The vice president released a plan to help Black men financially, held interviews with two Black media outlets and put out targeted ads in battleground states.
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Ms. Harris’s plan calls for providing one million loans that would forgive up to $20,000 for Black entrepreneurs and people of other races to start a business, in an effort to close the capital gap that Black people often face.
The plan calls for expanding access to affordable banking options that will allow Black men and others to tap into more capital that they often cannot access because of high fees and other barriers. The plan also promises to devise a regulatory framework for protecting cryptocurrency assets, which more than 20 percent of Black Americans own or have owned.
All but the last last bit sounds good.
Do you know how you can help black Americans? Reparations.
I don’t see how that gets through Congress, whereas something more like this (but with much larger amounts of capital injection) has a better chance.
Doing the right thing may not be easy, but reparations is the only path to justice.
So reparations or bust? Completely disregard any other (actually achievable) benefit while chasing that golden goose? I understand the frustration, but unfortunately you have to take things one step at a time in modern day politics.
Edit: Hey, why all the downvotes?
I think reparations plus this. Both are necessary as they address different aspects of the injustice.
As for reparations being unrealistic because of the makeup of Congress currently - if Dems can take the House and hold onto the Senate majority, then I have high hopes for 127 DC States plan: https://www.vox.com/2020/1/14/21063591/modest-proposal-to-save-american-democracy-pack-the-union-harvard-law-review
If that goes through, I see the Congress that comes after being much more amendable to the idea of reparations than Congresses past.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying they should push on reparations even if it’s an uphill battle in congress. Other things are appreciated, but without reparations there is no justice. It’s just patchwork.
Doing the right thing doesn’t win elections. And if we don’t win elections, there is zero chance of making progress.
There’s no progress when they do win elections.
So they are both relevant for justice but address different aspects of the wrongs that have been made.
Reparations address the historical wrongs brought on by slavery, kidnapping, etc. Even if things were otherwise perfect today and MLK’s dream fully came true, this would still be something needing to be addressed.
But today we still have systematic and institutional racism. So the injustices are currently being compounded upon. The current measures Harris is promising addresses this aspect, but not the former. We need both and shouldn’t settle for less - but that means we should support this too.
I’m not a big fan of the idea of reparations. The generational harm seems too great to fix with money. Besides, once there are any payments at all, you will get losers who claim that racism is over, because we paid it off.
I don’t believe reparations are politically possible right now, but “we can’t fix the problem so we shouldn’t even try” just doesn’t feel like the right move here.
You mean as opposed to the people nowadays saying that we eradicated racism because of an amendment ?
Seems like the current plan is to just wipe out all generational wealth instead, for every ancestry. We’ve given up on a rising tide lifting all boats and instead we’re draining the harbor.