropping, and his great great great grandson gets to inherit that wealth without any complications.
I do not want to be punished for something that other people did in the past before i was born.
But benefiting from it is okay?
This „punishment“ or rather responsibility would not be something that the average wage earning person has to worry about financially whatsoever. There is however a lot of accumulated wealth, that could be used for much better things than the third luxury Yacht in Monaco. So if this extraordinary luxurious wealth can be traced back to exploitation and slavery, and the government would enforce this money to be used for reparations in forms of community centers, museums, research for those who’s ancestors freedom, cultural heritage and often lives were taken, this would not be a punishment. As a German I think there is good reason to individually act responsibly concerning the crimes of e.g. my great grandfather. It is not my crime, but it’s my responsibility to call it such, to do my best in every day live that something like it will not happen again. Calling that a punishment would be unfair compared to the suffering of the victims and their living relatives.
But you benefit from it, and others are punished from that theft. This is a generational problem.
Is your stance in any way informed by a privilege you hold?
Because there are a lot of people today who are still disadvantaged by the historic slave trade, who would meaningfully benefit from reparations.
So when you say “no meaningful benefit”, who exactly are you talking about?