reparations

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> <JKSCHW@xxxxxxx> 02/11/00 03:24PM >>>
But I don't think it will get us in that direction to talk in the way you propose. Yes, we need to be divisive. yes, we need to polaruze society. yes, we need to anathematize racism and bigotry. But no, we do not need to divide Blacks from whites by adopting a strategy that is guaranteed to create the wrong sort of divisions. Do you _want_ the Jews to feel "white"? Then, by God, they'll act like it, And no better way to make them feel "white" than to try to demand that they apologize for things done by Jew-haters.

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CB: Partisans of the working class ( as a whole) ,who are concerned about the reparations campaign for descendents of victims of slavery dividing the working class and undermining support of many white workers for progressive struggles could take a different approach than those on this list are. Why not be bold creative and say, yes, Black people deserve reparations, Indians deserve reparations, AND THE DESCENDENTS OF WHITE WORKERS DESERVE REPARATIONS TOO !  In other words, why not use the whole thing to approach socialist revolution from another angle. Go through the history of white workers and make the very Marxist argument that they are due compensation for the exploitaton of surplus value that they suffered.

And then the overall "settlement" , and we lawyers settle cases much more often than going to trial , would be something like, it is a bit difficult to calculate all the specifics of who gets what but, we can just call it even if we agree that every human being in America is due a basic living from now on. We know that AT LEAST the uneven distribution of wealth to the extent that there is mass poverty can be attributed significantly to these historical exploitations, and so we will eradicate them as the damages given in this suit.   The court issues an injunction that every human in America will be provided with a minimum of a decent wage or income. Also the court hereby cancels the national debt , because we know the fortunes of the banks can be traced to the exploited value.

We need some militant, creative, bold thinking like that of the white radicals from the 60's. Rather than nitpicking at flaws in the logic of the reparations movement,  come up with an elaboration of it that does unify the whole working class.

CB