zlacker

Your argument is that we should never do anything because attempting to do the right thing to people who have had their pasts and futures stolen is hard.

Meanwhile we've got censuses going back hundreds of years. Do the math. It's not that difficult to come up with a minimum standard unless you're in the "do nothing" category.

>>Mister+(OP)
I think it would be extremely impractical and impossible to apply fairly.

Maybe that’s not an argument by itself for doing nothing.

>>Mister+(OP)
I also have some more "ideological" objections. .e.g why don't we just focus on creating opportunities for all presently disadvantaged people regardless of who their ancestors 150-300 years ago were?

> is hard

Not hard, objectively infeasible to accomplish in a sufficiently equitable way.

> we've got censuses going back hundreds of years. Do the math

What math? And what would you do with those censuses? There are no individual records... Could you at the very try least try clearly define who would receive these "reparations"? Would any descendants of black slaves or enslaved Native Americans (or are we not thinking about the natives at all?) get the same share? Would it depend on the proportion of your ancestors who were enslaved? Would your current financial circumstances affect this? Would you have to do a DNA test measuring the proportion of your genome coming from Africa, Europe etc. and use that to calculate the payout?