by evilgenius » Sun 24 Mar 2019, 21:46:53
Both KJ and Newfie make good points. What they bring to mind is the importance of forgiveness. This is important for us to consider toward others, but also to acquire for ourselves. It's never a good idea to compartmentalize our own guilt and live off of a reflection of it as it pays itself forward in our lives. It can't be that everyone has to be perfect all of the time in order for us to build a functioning society either. What do we do with our imperfections? And what about those of others?
A good place to start is the subject of reparations. You hear a lot these days about how certain groups or individuals think black people in America should be recompensed for their ancestors having been slaves. The trouble is, you can look upon a sin, and slavery was a sin, having a price to pay for it. In this case, that price was already paid, in the blood of all those who gave their lives to end slavery as an institution. Unless that price can be substituted for, there can't be any reparations.
There is, however, the additional crime of racial prejudice. Since this is a collective fascination of individuals that doesn't rise up to the same level as the institution that was slavery, it too cannot be paid with reparations. There are things that do reside in this argument that do, though. Red lining was a practice whereby the banks refused to lend money to black people. It was done by drawing red lines on maps, hence the name. It was brought about by the Federal Government. People living in those areas were, essentially, black balled. Even with a thing like that, which does rise to the level of institutional crime (you can say it wasn't illegal but that didn't help the Nazis at Nuremberg, who tried to deflect their guilt by saying it was war), only the targeted group has any right to participate in any payback. In this case that targeted group would be black homeowners, not all blacks in general. If red lining is going to cause some sort of payback to happen, then it shouldn't apply to all black people, but only to those who were harmed by the practice. Payback for that may not be easily discernible. Time has eroded the immediacy, and people have shown they could cope. But the black community was set back. It may have to go to all black homeowners in the form of some sort of interest rate rebate or something. It's just like when a construction project infringes upon the public's right to use a public roadway or something, you can't target individuals so easily as having suffered directly, but there has, obviously, been suffering. It is enough for those who are behind the project to pay a fee into the public coffers. In this case, only black homeowners form the group which has been slighted, not blacks at large.
But, then, what about our personal debt? That's not institutional, obviously. Nothing we do or say as individuals means that some practice has been encoded into law, neither by us or by some other who doesn't like us. We can insist upon perceived, or real, slights being paid, but the payment then doesn't have an easy to see redress, like getting a permit and paying the fee. Because of this disconnect those kinds of issues can linger, like in Bosnia, and come back to haunt a population hundreds of years after they actually took place. You don't even need inequality to trigger it, just the knowledge of past sins which a person or group decides they aren't happy with. All it takes is emotion. Are we the masters of our emotions? That's kind of the big question. Because all versions of the future which don't reside in racial designation or dominance require us to consider one standard, that of the citizen. To fully enjoy that future, we will have to let go of our individual slights and move forward. If anything done to you does touch upon the law, you have a case, otherwise, it's probably time to let it go.