Yeah, if you're so tired of hearing about the Irish sob story think how tired we are of hearing the African sob story. Also, what does the KKK have to do with slavery reparations? The fact of the matter is these people are wanting free money because their ancestors were not compensated for their work. Nothing more, nothing less. What does the KKK have to do with that? We're not debating what happened in this country until the 1960's. We're debating what happened until the end of the civil war. Since that's what this thread is about I think the idea that people living today should have to pay for abuses of the past is ridiculous just the same way I think all humanity is suffering because two people ate some bad fruit in the garden of eden. Why should the high tech industry have to pay for the mistakes of people they never even met?
Now as long as we're talking about how horrible life is for black people Utopian said
Do you know what blacks were doing after slavery?
And even more importantly, do I care? No. At least not for the purpse of this discussion. This is about if blacks should get money for what happened to their ancestors WHILE they were slaves, not after they were slaves, but WHILE they were slaves.
All of you are proof of that america is a land of opportunity. Despite immigrant suffering, the opportunity here was better than what they left behind. So today, after a few generations, you are college educated, working, making progress, and are free to think and participate ON AN EQUAL BASIS with the rest of the country, without hinderance.
What? Like this is somehow denied to black people? Last I checked they were free to do all of those things just as easily as anyone else.
You enjoy drinking, fighting and the attention that goes with both characterizations. Let's not be hypocrites.
So they're not ashamed of their herritage. If their skin was a different color it would be applauded and called "black pride."
It may hurt your feelings, but it has been said that there is a certain degree of truth underneath most stereotypes.
Including blacks. You tell us to go count the ethnicities of people we work with. Almost everyone I work with is white as well as most of the people I've worked with in the past. Right now I sell meteorites for a living while also doing some freelance computer consulting. There are hardly any blacks in the meteorite community at all. Is it because there's lots and lots of hatred for them? Of course not! All the meteorite collectors, dealers, researchers are as open minded as you can get when it comes to that. Blacks just don't try to get into that very much. Using your reasoning I guess it could be said that they're just to stupid to handle it and to lazy to learn the classification system (trust me, I've heard from many other people the classification system for meteorties is one of the most complex systems in all of science). Also, at least in my area of the country, there are very few black network engineers or website designers. Its not because they are held back and can't get the jobs. Its because very few even apply and even when they do they are judged on their ability and not their skin color. I know one of the companies I used to work at the entire IT staff was white except for one black guy. That black guy was brought in to lead a bunch of the white guys in redesigning the companies website. He wasn't brought in for diversity. He was brought in because he was smart and had worked hard to get where he was and was just damn good at what he did. Using your own logic you could say there are very few blacks in the IT industry because they're too stupid and lazy to do anything more than clean the offices and stare at the neat looking computers they're dusting. As far as slavery reparations go, how does that make black people look? You're the one talking about how stereotypes are earned by the way people act. Suing your way to riches because of what happened to the ancestors they never met sure isn't going to do much to help make them be percieved as good, solid, hard working individuals. Seems that would rahter enforce the stereotype that you yourself has said is at least somewhat based in truth.
Also, you go on about how imigrants suffering for a few generations eventually led to them leading much better lives. Um, in case you haven't noticed, even though blacks did suffer back when they were slaves (remember, this thread is about slavery reparation) did suffer for generations their decendants are much better off than people of the same age back in the country in which their ancestors came from. You can't convince me that people living in the US is worse than living in Africa. Basically, for whatever reasons people long ago left their homeland and came to america. Sure, life sucked big time for them when they got here but now their decendants are living a much better life than they would be living had they never left. If you're so gung ho to support slavery reparations then buy a one way ticket for all the blacks that want to go back to africa. Let them go live the life that they were so wrongly denied BY THEIR OWN PEOPLE who sold them into slavery. Tell them that if they want to come back to america to find their own way back.