Church considers slavery payments

[Koios]

The Church of England is considering whether it should pay reparations for its role in the slave trade, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Click here for the full news article.

I wonder what will actually happen. If anything, this should have been done a very long time ago... even here in the USA I don't think there was nearly enough "compensation". But what do you guys think?

 

[Lilly Marlene]

I think an apology is good and some programs are in order - for instance our own Affirmative Action would have been fine IF it would have lasted only one generation ...as it was supposed to do when first instituted.

I think the reparations idea is going too far.
For heaven's sake, Britain and the US are the ones who abolished slavery, which still continues in many parts of the world.

If everyone on this planet paid reparations to the descendants of every population they have harmed, it would never be over.

I think the UK (and several other countries like Germany for instance) have taken political correctness to such an absurd extreme in recent years, that they are bound to face a very undesirable backlash soon.

 

[Koios]

I disagree. The USA didn't do nearly enough in terms of repayments. The African American population suffers to this day--slavery is not as distant as it appears, it is really only a few generations old. The disparity is astonishing and old money definitely plays a major role in upholding our current upper-class.

Historically, here and elsewhere, affirmative action has shown to not work as it was intended. What affirmative action often does is produce an improperly trained workforce. This is why I believe the only true solution could only have been implemented right after slavery was abolished. Any attempt to directly transfer wealth will just bring problems on both sides of the equation--some will complain because they are not getting the compensation they think they deserve, or because they are not getting anything at all, while the "descendents" of the oppressors will feel their money should not be given away because they personally didn't really do anything wrong. This is why wealth distribution is very difficult and while I believe that from the moral perspective it should still happen I do not think it ever will primarily because the world is now dominated by a capitalist mindset.

However, in the end the USA and Britain are not the only ones at fault. Lack of proper compensation is a trend virtually everywhere. However this does not place the USA and Britain out of the equation. In fact, what many consider modern slavery--child labor--is used by major corporations that have originated primarily in the USA and Britain.

While it is true that universal reparations are virtually unconceivable I still think political correctness is only meant to touch the very surface of the actual problem.

 

[Friendindeed]

It's hard to tell exactly what you are proposing Koios.

You seemed to start out disagreeing about reparations but in the end you are saying the same thing as Lily that it is unworkable.

So which is your view?

Also I would take issue with the way you blame the US and Britain for child labor, the factories that use it are not in those countries and also the other countries have used child labor for millenia.
I have had a bellyful of all this "blame the west for everything" bs.

 

[Koios]

I knew my post would seem confusing. Here, let me attempt to clarify it. While overall I agree with Lilly's claim that it is very hard to do anything now, I still believe that a simple Affirmative Action program that only lasted for one generation would have done next to nothing. My main point is that the reason we find it hard to provide compensation is because we delayed it for so long that it is now virtually impossible to really be fair to "everyone". Hence, I do not agree with the opinion that we are doing too much or that we have done just enough. I believe we never did do anything significant and now we are paying the consequences: primarily in the form of a social dilemma.

 

[Friendindeed]

How long would you want the Affirmative Action to last, or do you think there should not have been any?

I think her point was that reparations would never end because there is so many different nations of people that would be owed.

And my point is that most nations have done someone dirt in their history, why is it always the west who owes.

 

[Eternal]

How long would you want the Affirmative Action to last, or do you think there should not have been any?

I think her point was that reparations would never end because there is so many different nations of people that would be owed.

And my point is that most nations have done someone dirt in their history, why is it always the west who owes.

Because the west is currently at the top.

 

[Lilly Marlene]

Because the west is currently at the top.

So bring it down ?

The West has been at the top for quite some time and that is owing to the fact that most - not all but most - technological advances have been made by the West.

Those advances have benefitted the entire globe, though surely not on an equal footing.