Half a mil to put their thumbs up their asses instead of just literally giving that money directly as reparations 
Edit: I want to clarify, I fully support reparations, I’m just extremely frustrated knowing that, under liberal/bourgeoisie democracy, these types of efforts tend to get bogged down with means testing, and sometimes outright turn into thinly-veiled handouts to private corporations. All while the police budget is still increasing YOY.
That said, Evanston (city on Chicago’s northern border) did actually manage to distribute “…$25,000 in no-strings-attached direct cash payments for those eligible. Black residents who lived in Evanston during a 50-year period of discriminatory zoning laws and their direct descendants receive priority for eligibility.” So I don’t want to encourage further reactionary criticisms such as mine towards this specific subcommittee if they are able to achieve at least some form of direct payments similar to Evanston’s program.
Also it’s kinda wild of the libs to look at the current situation of various minorities and think that “ah yes, we need official documents linking you to a slave ancestor” rather than just helping people without means testing. Because that’s usually what the liberals are trying to do, it can be obvious that you had slaves in your family, but if you don’t have the papers they get off on denying due to technicality. I’ve read through most reparations resolutions and it’s depressing
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Ruining the tobacco industry’s plans to monopolize cannabis is reason enough to implement this alone. Eat shit Marlboro.
i also hate how in this discourse that there are currently 2.3 million black people in prison and many are being used for literal legally defined slave work and that it never gets brought up. they act like its so long ago but its literally happening right now. especially when labor is used as a punishment of a crime, its so fucked to keep pressing the profit button once someone has ‘fixed’ what they broke. im talking theft-based and possession felonies that get you in jail for 10-15 years but 10-15 years of labor is way more money and harm than the crime itself. and thats not even getting into labor trafficking from countries like haiti or the fact that jim crow would result in situations that were basically just slavery…
im really worried about this bit, i know it was common in the czech community in america to hide that we were czech to avoid anti-slav discrimination. i even have talked to czechs that were forced to live in certain districts because they identified as czech on naturalization papers, it was generally recommended to identify as austrian or german because they got off easier. theres got to be edge cases for white-passing/mixed ancestry black people. i also recall some movements in the 70s demanding everyone to say ‘rather not say’ on ethnicity forms or not fill out ethnicity so as to avoid geographic racial profiling. i wish we didnt have such a shitty government so we could have actual scientific socialist studies on how to get reparations to everyone effected with no one being left behind. i honestly wonder what cuba has done in this field, i cant say im well-versed on afro-cuban history. i do know china has had some really extensive reparations policies to certain ethnic groups, but that is a very different setting.
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i aspire to this rn thanks for the great idea
The one city I know of that has actually started reparations payments – Evanston – is tying them to redlining and other discriminatory policies in Evanston and in the 20th century. I don’t think it’s means tested, either; it’s not based on need, but on if recipients are “descendants of Evanston residents who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 or suffered housing discrimination after 1969.”
that seems pretty good, but do they need to currently reside there, or does it go to everyone including people that left the city? also isnt that the one othello was talking about as not being enough
The way I read it is that someone would be eligible if they currently live in (for example) Chicago, but their parents lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 or suffered housing discrimination after 1969. This seems like exactly the sort of wheels-on-the-pavement question you’d need to talk through in a committee before rolling this out, too.
And yeah, I’d agree this isn’t enough, but a city trying to repair the part of the damage it did specifically seems like a significant step in the right direction.