Political Roundtable - Part VII

[TGW]

And just to add:

My fiance's Dad (who's AA), who just turned 70, told me how when he was in the Navy, black seamen weren't allowed to be anything but cooks and janitors on the ship. He said one day, while mopping the floors on the ship, he stumbled onto a print and production room where all the ship's documents were produced. He looked around and was fascinated with the press and print machines, and while he was checking the machines out, the seamen working in the production room told him to get his [expletive] ass out.

The next day he asked his superior to work in the production room. By Navy law, he was allowed to test for it. Shockingly [insert green front here], his test got lost not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. He ended up being discharged from the military some 10 years later, and worked for the AARP as their main Production Manager at the corporate offices in DC.

He also told me how he was denied a HUD loan, although he was eligible for one through the military.

Now is that deserving of reparations? Maybe, maybe not. But he was clearly stunted from reaching his potential. I think it would be fair to say that my fiance's father's experience wasn't out of the ordinary at the time.

Nate--care to comment on what I wrote? I'm just curious on what your response is.

I have one - during WWII my grandfather was a surgeon in the navy and was stationed on a hospital ship. He had a black nurse serving under him that they wouldn't let into surgery. Said she was the best nurse on the boat and he brought her into surgery anyway. He didn't trust the other nurses to close. He would finish with surgery and leave her in charge - almost got him court martialed.

Went up to an admiral - who came and watched her work - decided it was worth keeping sailors alive and let it go...

So your grandfather allowed the nurse to do her job? Good for him, I guess.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Slavery may be almost entirely a thing of the past in this country, but white privilege
is still alive and doing quite well.

Okay.

So would you suggest reparations for white privilege? If so, how do you define white privilege? How do you quantify it? Certainly, some individuals are better skilled and qualified to accomplish some things than other individuals. If the more skilled person happens to be a white person, how do we know if his accomplishments are based on merit or privilege?

Blacks are overrepresented in professional football and basketball. Is that black privilege?

Face value please.

Perhaps we should begin with some agreement that it really does exist. I agree that it would be difficult
at best to numerical quantify. The fact that different people have different levels of skills and abilities
is a pure strawman. In order to assess the extent to which white privilege exists, one might begin
by looking at populations and hypothesizing about what you would expect to see if it didn't exist vs
if it does.

I think driving while black might be an example of its existence.

Maybe we should consider reparations for the effects of discrimination in employment, housing, education, and by police/courts. Things that have happened in recent history. Things that are happening now.

[dobrojim]

I would be interested to understand how we would do reparations. Would it be like the Indians where we give them a combination of cash payments and land?

or blankets and small pox

so your assertion is that it isn't possible? Smh

my response was meant to be at least partly facetious.

[snip]

wait, you're saying we gave the Indians land?

Sounds completely bassackwards.

[dckingsfan]

Nate--care to comment on what I wrote? I'm just curious on what your response is.

I have one - during WWII my grandfather was a surgeon in the navy and was stationed on a hospital ship. He had a black nurse serving under him that they wouldn't let into surgery. Said she was the best nurse on the boat and he brought her into surgery anyway. He didn't trust the other nurses to close. He would finish with surgery and leave her in charge - almost got him court martialed.

Went up to an admiral - who came and watched her work - decided it was worth keeping sailors alive and let it go...

So your grandfather allowed the nurse to do her job? Good for him, I guess.

Weird eh. He was Jewish and had to change his name to go to medical school. Not sure if that was his motivation - he is dead, so I can't ask

His point was that the bureaucrats in the navy would have kept her from doing her job - even if it cost sailor's lives and it took an admiral to bail him out...

[TGW]

I have one - during WWII my grandfather was a surgeon in the navy and was stationed on a hospital ship. He had a black nurse serving under him that they wouldn't let into surgery. Said she was the best nurse on the boat and he brought her into surgery anyway. He didn't trust the other nurses to close. He would finish with surgery and leave her in charge - almost got him court martialed.

Went up to an admiral - who came and watched her work - decided it was worth keeping sailors alive and let it go...

So your grandfather allowed the nurse to do her job? Good for him, I guess.

Weird eh. He was Jewish and had to change his name to go to medical school. Not sure if that was his motivation - he is dead, so I can't ask

His point was that the bureaucrats in the navy would have kept her from doing her job - even if it cost sailor's lives and it took an admiral to bail him out...

Here's the thing though dckingsfan--the nurse not being allowed in the surgery unit had little to do with bureaucracy. It had to do with her skin color. Your grandfather simply had the common sense to see that bigotry was putting people's lives at risk, so he let it pass.

Your grandfather reminds me of a movie--it's called "Something the Lord Made"--it's about a black surgeon at Johns Hopkins who wasn't given the title of doctor well into his later years in life, despite the fact that he helped perform the first open heart surgery on a human being. Check it out when you get a chance...it's a really good movie.

[dckingsfan]

So your grandfather allowed the nurse to do her job? Good for him, I guess.

Weird eh. He was Jewish and had to change his name to go to medical school. Not sure if that was his motivation - he is dead, so I can't ask

His point was that the bureaucrats in the navy would have kept her from doing her job - even if it cost sailor's lives and it took an admiral to bail him out...

Here's the thing though dckingsfan--the nurse not being allowed in the surgery unit had little to do with bureaucracy. It had to do with her skin color. Your grandfather simply had the common sense to see that bigotry was putting people's lives at risk, so he let it pass.

Your grandfather reminds me of a movie--it's called "Something the Lord Made"--it's about a black surgeon at Johns Hopkins who wasn't given the title of doctor well into his later years in life, despite the fact that he helped perform the first open heart surgery on a human being. Check it out when you get a chance...it's a really good movie.

Exactly - the color of her skin - but it was enforced by the bureaucracy - by the government. It was the government that was holding her back. She probably would have been a surgeon otherwise. My grandfather got around the bureaucracy by changing his name. She couldn't change her skin color.

Thanks for the tip on the movie...

[dckingsfan]

Okay.

So would you suggest reparations for white privilege? If so, how do you define white privilege? How do you quantify it? Certainly, some individuals are better skilled and qualified to accomplish some things than other individuals. If the more skilled person happens to be a white person, how do we know if his accomplishments are based on merit or privilege?

Blacks are overrepresented in professional football and basketball. Is that black privilege?

Face value please.

Perhaps we should begin with some agreement that it really does exist. I agree that it would be difficult
at best to numerical quantify. The fact that different people have different levels of skills and abilities
is a pure strawman. In order to assess the extent to which white privilege exists, one might begin
by looking at populations and hypothesizing about what you would expect to see if it didn't exist vs
if it does.

I think driving while black might be an example of its existence.

Maybe we should consider reparations for the effects of discrimination in employment, housing, education, and by police/courts. Things that have happened in recent history. Things that are happening now.

Still wrapping my head around how the reparations would work.

[Zonkerbl]

Read this really interesting essay on facebook the other day that we are deluding ourselves if we think white europeans wiped out Native Americans. The diseases wiped them out. If it wasn't for that they would have kicked our asses back into the ocean. What we did is clean up the survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

[TGW]

Exactly - the color of her skin - but it was enforced by the bureaucracy - by the government. It was the government that was holding her back. She probably would have been a surgeon otherwise. My grandfather got around the bureaucracy by changing his name. She couldn't change her skin color.

Thanks for the tip on the movie...

Sorry dckingsfan...maybe I'm being slow. I don't get how that was being enforced by a bureaucracy, unless there were specific Navy rules regarding black nurses being able to treat during surgical procedures? Or specific rules barring Jewish people being doctors in the armed forced?

[dckingsfan]

Exactly - the color of her skin - but it was enforced by the bureaucracy - by the government. It was the government that was holding her back. She probably would have been a surgeon otherwise. My grandfather got around the bureaucracy by changing his name. She couldn't change her skin color.

Thanks for the tip on the movie...

Sorry dckingsfan...maybe I'm being slow. I don't get how that was being enforced by a bureaucracy, unless there were specific Navy rules regarding black nurses being able to treat during surgical procedures? Or specific rules barring Jewish people being doctors in the armed forced?

If you were black - you didn't go into the operating room. If you were Jewish, you didn't get into medical school. There weren't laws against either... who enforced those unwritten rules?

[dckingsfan]

What we did is clean up the survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

[nate33]

And just to add:

My fiance's Dad (who's AA), who just turned 70, told me how when he was in the Navy, black seamen weren't allowed to be anything but cooks and janitors on the ship. He said one day, while mopping the floors on the ship, he stumbled onto a print and production room where all the ship's documents were produced. He looked around and was fascinated with the press and print machines, and while he was checking the machines out, the seamen working in the production room told him to get his [expletive] ass out.

The next day he asked his superior to work in the production room. By Navy law, he was allowed to test for it. Shockingly [insert green front here], his test got lost not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. He ended up being discharged from the military some 10 years later, and worked for the AARP as their main Production Manager at the corporate offices in DC.

He also told me how he was denied a HUD loan, although he was eligible for one through the military.

Now is that deserving of reparations? Maybe, maybe not. But he was clearly stunted from reaching his potential. I think it would be fair to say that my fiance's father's experience wasn't out of the ordinary at the time.

Nate--care to comment on what I wrote? I'm just curious on what your response is.

It sounds like your fiance's Dad got screwed. Perhaps there's a civil action that he could pursue. But that doesn't mean that I should transfer my hard earned money to some random African American who is doing just fine in his career.

[nate33]

Okay.

So would you suggest reparations for white privilege? If so, how do you define white privilege? How do you quantify it? Certainly, some individuals are better skilled and qualified to accomplish some things than other individuals. If the more skilled person happens to be a white person, how do we know if his accomplishments are based on merit or privilege?

Blacks are overrepresented in professional football and basketball. Is that black privilege?

Face value please.

Perhaps we should begin with some agreement that it really does exist. I agree that it would be difficult
at best to numerical quantify. The fact that different people have different levels of skills and abilities
is a pure strawman. In order to assess the extent to which white privilege exists, one might begin
by looking at populations and hypothesizing about what you would expect to see if it didn't exist vs
if it does.

I think driving while black might be an example of its existence.

Maybe we should consider reparations for the effects of discrimination in employment, housing, education, and by police/courts. Things that have happened in recent history. Things that are happening now.

We already have a process for this in civil court.

[fishercob]

Really interesting podcast conversation between David Remnick and Ta-Nahisi Coates. WOrth your IMO: http://www.newyorker.com/podcast/out-loud/bonus-ta-nehisi-coates

[nate33]

A great interview of my favorite liberal: Camille Paglia

[fishercob]

I haven't read it yet, but in light of recent conversation, here's The Case for Reparationsby Ta-Nahisi Coates. If anyone reads it (or has read it), please do comment.

[dckingsfan]

I haven't read it yet, but in light of recent conversation, here's The Case for Reparationsby Ta-Nahisi Coates. If anyone reads it (or has read it), please do comment.

Thanks fish - answers my questions with this quote from the paper.

"Scholars have long discussed methods by which America might make reparations to those on whose labor and exclusion the country was built. In the 1970s, the Yale Law professor Boris Bittker argued in The Case for Black Reparations that a rough price tag for reparations could be determined by multiplying the number of African Americans in the population by the difference in white and black per capita income. That number—$34 billion in 1973, when Bittker wrote his book—could be added to a reparations program each year for a decade or two. Today Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School professor, argues for something broader: a program of job training and public works that takes racial justice as its mission but includes the poor of all races."

[dckingsfan]

And if you are wondering, that would be $182.74 billion in 2015 numbers.

[dckingsfan]

Or roughly 10 billion per year over a 30 year period with current interest rates...

[dobrojim]

I have one - during WWII my grandfather was a surgeon in the navy and was stationed on a hospital ship. He had a black nurse serving under him that they wouldn't let into surgery. Said she was the best nurse on the boat and he brought her into surgery anyway. He didn't trust the other nurses to close. He would finish with surgery and leave her in charge - almost got him court martialed.

Went up to an admiral - who came and watched her work - decided it was worth keeping sailors alive and let it go...

So your grandfather allowed the nurse to do her job? Good for him, I guess.

Weird eh. He was Jewish and had to change his name to go to medical school. Not sure if that was his motivation - he is dead, so I can't ask

His point was that the bureaucrats in the navy would have kept her from doing her job - even if it cost sailor's lives and it took an admiral to bail him out...

Was it really the bureaucrats fault? Seems a bit of a cop-out.