Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

And while we are at it, what about the descendants of the Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War 2 in Colorado and other states?

What about the children who worked in sweat shops and coal mines during the 19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom died young? Their relatives should be compensated. What about the descendants of the Tuskeegee Syphilis experiment? What about people affected by lead in drinking water pipes? Lead solder for drinking water wasn’t banned until 1986, so there are generations of people and their descendants who have suffered.

I can go on and on and our country will be bankrupt before we’re done. But hey, at least you’ve taken responsibility for the actions of others.

There's no "logical hoops." It's a concrete and straightforward argument. Black and Native Americans are differently situated in a way that shows up starkly in the data: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353

Most distinct subgroups of Americans are converging with whites in terms of income over generations:

> White and Hispanic children have fairly similar rates of intergenerational mobility.... Because of these modest intergenerational gaps, the income gap between Hispanic and white Americans is shrinking across generations

> The changing patterns of intergenerational mobility for Asians make it more difficult to predict the trajectory of their incomes, but Asians appear likely to converge to income levels comparable to white Americans in the long run.

The two exceptions are Black and Native Americans:

> In contrast to Hispanics and Asians, there are large intergenerational gaps between black and American Indian children relative to white children.

> The large intergenerational gaps for blacks and American Indians relative to whites lead to disparities in earnings for these groups that persist across generations. If mobility rates do not change, our estimates imply a steady-state gap in family income ranks between whites and American Indians of 18 percentiles, and a white-black gap of 19 percentiles. These values are very similar to the empirically observed gaps for children in our sample, suggesting that blacks and American Indians are currently close to the steady-state income distributions[.]

We tend to think of equality for Black Americans getting better over time, and while that has happened in the legal arena, it hasn't happened at all economically: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/06/09/872402262/what...

> While there have been some gains in income since the Kerner Commission, "in terms of the wealth gap, there's been almost no progress," says UC Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, who studies wealth inequality. "The average wealth of African Americans was 15% of the average wealth of whites in 1963 — and it's still around 15% today."

In 1963, the schools in my Maryland county were still segregated. They were desegregated in 1966. But half a century later, Black-white income and wealth gaps haven't changed at all. The founder of BET, Robert Johnson, has made a good capitalist case for reparations: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/bets-robert-johnson-calls-fo...

> “Damages is a normal factor in a capitalist society for when you have been deprived for certain rights,” he said. “If this money goes into pockets like the [coronavirus] stimulus checks ... that money is going to return back to the economy” in the form of consumption. There will also be more black-owned businesses, he added.

Arguments about whether white people today, or immigrants who came here after a certain time, should pay are misplaced. The United States, an entity that is legally distinct from its people, was culpable for enabling slavery and segregation. It can be held liable and forced to pay for its part. The United States government is still paying pensions owed to children of civil war veterans: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-costs-of-us-wars-have-li....

On the contrary; if I represent the status quo and you represent a new idea, the onus is on you to defend it. It's your responsibility. Put it out there. Say exactly what your thesis is, and back it up, and defend it. Sunlight is the best disinfectant - anything about your ideas that are indefensible will be shown to be so, and what's left will be gold.

To make my point via reductio ad absurdum, let's flip the script and use something hyperbolic: you represent the status quo, and I represent (heaven forbid) some new variation of racial cleansing. But, I declare to those opposed, "engaging with those who don't like the idea [of racial cleansing] is a fool's errand, because a lot of these people will just cherry-pick whatever objection they can think of in bad faith." So, I say to you, the skeptical defendent of the status quo, if you don't like the idea of racial cleansing, "then maybe identify one obstacle - it can be as big as you wish - where if resolved, you'd be in favor of [exterminating a race]."

To me, flipping your proposition on its head like that makes it pretty obvious that it's unsatisfactory as the starting point of an intellectual discussion. It even tends to beg the question: you've made your position the 'null hypothesis'. The status quo should be the null hypothesis.

> And even in good faith, people who don't like the idea all have different reasons. Start with the root axiom "Slavery is wrong", people will be happy to engage with you on that. Disregard them and move on to the next syllogism, you'll have a different set of people objecting.

Yes, exactly. Your job is to answer every set of people who don't like your idea. Just because you believe that this new thing is moral and right does not make it so, and it is the acme of hubris to distain to justify your proposed actions.