An Argument Poker Players Can Understand

150 thoughts on “An Argument Poker Players Can Understand”

1. Is it the crimes of the past, or the inequities of the past that make this a moral imperative?

   If it’s the inequities, do you feel the same moral imperative if Group A is composed of African Americans in the US, and group B is composed of those born in Myanmar? Or rural China? Or North Korea? The world playing field is far less equitable than the one in the US, yet why should we be influenced by arbitrary geographic lines? Just being born in America is a huge un-earned advantage…

   ~Mike

   • I think the argument I’m making here is specific to crimes of the past, though you could probably make a case about inequities as well. That said, there is plenty of connection between the past crimes and present affluence of the US (eg the relative poverty of many African nations is not unrelated to slavery), and I do think this same argument applies vis-a-vis many of the world’s poorer countries.

     • Without discussing what actions should be taken, I think you first have to be able to say how much benefit and disadvantage has been caused.

       Are you responsible for all the sins of your ancestors? At what time do you draw the line?

       Taking just the instance of slavery, do we count the number of people enslaved by our ancestors collectively? What if your ancestors were immigrants after the event and derived no benefit, are you collectively responsible because of your race?

       Is the US richer at the expense of other countries? I find that a very difficult argument to follow, given that even the poorest countries are wealthier than they were two centuries ago.

       • See my response to Mike below. Basically I think you’re responsible for them to the extent that you benefit from them. I don’t think it follows logically that just because you can’t quantify the exact amount of harm or benefit, that nothing should be done. It certainly doesn’t follow logically to say there is a “level playing field” and that any difficulty a person born at a disadvantage suffers is 100% his fault (not that you are saying that, but it’s a common argument).

         A bunch of people were literally kidnapped and taken in chains from other countries to this one. Their labor was forcibly extorted to build up the economy of this country instead of their own. There are more complicated cases as well, but that at least is incredibly straightforward.

2. Does every victim deserve restitution from the innocent public? Or is there something special about slavery / racial discrimination? If it’s just that some descendants of slave owners have benefited fiscally at the expense of some descendants of slaves, then it follows that any restitution should be extremely targeted, ie there are plenty of Americans whose ancestors never owned slaves and plenty of African-Americans whose ancestors never were slaves.

   My point wasn’t that the West is historically innocent of the pillaging of the Third World – my point was that if the goal is to improve the lot of humanity, than I can’t agree with focus on the relative welfare of intra-America vs the relative welfare of America vs the rest of the world.

   Anyways, to get to your original question, I think the single best policy for long-term welfare of racial minorities would be to end the War on Drugs. Any other attempts while this racist and destructive policy is in place is almost certainly doomed to failure.

   ~Mike

   • I don’t think innocence really has anything to do with it. No one is saying white Americans should be punished for the crimes of their ancestors, only that we shouldn’t pretend as though the crimes of the past have nothing to do with the inequalities of the present. If you inherit stolen property, you shouldn’t be thrown in jail for burglary, but you shouldn’t get to keep it, either. It’s not really punishment, it’s just taking back something that didn’t belong to you in the first place.

     The point I mean to make with the poker analogy is that just because your skill or hard work or whatever helped you to get what you have now doesn’t mean you haven’t also benefited in some ways from past injustice. It’s worth mentioning that a lot more people than just the slaveholders benefited from slavery, and there were a lot more crimes than just slavery. Jim Crow laws, for instance, disadvantaged just about every black person in the south and benefited just about every white person. There were similar laws pretty much everywhere in the country.

     Obviously it’s impossible to sort out who benefited and exactly how much, but it also seems unfair just to throw up our arms and say “Oh well, what can you do, let’s just get on with our lives.”

     FWIW I agree about the War on Drugs, and it’s one of the reasons why I would say that racial discrimination is not a thing of the past. The real audience for this post is people who insist that it’s all behind us. EVEN IF that were true, I still think that it would not obviate the need for some form of restitution.

3. Nice job making an easily-obscured issue crystal clear, Andrew. Here’s hoping that this post is picked up and circulated in the larger poker community.

4. Andrew,

   First, thanks. Your ability and willingness to make posts like these are part of why I follow your blog and ignore other poker blogs. You are taking a risk with this topic, but I encourage you to continue to do so. I hold no illusions that just because I am a pure fanboy of your poker stuff that I will love every opinion you have.

   Second, I don’t understand this argument:
   “Yet it’s not sufficient to say, “that proposal is flawed, we can’t do that,” without
   offering some alternative of your own.”
   Why not? Is it a requirement of debate that all commenters offer a proposed solution? Maybe some problems have no solution. Maybe I am smart enough to see flaws in new proposals but not smart enough to find a better option. Would that disqualify me from criticizing bad proposals? If I make a logical argument against a proposal, how is the truth of my argument or it’s logic challenged by my reluctance or incapacity to offer my own solutions. I don’t mean to insult you, but you seem to be making a version of the bumper sticker “if you don’t vote you can’t complain”. Please explain this more.

   Third, I mostly agree with you that the need for some kind of remedy is not impacted by the fact that today the playing field is or may be fair. But why must the corrective action be “government action”? Government enabled the bad actors. Government has failed to make amends all these years. Why keep going back to that poisoned well? Wouldn’t it be better to seek non-governmental remedies? After all, as you noted, some of the players in Group B, dealt a short stack by government, overcame those obstacles on their own to reach a big chip stack on Day 2. Why not focus on learning the lessons of their success?

   Fourth, and lastly, I echo the challenges of other commentors here. Where does it end? If we are responsible for correcting actions of others, how far back do you go? As awful as American slavery of blacks was, it was but one small example of slavery throughout civilization. Slavery goes back thousands of years and I’m sure someone could claim I somehow benefited from that to their disadvantage. You ask if this “sounds fair?”. it does not. Slavery was a bad deal. But life isn’t fair, and no matter how much I might want to make it fair, I cannot. All I can do is treat people as individuals, not as part of some damaged or victimized group.

   Respectfully,

   Russ

   • Thanks for the thoughtful response, Russ. My goal here was to engage with some intelligent, open-minded people who might not agree with my conclusion but would be willing to consider the situation from a new angle.

     “Is it a requirement of debate that all commenters offer a proposed solution? Maybe some problems have no solution.”

     I phrased this badly. Of course there’s nothing wrong with pointing out problems with a proposed solution. What I mean is that I don’t think the status quo deserves an overwhelming benefit of the doubt, such that no slightly flawed solution should be considered. The status quo is itself deeply flawed, in that massive crimes, whose victims and beneficiaries are known with reasonable but not perfect accuracy, have gone largely unredressed.

     Suppose, for instance, that we knew that 90% of Group A players had benefited from the cheating and 90% of Group B players had been harmed by it. Of course a redistribution of some chips from Group A to Group B would unfairly harm 10% of Group A players and unfairly benefit 10% of Group B players, but is that worse than the status quo?

     But why must the corrective action be “government action”?

     My inclination is to say that no other actor could act on a sufficiently large scale nor compel the intransigent beneficiaries of ill-gotten wealth to surrender it. I’m open to suggestions, though – what do you have in mind?

     some of the players in Group B, dealt a short stack by government, overcame those obstacles on their own to reach a big chip stack on Day 2. Why not focus on learning the lessons of their success?

     The point of the poker analogy is that a lot of this is just running well. It’s such a common argument that so-and-so started with nothing and look where he is now, you could have done the same thing, when in fact no matter how hard working so-and-so was luck probably had a lot to do with his success also. I think a lot of the most effective actions that individuals can take do involve teaching “optimal short stack strategy”, so to speak, but it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people begin play with the odds stacked against them, and I don’t think it’s fair to act as though the ones who aren’t successful are entirely to blame for that fact. I’m sure you know that no matter how well you play a short stack, it’s tough to win a tournament when you have 6 BBs.

     “If we are responsible for correcting actions of others, how far back do you go?”

     It’s not about “correcting the actions of others”, it’s about returning what isn’t yours to it’s rightful owner.

     In terms of how far back to go, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a bright line somewhere. My point is that right now the victims and the beneficiaries can still be identified with reasonable, though not perfect, accuracy. The longer we wait, the harder that will be, and the more traction the “oh it’s too complicated, let’s just forget about it” argument will gain, which is of course the reason for all the foot-dragging in the first place.

     Obviously we are willing to go back some distance into the past to rectify crimes, and I don’t think we have to know exactly where to draw that line in order to discuss whether this particular one is worth addressing. I can’t just steal your car and then say, “Whatever man, it’s in the past, life isn’t fair, let’s just forget about it.”

     “All I can do is treat people as individuals, not as part of some damaged or victimized group.”

     Many of these crimes were committed against a group. Lynching a few individuals who advocated for the right to vote served to intimidate and keep subordinate large groups of black people.

     Moreover, the existence of these groups makes it easier to identify which individuals were likely affected by these crimes.

     The last point I’ll make, which is beyond the scope of my OP, is that there are still plenty of identifiable victims of race crimes alive today. There are plenty of people who were illegally denied the right to vote, plenty of people forced to attend inferior schools, etc. still alive today. Whether or not you had anything to do with that, whether or not you supported it or thought it was right, if you got to go to a better, taxpayer-funded school as a result of the color of your skin and were subsequently more competitive in the job market as a result, then you benefited from that crime.

     Question for you: does your opinion on this change if we remove the group dynamic? I know a guy who, in the 1980s, was the first member of his family born off of the plantation where his ancestors were slaves. His father was born to sharecroppers still working on the same plantation, for the same family whose great-great grandparents (or whatever) owned his great-great grandparents.

     The plantation is still owned by the same family and I’m sure worth a good deal of money. Needless to say the son of sharecroppers didn’t have a lot of money with which to make his way in the world when he left the plantation, and he ended up living in a high-poverty, high-crime neighborhood in Kansas City, which is where his son was born. His son went to a school that was, by most objective measures, one of the least desirable in the state, and he had a rough childhood.

     The father, the first one to leave the plantation, was in jail for much of the son’s life. Presumably that was in part a result of bad choices that he made, but can you really say that it had nothing to do with the circumstances into which he was born? Doesn’t it seem likely that his life could have turned out differently, or at least his son could have grown up in a better neighborhood and attended a better school, if he had available to him some of the money that was passed down by the people who enslaved his ancestors?

     The reason I know the son is that he got involved with the Kansas City Urban Debate League, and last I heard was doing alright. This of course goes to your point about teaching skills to help individuals overcome adversity. But these organizations are small, usually reaching at most a few hundred students, and sporadic. There are plenty of kids like this one who don’t have access to them. This is the reason why I say something needs to happen on a larger scale.

     Anyway, here we have a case where the descendant of the slave and the descendant of the slave-owner are clearly identifiable. Would you say they owe him nothing? Because that’s what he’s gotten.

     • Andrew,
       Thanks for your additional thoughts. I just came from a funeral so I’ll try to respond more later when I have a better frame of mind.

       On the idea of action done outside of government, I sadly don’t have good ideas. In my area I volunteer at several local non-profits which serve the poor. Their customers are predominantly black and latino. We do what we can, but my business experience tells me we are not solving anything, only serving as a band-aid.

       My hesitation for government solutions can be summed up with a real example. In my worldview, the most significant lingereing economic shackle of slavery is how there is very limited access to capital for blacks today. They don’t turn to selling drugs or committing crime because they are inferior, but because it is the only avenue via which many can amass the capital needed to escape poverty. Access to capital is key to economic growth. It is the heart of our capitalist system, and it was even recognized by Marx. So one way to correct a lot of the residual harm of slavery would be to make capital more easily available to slave decendents. In my opinion, the private institutions have been slow to do this. In the late 1990s, the government said enough is enough, and they started mandating easy access to loans for people with poor credit. This was because they cannot explicitly give favoritism to blacks or slave descendents, so they chose a proxy (and a bad one). As we all know, the flood of money into the hands of poor credit risks contributed to the real estate bust and the credit crisis. In trying to help blacks, the government had good intentions, but was woefully inept.

       Here’s my approach. I read to the kids in the poorest schools in my county, because I don’t think they get that at home. I take the young black teenage mothers at the local alternative high school into my work so they can see what my career is like. And when I meet a sharp young black man like Carlos, I go to lunch with him and I try to encourage him. It isn’t much. And it won’t make up for slavery. But I am vain enought to beleive I am doing more than my government ever could. All the government solutions come with unintended consequences or additional harms placed on other citizens. So if more people did what I do, or what you did with the BDL, we would not need government to “solve” this problem.

       I’ll be back later to comment on the rest of your good comments.

       • In hindsight, my comments (above) may be a little contradictory and are, i fear, quite self-centered. My argument for a non-government solution should have simply been: Rotary and groups like it. Rotary was founded in 1905 by Chicago businessmen who were concerned with local problems such as poverty and felt the government was not capable of solving the issues. Today, Rotary is the world’s largest service organization, and their motto is service above self. Rotary is how I try to serve my communitty (all the efforts I bragged about were organized by my Rotary club), and I think Rotary or groups like it are a better option than the heavy hand of government.

         Andrew, I’ve thought about the example of your friend who tried to escape the sharecropper life. I think this shows how a good solution back in the 1860s would have better addressed the access to capital question I raised. The best time to make things right for slaves was upon emancipitation. Once that opportunity was missed, everything became hopelessly complex over the next 150 years. In this specific case, I think we avoid most of the problems with reparations. The victims and the perpetrators seem quite identifiable. So we have a statue of limitations question and a method of remedy question. Should all citizens make your friend whole, or should the individual family responsible be made to do that? If you have the government make payments to your friend, then it comes from the pockets of some whites who benefited, but also from other harmed blacks. I think a better approach would be for the law to allow a civil tort. Your friend could make his case in court against the descendents of the slave owners, and see what a jury of his peers would find appropriate.

         I have a very high standard for approving or accepting government involvment. It is a bias I’ve picked up over time. This won’t give you much solace, but I think if you trust democracy, you can turn to the fact reparations are not widely accepted and would not pass a democratic vote. This might be becaue biased whites still run the show, but I’m not sure they would pass a vote if only blacks were allowed to vote.

         Sorry. This is the best I can do. Thanks for making me think. You have great readers, so I hope some of them have better answers than I do.

         • Thanks, Russ. I appreciate your thoughtful consideration. I don’t claim to have the solution here, and I agree with your concerns about government action. What frustrates me is that so many people don’t want to acknowledge the problem in the first place. It may be that already everything has become so hopelessly complicated that there’s no good way to make restitution, but I think that at least a collective recognition that a huge swath of people got unfairly treated and that their descendants continue to suffer as a result would go a long way. It’s particularly frustrating to see people who almost certainly benefited in some way from the many crimes committed against slaves and their descendants acting as though the whole thing is just in the past. It’s one thing to say there’s nothing we can do about it now, and another to say that it’s no longer relevant. I think many people come to believe the latter because it’s hard to admit that such massive and widespread injustice is so deeply ingrained in the society we live in today.

           Rather than understanding, sympathy, and gratitude for the people who are asked simply to accept and ignore the fact that this injustice is going to go unreconciled, many white people have an attitude of frustration and victim-blaming for the problems that stem more or less directly from that original injustice. As you say, I think it’s clear that the epidemic of drug sale and use in many black communities is a direct result of the capital stolen from those communities. Yet rather than wanting to help rehabilitate and provide other opportunities, the general response has been criminalization and harsh penalties. As a country, we need to look at the poverty, crime, etc. in these communities as a cross that the descendants of slaves bear on our behalf, because we can’t figure out an adequate way to make restitution from the many crimes that were committed.

           Obviously I’m a strong believer in the non-profit sector, and I think it’s good that you (or Rotary, I guess) frames that work as service rather than charity. Charity carries a connotation of “I don’t owe you anything but I am helping anyway because I am such a good person, you better appreciate it” when in fact the proper attitude should be “I owe you a debt that can never be repaid, please accept this woefully inadequate assistance as a token of my appreciation.”

           Still, there is the problem, as you say, that any sort of non-profit solution will inevitably be small-scale and a band-aid sort of solution in which the majority of people will not participate. I suspect that if you were, for instance, one of Madoff’s victims, you wouldn’t consider it adequate compensation for his children to come read to your children. Despite the many complications in tracking down where exactly the money is now and what is owed to whom, you would presumably expect the government to assist you in reclaiming from the perpetrator of the crime what was stolen from you.

           On that point, I actually think that Madoff’s son’s suicide is a sad demonstration of how difficult it can be to live with the weight of being a beneficiary of such injustice. I think this is the motivation behind some of the worst racism and victim-blaming in this country. It’s a psychic defense, a need to deny one’s own complicity by insisting that the descendants of slaves are themselves responsible for the problems stemming from that crime.

           • Andrew,

             A comment on the process, not content, of this post. I’m not sure of your objective with the post. If you were expecting to get a lot of folks to snap call on the need for reparations, I think that was a long shot. But, I give you an A+ for raising awareness and making readers (at least me) think.

             • Thanks, Russ, that’s exactly what I was going for. I’m not sold myself on the practicality of reparations or anything like it. I think essentially we’re in the moral conundrum that I laid out in my last response to you: a great debt is owed and will probably never be (maybe never could be) repaid. I think it would make a big difference if more white Americans would at least acknowledge the full weight of that debt rather than acting as though everything is fine now, as though whatever meager efforts to repay that debt that have been made were sufficient, or as though black Americans have only themselves to blame for the problems they continue to face.

         • Outside the analogy, the “inherited stack” problem plays out like this: in this country, racial minorities are overwhelmingly distributed into non-integrated communities. Some of that is due to individual choice — minorities who have stuck together in the face of hostility by the larger majority. Some of that is due to previous government inaction to things like private racially-restrictive covenants. Some of it is due to indirect government action, e.g., that school districts are funded by municipal property taxes. And some of it is due to direct government action.

           Those four factors have combined to create a situation today where the most overwhelmingly poorest neighborhoods — which, in turn, have the worst schools, the worst social conditions, and the worst, lowest-paying jobs — are also overwhelmingly African-American (and, to a lesser extent, Latino). Seriously, just google “worst cities in America,” and you’ll get a bunch of lists that all contain the same names: Cleveland, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, Philadelphia, East St. Louis, Atlanta, Oakland, and Flint, Michigan. And what’s the common thread for all of these cities? White people don’t live there. Black and brown people live there. Here’s the African-American percentage of the population in each of those cities: 53%, 64%, 83%, 63%, 43% (and 12% Latino), 98%, 54%, 28% (and 25% Latino), and 53%.

           Worse, those are aggregate numbers. To take a city with which Andrew is familiar, Baltimore may be 64% black, but those numbers are inflated by gentrified upscale (white) neighborhoods in Canton, Federal Hill, Roland Park, and so forth. The best schools in Baltimore are racially integrated (like City College); the worst are effectively 100% African-American.

           And that’s the point of Andrew’s analogy. There’s almost no chance a 14-year-old high school freshman starting at, say, East St. Louis High School will wind up at an Ivy League school, whereas there’s almost a 100% chance that a student with the *exact same* capabilities, intelligence, and drive starting at, say, Phillips Exeter Academy or Regis High School will. Oh, and (not) coincidentally: there’s a 98% chance that the East St. Louis High School student is black.

           From there, of course, the inequalities compound. The Ivy League student has vastly more post-collegiate educational opportunities, highly-lucrative job offers, and high-profile contacts than the East St. Louis grad. Harvard Law School, for example, considers it *charity* if one of their graduates takes a job paying $60,000 per year or less — which is, of course, far above the national average. (They’re right to do so, too; the average Harvard Law School grad will be showered with low-to-mid-six-figure job offers immediately upon graduation.)

           Don’t get me wrong: the Rotary club is a great institution. I seriously do commend you for your charity work and I hope you continue to do it. I am certain that the East St. Louis student living on the edge of poverty absolutely appreciates that extra free lunch and a couple of tutoring sessions. But can anyone argue that those charitable things make up for the fact that a very similar white kid a few hundred miles away is getting ready to have the world handed to him on a silver platter?

           So I ask this question of you sincerely: how could *any* amount of charity ameliorate the structural inequality I just sketched out?

5. I agree that something should be done. At the same time, I have come to the conclusion that the powers that be are not likely to do it. As one of those disadvantaged persons, I have decided not to wait for a fix that clearly is not coming. To do so would be foolish. I have heard of firefighters watching a house burn because it was outside of their jurisdiction. The firefighters say we should help them. The captain says we should, but legally there is no way we can. If I am a disabled person sitting in that burning house, I may not be able to get myself out as easily as everyone else, but the hell if I’m going to sit there and burn while they have this debate. Why wait for old white men to give me reparations when I can just 3bet them light and take it?

   I was taught how to do this by Andrew and other good guys like him in the same way that a lot of people that look like me are taught how to get reparations buy selling drugs. Ending the war on drugs wont help them. Showing them a way to make a real living that will actually work for them would. The problem is that a lot of people don’t see a need to seek out help like I did. They are too passive. They are comfortable with selling drugs because it’s all they have ever known. Due to that inertia, they would have to be inspired to see that another way would be better. But that takes an inspirational figure. The real Dr. King was that figure. Maybe he still could be if we didn’t candy coat him.

   • For the record, Carlos, I wouldn’t advise holding your breath until you receive your reparations payment 😉

     Certainly people will have to play the hand they’re dealt in life. That’s the whole point of the poker analogy. And of course some people will have success despite a disadvantageous starting position, and others with advantageous starting positions will not. It seems to me the ideal strategy would be both to advocate for what you’re owed and also to make the most of what you have. Or is your point that focusing on the injustice seems to demotivate some people, cause them to say, “None of this is my fault, I was screwed from the outset, why even try?”

     • I dont advocate because I know that I can advocate until I am blue in the face and it aint gonna happen. I think we all pretty much agree the chance of it is slim to none, so I put 100% of my available effort into the “make the most of it” half of the equation.

       I agree that it does demotivate some. However, I see a lot of people motivated by it. I cant name too many black people I know personally who lament racial injustice and seek to right the wrong. The ones on TV are a small sample. We all know that it’s there, but most of us understand that fixing it through the system that created it is probably futile. So we take the initiative.

       I prefer this and a ton of us do it the right ways, but at the same time, too many of us make it right in the wrong ways which tend to seem the easiest because the experts in these fields (selling drugs, stealing, and fraud) are more than willing to show their loved ones how to do it. There are more, but these by far the easiest and most accessible to the most people. They say “I was screwed from the outset, so I am just going to take what I need.” In your game analogy, it would be like one of the small stacks just casually reaching over and sliding a tower from another player a few inches closer to his. This is where we run into problems as a society. I think the solution is to show how you can overcome the inequity without the negative side effects of doing so illegally or unethically. If all of those short stacked players were as smart as Phil Ivey, there wouldn’t be a problem.

       Bottom line: When we find something that is as easy as selling drugs, stealing, and fraud for the lowest among us who cant do math, cant rap, and cant play basketball, then we will have a solution. I contend that that solution is small business. If you can sell a drug (crack, weed), you can sell a drug (cigarettes, alcohol, sugar) or anything else for that matter. But they dont teach us business in school. They teach us more important things like what year the Battle of Hastings happened.

       The people that own the corner store figured it out because one of them learned on their own and taught the others how it’s done. I’ve ventured out on my own and tried a ton of things. Poker is just the latest because it suited me better than a lot of the others I have tried. If it doesn’t work, I can always fall back on what I have learned about small business (outside of school). Business seems to be the easiest thing I have come across, so by default, that is what I teach people who ask for help unless another option suits them better (like poker has for me so far). The other side of that equation is keeping what you do make (#nitcast) or plugging leaks if we can get back to the poker analogy. I teach that too.

       I seemed to have rambled a lot. This means I like the topic. I would go back to reread and make sure it all makes sense, but I gotta go meet with a friend who also started short stacked in this wonderful game of life. She’s down to about 10 big blinds so I’m going to go discuss some options with her.

6. The whole analogy is fundamentally based on the fixed-pie fallacy, or Montaigne fallacy. (The term “fixed-pie fallacy” or “zero-sum fallacy” is often used to apply only to the specific case of the labour market — “lump of labour fallacy” — which is unfortunate i.m.o.) I find comparing a modern economy to a fixed pie about as off the mark as comparing poker to roulette would be. Paul Graham explains the fallacy well in his 2004 essay about wealth; let me quote a few paragraphs:

   “A surprising number of people retain from childhood the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world. There is, in any normal family, a fixed amount of money at any moment. But that’s not the same thing.

   When wealth is talked about in this context, it is often described as a pie. ‘You can’t make the pie larger,’ say politicians. When you’re talking about the amount of money in one family’s bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year’s tax revenue, this is true. If one person gets more, someone else has to get less.

   I can remember believing, as a child, that if a few rich people had all the money, it left less for everyone else. Many people seem to continue to believe something like this well into adulthood. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone talking about how x percent of the population have y percent of the wealth. If you plan to start a startup, then whether you realize it or not, you’re planning to disprove the Pie Fallacy.

   What leads people astray here is the abstraction of money. Money is not wealth. It’s just something we use to move wealth around. So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world. You can make more wealth. Wealth has been getting created and destroyed (but on balance, created) for all of human history.

   Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is — and you specifically are — one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you’ll get more for it.”

   • In a second step, once we’ve realised that there is no fixed pie, we could analyse whether gangsta-rap culture, or a culture in which studying is berated as “acting white”, will on balance create or destroy wealth. But that’s a more controversial topic. I wanted it separate from my main point with the fixed-pie fallacy.

     And one clarification: poker and roulette are of course both zero-sum (apart from rake) — what I meant is that comparing poker to roulette would leave something crucial out.

   • Sorry, but can you say a bit more about the implications of this for my argument? I get that an economy is not a zero-sum thing in the same that poker is (though it seems to me there are plenty of individual instances where one person’s gain is another’s loss, at least in part), but I don’t see how it changes the fact that a great crime was committed, and that the consequences of that crime, both positive and negative, are still felt by people today.

     • I find the analogy through which you make your argument really misleading. It exploits the intuitions of the many people who fall for the zero-sum fallacy. That doesn’t mean the argument itself is without merit. You could find a better analogy, maybe some kind of site where houses get built but Group B houses are smaller and less stable in the third month because the Group B members of the first month had to work on Group A houses instead of their own. (Surely you can find something better.)

       You would have to introduce a random element somehow, and admittedly the poker analogy does well in that respect. But it’s just so misleading. E.g. when, in your OP, the Group A players say: “If you play well, it doesn’t matter how many chips you start with, anyone can win.” That sounds like mockery when the short stacks have to get all the stolen chips back (and more) in order to “win”. But in real life in a Western country it may not be so impossible, and not even be that dependent on luck, to start from very little wealth and go on to “win”, in some more modest sense of the word. (One might object that you may not in fact stand much chance in certain circumstances in terms of family, neighbourhood, education, culture etc; but this would then arguably be talking partly about Group-B-self-inflicted new Day C damage.)

       • I don’t think Andrew’s point is undermined by the zero sum fallacy. Suppose deep stacked fish are periodically added to the tournament, representing opportunity in a ‘real world situation’. If a Group A player and a Group B player are equally skilled, the Group A player will be better able to take advantage of these fish and chip up, due to his deeper stack.

         IMO, removing the zero sum assumption makes Andrew’s point stronger.

         • I really fail to see how zero sum fallacy has anything whatsoever to do with Andrews point, if we are taking and economic viewpoint then its very easy to argue that in a fair competitive market the plantations owners would recieve the marginal product of capital in return for providing the land, and the workers would earn a wage in proportion to the marginal value of their labour in producing the products, It’s not hard to see how slavery allows firms to growth their wealth exponentially faster due to free and disposable labour. If anything the accelerated earlier growth leads to larger inequalities than renumeration for lost wages would address.

       • Thanks for the clarification. I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s right. Others have pointed out a few problems with your argument already, but I’d argue that even if we define “winning” simply as surviving Day 3 of the tournament and having chips to pass on to your “descendants” on Day 4 (which is not strictly zero-sum, as although it’s possible for you to increase your chances of survival by diminishing mine, it is possible for both of us to survive) it’s clear that the chances of players who begin Day 3 short-stacked are at a considerable disadvantage. Never mind that in an economy even more than in a poker game it’s possible to leverage an initial advantage to gain further advantage (an obvious example would be the ability to lend money and collect interest where as the “shortstacks” in an economy have to borrow money and pay interest).

         Moreover, the inheritors of stolen money do enjoy clear advantages in certain zero-sum elements of the economy. If my parents can afford to live a a ritzy suburb with an excellent public school system, whereas your poverty forces you to live an a neighborhood with inadequate schools, then I will enjoy clear advantages when we compete for admission to elite universities or for the same job. Or more realistically, I won’t even have to worry about you competing against me because your chances will be so poor that you probably won’t even bother applying to Harvard.

         “in real life in a Western country it may not be so impossible, and not even be that dependent on luck, to start from very little wealth and go on to “win”, in some more modest sense of the word.”

         Think about what you’re saying here. It’s inarguable that being born with money provides huge advantages over those who are not. I actually think the poker analogy is quite apt here. It’s certainly possible for extremely luck and/or talented (usually both) short stacks to overcome a starting disadvantage and eventually outperform those who started with more chips, but their success is hardly proof that everyone began with equal opportunity.

         One might object that you may not in fact stand much chance in certain circumstances in terms of family, neighbourhood, education, culture etc; but this would then arguably be talking partly about Group-B-self-inflicted new Day C damage.

         This is the second time you’ve alluded to this argument without just coming out and saying it. I wish you would, because I don’t want to have to make assumptions about what you believe that may end up being inaccurate. For now, I’ll try to extent the analogy in this way:

         Some of the Day 2 Group B players, who see that they have been victims of a great injustice, simply give up. They see themselves with 8 or 10 BBs while many Group A players have 100 or 200, and they say to themselves, “How can I ever compete?” They go all-in blind. Many are eliminated, but many more double up and scrape by. They pass on this nihilistic attitude to their Day 3 inheritors, some of whom rise above it but many others of whom adopt it. Again, many end up playing poorly as a result.

         Certainly the Group B players who initially cultivated this attitude bear some blame for it. It seems obvious to me, though, the original crime and its perpetrators are also to blame for the attitude of hopelessness that it fostered.

         Even if someone is bad at poker, that doesn’t make it OK to steal his chips, and certainly if the act of stealing his chips leads him to play badly, then you can’t then point to the resulting bad play and say, “See? He has only himself to blame.”

         • You say others have pointed out a few problems with my argument already. Who? Preston and duggs have correctly noted that your argument does not depend on the zero-sum fallacy. I have not claimed otherwise, though. What I have argued is that the poker tournament analogy you choose for illustration is deeply flawed because it is based on the fallacy.

           Later, you quote my bit about a possibility in Western countries to start with little and still win, in a more modest sense of the word, and ask me to think about what I’m saying here. When you yourself thought about what I was saying, what did you assume could I have meant by “win, in some more modest sense of the word”? Maybe just surviving Day 3, a possible definition of “win” you yourself introduced in the previous-but-one paragraph? No, you choose to interpret “win” in the sense of “outperform”, which renders my statement indeed stupid. (What I meant was obviously a bit more than surviving; I meant basically having a fulfilled life — but not necessarily “outperforming” anyone.)

           Finally, you quote another bit and say “this is the second time you’ve alluded to this argument without just coming out and saying it. I wish you would”. What do you mean by “this argument”? That Group B has only itself to blame? I don’t believe that. That Group B has partly itself to blame? We both believe that: I agree when you say some “bear some blame” for a “nihilistic attitude”. You further leave absolutely no doubt that the attitude is a result of the initial Day A crime. I’m surprised that this should be so obvious, but you’re in a much better position to judge. However, could you give a (theoretical) example of something that Group B could do wrong that you would not blame on the initial crime (just to show that you don’t use some blame deflection wildcard here that you would always use)?

           • I suggested a modification to my analogy that would not make it dependent on the zero-sum nature of poker, and I also gave several examples of real-world zero-sum situations where descendants of slaves and descendants of beneficiaries of slavery (not necessarily slaveholders) compete and that inherited wealth makes a difference.

             Don’t Group B players deserve a chance at outperforming Group A players? If your point is just that the legacy of slavery doesn’t render black people’s lives hopeless and meaningless, OK yes I agree. Assuming we have a level playing field now, which I would disagree with, then over enough iterations of this game the effect of the stolen money would eventually evaporate, just as luck does in poker over the long run. Until that happens, however, Group B players face a structural disadvantage. In real-world terms, that means a long-standing black underclass, an outcome that is both bad for the people who occupy it and I would argue for our society as a whole. Social mobility and an equal opportunity are the promise of America.

             The argument I refer to is I presume some version of the “African-American culture don’t value academic success or stable families” argument (sorry if I’m characterizing it in a crass way, but this is why I would have preferred you to spell it out yourself). I’ll address this argument but ultimately I think that it doesn’t matter, because I think it’s a red herring. You might disagree with the choices that someone makes in his life, but that doesn’t give you the right to steal from him.

             I’m sure there are plenty of choices that individual African-Americans make that I would disagree with or that I would say contribute to that person’s failure to achieve the things he wants to achieve in life, whatever that may be. He’s responsible for those choices.

             When you start talking about “black culture” as a whole, it’s not really a choice that people make. There wasn’t a black caucus where they all got together and said “hey let’s decide not to value academic success!” To the extent that it makes sense to talk about a common black American culture at all, it has to do with common reactions to shared experiences, and the experience that all black Americans have in common is the experience of being black in America.

             I’ve worked in a number of different schools in several different cities, which schools served predominately poor and black student bodies. Had I attended those schools, I don’t think that I would have come out valuing academic success. There’s a lot about these schools that sends the message to students that their city and country doesn’t care about their education. In 2013 America, there shouldn’t be schools that are 90%+ black, and if there are, those schools shouldn’t be by most metrics the worst schools in the country.

             I’ve known extremely bright students at those schools who did value academic success, although I don’t really blame those who don’t (though I think it’s unfortunate and a bad outcome that I work to change). These very bright students did as well as they possibly could have at those schools, got great grades, participated in extracurricular activities, and there was still never any discussion of their applying to Harvard. From the moment they were born, there was very-close-to-literally nothing they could have done to be competitive in the admissions process at an elite university. I know one who got into the University of Chicago, my alma mater, because the U of C commits to admitting a certain number of CPS graduates every year. I very much doubt that she would have been admitted otherwise, and I guess there are people who think that’s unfair.

             Again though, I think that I could concede this entire point to you and it wouldn’t matter. I might think you’re bad at poker, but that doesn’t give me the right to steal your chips.

         • For the record, (I): If someone is bad at creating chips, I agree that doesn’t give you the right to hold on to chips that are rightfully theirs (let alone the right to, as you put it, steal their chips).

           Red herring? Regarding your ultimate point which I take to be nothing more than that, since wealth is inherited, the case for reparations doesn’t go away with generational change, yes, it’s a red herring. But think about it: if Group B chip stacks were higher today than those of Group A, then would you have posted this? I guess not. You posted it because Group B chip stacks are lower, on average. Potential alternative explanations for why they are so low are therefore not off-topic.

           Carlos’s new comment indicates that I was wrong about “gangsta rap”, perhaps not entirely wrong about accusations of “acting white”. I should have stayed out of this area entirely, though, since it deflects attention from my main quarry, the bad poker tournament analogy. You just said in another thread that appeals to emotion are a pet peeve of yours: the same for me, and appeals to bad intuitions (fixed pie we’re fighting over; zero-sum) are a similar sort of thing.

           For the record, (II): The possibility of everyone living a fulfilled life of their own is a rather important aspect of the real world that gets thoroughly lost in the poker tournament analogy. I brought it up to illustrate how bad the analogy is, not to imply that structural disadvantages or a long-standing underclass would be acceptable anywhere.

           • “You posted it because Group B chip stacks are lower, on average. Potential alternative explanations for why they are so low are therefore not off-topic.”

             It’s an argument that’s quite literally used in the real world to deflect attention away from any question of white responsibility for the current plight of black America. Here’s a comment that I got on the Card Player syndication of this post: “white people are not the problem today. the race hustlers are the problem black mailing the business people for their own well being and not the community. whitey is not forcing any of the problems in our cities. most of them are run by black mayors and council members. keep your kids in school off drugs and their pants on and in a couple of generations the problem will be solved.” The belief that black Americans would somehow have gone from nothing, which was literally what most had in 1865, to being on an equal footing with the rest of America by now sans some sort of moral corruption in black culture is ridiculous, but it’s the go-to argument for conservatives whenever there’s discussion of inequality, and it’s gotten a horrifying amount of traction. It seems to me nothing more than the latest instantiation of the “shiftless and lazy” stereotype.

             “The possibility of everyone living a fulfilled life of their own is a rather important aspect of the real world that gets thoroughly lost in the poker tournament analogy. I brought it up to illustrate how bad the analogy is, not to imply that structural disadvantages or a long-standing underclass would be acceptable anywhere.”

             There are people who manage to live “fulfilling lives” (let’s acknowledge that there’s plenty of hand-waving going on on both of our parts with regard to what exactly this means) under all sorts of horrifying conditions. That doesn’t justify the root cause of those conditions. Black Americans are significantly more likely to be homeless, to spend time in prison, to die young, and to lose a child to violence than are white Americans. Being born into poverty overwhelms any other possible causal explanation for these epidemics, and every single one of them is going to present a significant challenge to “living a fulfilled life”. The massive transfer of wealth from white to black hands is a direct cause of the disparity between black and white poverty rates.

7. FWIW, there’s an article in this/last week’s Economist on the same subject which argues that policy designed to tackle the issue of race is desirable, but that it should perhaps do so indirectly:
   http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583992-fifty-years-after-martin-luther-kings-speech-fixing-americas-racial-ills-requires-new

   I’m not sure that you even need historic causes of inequity for the [strike]moral[/strike] [strike]right[/strike] [strike]best[/strike] ???? policy to be one of intervention to challenge social inequality. In fact, the argument that wealth creation is possible and the size of the economy is not fixed could be used to argue that inequality of opportunity to some social group is a loss to all due to the consequent wasted talent. The relationship between social determinism and individual agency is a complex one.

   • Thanks, I’ll check that out. I agree that there many other arguments in favor of addressing contemporary inequality, but I thought this one might resonate especially well with poker players.

   • OK, read that article. I don’t think it really makes much of an argument at all. I guess the point is that race isn’t the problem anymore, and now the challenge is just to address policies that perpetuate poverty generally?

     They’re really cherry-picking the statistics they use to support that former point. There are still concerted efforts in this country to disenfranchise minority voters, and there are still places where high schools host two different proms, one for white students and one for black. There have been many improvements in the last 50 years, but I would argue they happened precisely because we made addressing race relations and racial inequality a priority. Given that many problems still persist, it doesn’t seem logical to me to say that the way forward now is to stop paying attention to the racialized elements of these larger problems.

     • I think it’s looking to more proximate causes of (specifically economic) contemporary racial inequality (and suggesting potential solutions which are perhaps tilted in the direction of the Economist’s own ideological priors). Whatever the ultimate causes of racial socio-economic inequality, it has to reproduce itself from generation to generation to persist. There’s been a fair bit in the press here recently about UK social mobility being low relative to Europe, and the US being lower still. By seeking to change that, you are arguably helping to reduce racial barriers, precisely because minorities are proportionately more likely to be on the wrong side of any divide.

8. Im not equipped to wade into this on an intellectual basis but I have lived the life. Having been there at many times of these marches and organized them I feel that I have learned one thing. That Dr Kings message was to urge us to solve issues of race relations, world peace, imperialism, and chauvinism together. As one common peoples. Ive been arrested in Los Angeles after being in Paris with a delegation of peace activists around the world urging resolution to the Vietnam war. Arrested in Washington DC at the Revolutionary Constitutional Convention. Been with the Asian Contingent in the 250, 000 people march against War and Poverty in San Francisco and in LA during the Chicano Moratorium.

   In each instance it was a call to work together with people of all races to find a solution to Racism, War, Poverty, etc. Working with the Asian American community we fought for reparations for Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during the war in internment camps. The community resolved its contradictions and decided to work together with all elements including those on the outside who supported our goals. We kept our eyes on the prize. From worker to professionals to the poor to housewives we all worked never failing to heed Dr Kings urgings of unity. We did get our reparations and that was a step to repair the hurt our community felt. If it wasn’t for these great movements for freedom we might not have gotten there.

   No one person can stand alone. No one person has to feel the guilt of privilege. No one person has to feel the need of making it over the backs of others. No one person has to feel he has to outwit his brother in order for him to succeed in this life. King gave his life for that belief. If we come together to repair the damage.

   Wether poker players can do that I don’t know. Wether society in 2013 can do it I don’t know. They have managed to kill those that led movements like King, Kennedy, Malcolm, Che, etc. to build better societies. Wall Street profiteers are let off from their crimes and even worshipped. Commercialism is lauded. Kardashian, Hilton, Cyrus, get bigger play now.
   We’ve kinda lost our way. But I think it has been by design.

   • Thanks, Keone. I’m glad you brought up the issue of reparations for the internment camps. It’s such an important precedent. Sadly, as I’m sure you’re aware but many others probably are not, the Supreme Court decision upholding the internment has never been overturned.

     • Yes but I don’t think that was imperative for us but the fact that there was a wrong done and some healing must happen. What gives us some sort of satisfaction, in my opinion, is the recognition of us as a people and the contributions we made to this country. I don’t think African Americans are more interested in exacting some form of revenge but a recognition of their great contribution to the development of our country. Which have been sorely erased from our history books. If it wasn’t for their labor, creativity, and genius we would not be the country we are today. In spite of what was done to them as a people.

       In that way we have all participated in that suppression. If whites think they are more Americans than the rest of us because they came over on the Mayflower then they are sadly mistaken. Don’t laugh. Often we are greeted with go back to China, go back to Africa, etc. No one ever says go back to Ireland, go back to Italy, go back to Germany, etc. Somehow when you think you are more deserving than others you play the game and you must accept the results.

       • People used to say go back to “Ireland, Italy, etc.”. Why don’t they now?

         • I cant remember the last time I heard somebody say go back to Africa either. I remember learning in school about NINA signs on help wanted ads that stood for No Irish Need Apply. I think the reason you dont hear that kind of stuff any more is that people back then were not embarrassed to be assholes in public. The few people like that who are still left just tell the Irish guy “I’m sorry, we’ve decided to go in a different direction.”

           • My opinion is that Irish and Italian immigrants have integrated themselves thoroughly enough that they aren’t singled out any more.

             • my opinion is that they look sufficiently similar its hard to tell. pretty easy to pick out chinese ancestry even with a perfect american accent.

             • Is your implication that African-Americans need to do the same? Because with a few exceptions, it’s generally been their white neighbors resisting the integration.

             • duggs,
               There are plenty of Italians and Irishmen that make their heritage known.

             • foucault,

               It is my opinion that separate is very rarely equal.

               I do think that full equality won’t come unless there is integration. Unfortunately, I don’t think our instincts for clannishness and sameness are going away.

               It is up to each community to decide what they want to strive for – integration and equality or separation and inequality (the inequality goes both ways – separation can also be an advantage).

               Classes with higher status will generally resist integration. It is not an easy road to integration and both sides have their part to play.

             • ” both sides have their part to play.”

               I feel like it’s more than a little disingenuous to act like this is a two-way street when there’s a long history of white Americans telling black Americans in no uncertain terms “we don’t want anything to do with you, don’t get too close, don’t touch me, don’t marry my daughter, don’t look me in the eye, don’t live near me, don’t sit near me, don’t use the same water fountain, etc.” Maybe I’m reading too much into your comments but it seems like you’re really wanting to emphasize that black Americans need to make an effort to integrate, and it’s not clear to me what exactly you think needs to happen or why the burden needs to be on them when white people seem to have done most of the keeping-at-arms’-length for most of the time that we’ve shared this country (and by shared I mean “both lived in”, not “divided equally”).

             • I think we make a mistake when we conflate oppression and equality.

               To me the goal is to get rid of oppression as much as possible.

               If full equality is the goal then it will only come with integration.

             • ” both sides have their part to play.” means BOTH sides. The burden is on everyone. Because white people have been the oppressors this is almost always discussed as something that has a one-sided solution. Yes, white people have a greater responsibility but not the sole responsibility.

               We have made huge strides in the last several decades in reducing oppression and being more open to integration. This needs to continue. I do think that no matter what happens it is going to take another several decades before oppression is at an acceptably low level. Lots of people experienced segregation and open racism first-hand. Considering how bad it was not very long ago I think we’ve made remarkable progress.

               This is a very complicated, nuanced, and charged topic. I haven’t written enough words on here to get my view across. 8)

               The most important thing I wanted to add in this vein of the conversation is the difference between oppression and equality. I think they are importantly different but almost always treated as the same thing in this context.

               It is my understanding that Italians and Irishmen were at one time oppressed. They don’t seem to be today. IMO this is because they integrated. I’m sure this was resisted by the advantaged classes at the time. It would be useful to understand this better IMO.

               Other classes, possibly some immigrants from Asia or some Jews, have not fully integrated but are not generally considered disadvantaged or oppressed. I think it is perfectly fine to integrate or not – this is up to the individual people and they should do what they want. How have they avoided oppression? This is something else that would be good to better understand.

               If a class does not fully integrate there will always be some issues with oppression and prejudice. People are naturally clannish. We should do what we can to avoid this but from a high level it is always going to be there and we shouldn’t expect perfect equality without integration because it isn’t the expected result. (I think this applies to nationalism as well but that’s another topic!)

               Not integrating can also have advantages. Some classes have been more ‘successful’ without integrating. They may also have a different value system that optimizes for different things – happiness instead of money for example.

           • I hear that tish a lot. Particularly with our people. The fact is Asians have been here for 200 years even fought in the civil war and we still today are considered foreigners in our own country. People aren’t trying to be assholes. They take asshole attitudes because they think they are entitled. The fact is no Germans or Italians as a group were incarcerated during WW2 but my people were. Why? Race. My people fought in the great war for their home country, the US. They gave their lives and when they came back they still had to prove they were just as equals as anyone else.
             This still permeates today. Ive been asked what country Im from enough times to know.
             When you ask me that question you are saying you have more privileges than me. That I belong to group B.
             So whether there is inequality on the felt or on the field we deal with it in 2 ways. With the people united against injustice or development of the individual that surpasses oppression.

             • [quote] Ive been asked what country Im from enough times to know.

               When you ask me that question you are saying you have more privileges than me. That I belong to group B. [/quote]

               When I’ve asked people where they are from it is because I’m interested in culture and I’m interested in them. Kind of like I might ask what they do for a living, what school they went two, or where they grew up.

               I’ve learned that some people take offense at it though so I don’t ask any more.

               What if someone of lower socio-economic status asks you where you are from? Are they holding it over you?

               Of course there are times when the question is asked derogatorily but I don’t see how it is an inherently derogatory question.

             • IMO, the important thing is to be humble, respectful, and considerate of other people’s feelings on the matter, even (especially?) if you disagree. I’m pretty sure I’ve offended people with this sort of question as well, and while I hope that other things about me convey that I don’t intend it in a bad way, the fact remains that it’s a question that can make people uncomfortable, so I’ve learned either to avoid it or to be tactful about it. I think it’s possible to convey to someone “you don’t fit in here” even if it isn’t your intention to do so.

             • I don’t think that question means people think they have more privileges or are holding it over some one. It just means that they assume that unless you look white or black, then you must be from another country. If we truly were a melting pot, that would not be the case. I had a similar experience when I met people who were 100% Jamaican with the accent and everything, but they looked Asian. They had never been anywhere else their entire lives and they were like 60 years old.

               Imagine if you are white and a black person asked you what country you were from. That would seem a little weird because people just assume you’re American if you’re white or black, but not if you’re “Asian”. Not that people are trying to be mean when they ask stuff like this. I just think that due to our history, minorities can be a little sensitive sometimes and that’s understandable.

               It was weird for me when a Canadian asks me what my nationality was. I said American with a puzzled look on my face (again, seemed obvious since I am black, but probably a standard question for Asian Americans). Then he blew me away when he said, “no I mean where is your family from originally?”. I told him I had no idea (somewhere in Africa I assume) and was shocked he didn’t know I wouldn’t have a clue. But in Canada, they don’t teach about American slavery in detail. He just assumed I would know if I was from Ghana or Mali or something. Not to compare tragedies or anything, but I don’t know how many other groups have had their entire history erased like that. This makes me wonder if most non-black Americans know which country their ancestors are from or if other non-Americans know that black people don’t know this information.

             • That’s really interesting. I’ve heard some other African-Americans (including either Key or Peele, I forget which – does that make me racist?) talk about how refreshingly different they found Canadian attitudes towards race. That said, I’m sure the Great White North isn’t entirely without problems of its own.

             • Also, I did some research after keone said that no groups of Germans or Italians were incarcerated during WWII. This made me wonder why. I found out that in fact, large numbers of them were interned or although not as many as Japanese Americans. I don’t know if this was due to racism or Pearl Harbor, but it’s telling that I never even wondered about or heard about internment of German/Italian Americans until now. Also, Japanese Americans actually got some form of reparations, because they chose to fight for it whereas the other 2 groups didn’t according to my research. I am shocked to learn that. It’s a testament to Andrew’s argument that change comes from effort and not because people will just randomly decide to do the right thing eventually.

             • Hardly fair to call that my argument. 🙂 I cribbed it from MLK, but probably it wasn’t original to him either.

9. Good job putting your thoughts out there, just a quick disclaimer that I am not from the USA so any omissions/naivety of US history that is relevant isnt intended to be offensive.

   While I think that descendants of slaves are a somewhat extraordinary case, and steps should be taken to ensure proper compensation, I shy away from directly redistributing wealth from the descendants of slave owners as this seems overly punitive. I would much rather that society as a whole shares the cost of correcting the wrongs done by its citizens (legally I may add, so by extension done by the government.) The easiest way to do this is through taxes based on income.

   I dont think the position minorities find themselves in should only be fixed because of past injustices, it should be the mandate of any government and by extension society to give all its members the same quality of life, security and freedom. It’s not immediately clear to me why descendants of slaves are any more deserving of support than descendants of slave owners who find themselves in similar economic hardships.

   I’m also interested if this feeling of responsibility only applies to your country, or do you find Germany responsible for any economic hardship countries found themselves in following WWII?

   • I should add that here in NZ will we didn’t have slaves, The indigenous people were still screwed over, the way that grievances from the indigenous people were dealt with was via a tribunal set up by the Govt which was allocated a special budget, and land to give compensation to the tribes that brought forward their claims. A similar system in the US, although much larger in scale is certainly feasible.

     • Thanks for the comments, duggs. As I’m sure you’re aware, the indigenous people of the US were certainly victims of great crimes as well. I chose to make my argument vis-a-vis African-Americans only because the March of Washington anniversary was the occasion for my post.

       • Oh I wasn’t trying to divert the subject of the post, merely offering potential structures for nationwide renumeration.

10. I have enjoyed this conversation and learned a lot. I particularly liked Andrew’s point that just because the playing field is somewhat more level now and some of us make very bad choices today, this does not mean that something should not be done about the fact that labor was stolen from our great great great grandfathers. My point is that the advocates of doing something about it, cannot do anything about it (at least not on a widespread scale) and so the whole thing ends up as a circular intellectual debate while we continue to drown in the results.

    To Andrew’s other point about poor schools, I was salutatorian in my high school but even so, I can only understand all this shit yall are saying through intense focus and rereading. I would write like this if I was doing a thesis, but if this is how the good school teach people to discuss a topic on an internet forum then, yeah my ass is definitely behind. I just laughed out loud at the observation that there is not one instance of lol on this page.

    But seriously, after all this discussion about zero sum fallacies and red herrings, I am still left with the question “So what?” I still have to deal with the fact I am only one of the few that has semi made it in my family. I just spent the day with my niece who told me there are 40 kids in her 10th grade classes. I would be shocked if 10 of them learned anything. My friend, who I took to lunch a few days ago, is a nurse who has been out of work for 2 months. She’s got some interviews lined up for this week though. My mother cleans at a nursing home and she told me about how the new management has cut back hours. My best friend lives in a nice house and works as an underwriter for HUD. She can barely afford this house and I am in the process of trying to show her how her goal of buying a brand new car in 2 years is probably stupid. And these are examples of the people that somewhat successful. I dont even wanna get started on the ones who have given up like my father (who is a deadbeat dad) and my older brother (who is not far from the same). Both of them are alcoholics who have never moved out of their mother’s house. One is 54 years old and the other is 33 and following in the foot steps of a father he doesn’t even know.

    I could have been just like him. I chose not to partly because I was told I was “gifted” in school and had a way out. I will say this accounted for maybe 20% of what saved me. But you know what really helped? The so called “gangsta rap” culture. More specifically Tupac Shakur. He gave me extreme confidence and talked to me about the things that a dad should talk to his son about. I was pretty good in school and was called “white boy” because of it. After I fell in love with rap, the bullies understood that yeah I’m in the honor’s class but if you keep messing with me, I’m going to break your fuckin jaw. I haven’t had many problems since. 2pac taught me that yeah things were messed up, but I was not a victim unless I chose to be. I started looking at “the hood” and school as games and decided to beat both of them.

    So after all the intellectual discussions that have happened since the turn of the 20th century to now, not much has been done. In the end, we still have to save ourselves. I’ll keep spending my time looking for a way to do that and talking to my loved ones about how they can do the same. For me, poker may be a viable option. If I build slowly and continue to learn along the way, then maybe I can use that money to build businesses that will make things better for myself and my immediate family. Also, I will continue to teach what I have learned to other like me who are willing to try. That’s my solution. I am still not sure what to do for those of us who aren’t willing to try. They first need to be inspired like I was by people like Tupac and MLK (same sentence, yeah I said it). If I ever get on a big enough stage, maybe that inspiration will be me.

    • Carlos,

      You’re talking to a 2004 National Catholic Forensics League Grand Tournament octofinalist. Not just any white guy can debate like that!

      Despite what the name of that tournament implies, I attended a public school in Baltimore county. We were just over the county line, and perhaps 20% of the students were black, but you wouldn’t have known it from my classes. I imagine it was a better than average public school, especially if you were able to get your kid into the “gifted and talented” track, but it was nowhere near the top. The thing that really launched my intellectual career was debate, which is also what exposed me to arguments like the ones I’ve made here.

      Probably more to be rebellious than anything, I was an outspoken conservative as a teenager. I blame my being allowed to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged at an impressionable age. Through debate, I encountered Derrick Bell (the guy I recommended to you on Twitter) and similar writers who challenged my beliefs about race and about wealth distribution.

      Ayn Rand’s argument is that although the child doesn’t have any inherent right to inherit wealth, the parent’s absolute right to do what he wants with his property is what allows him to pass on that wealth and those rights to his children if he chooses. The problem is that if you follow that chain back, you realize that at some point, at least in America, most of that wealth was stolen. So then what grounds the right to inherit it?

      This eventually led to my devoting a significant amount of time, energy, and money to bringing the same activity that changed my life to kids to whom I felt I owed a debt. I don’t deceive myself into thinking that that created any kind of large-scale change, but I know that it did change a lot of individual lives for the better. Debate was one way of inspiring students who had written off academics, and creating a cultural shift at the schools where we work by recruiting a critical mass of students for the debate team is now one of the stated goals of the Boston Debate League.

      I think that if more white people could be convinced to take seriously their responsibility (and I do think of it in those terms, even though to my knowledge all of my great grandparents immigrated to the US after the end of slavery) for the problems that plague so many black communities today, or at least to stop acting like black communities themselves are some sort of contamination risk that must be kept from spreading their problems into the larger society (hence gated communities, mass incarceration, stop-and-frisk, segregation of schools and neighborhoods, etc), it would make a difference.

      I take your point to be that you have your hands full dealing with these problems yourself and thus no time to spare for shaking your fist at the injustice of it. All the more reason, then, for a white person to do the work of trying to convince other white people, right? That said, I think you did a fine job of it yourself here 😉

      • “The problem is that if you follow that chain back, you realize that at some point, at least in America, most of that wealth was stolen.”

        That is a huge statement that I think you will struggle to reconcile with any sort of data. The vast majority of household wealth has been created in the last 50yrs, it was neither stolen or inherited.

        The aggregate value of slave labour as a proportion of current “white” household wealth would be small. Dividing that monetary amount by the number of heirs would make any reparation a derisory amount and almost impossible to calculate on the individual level.

        What you really appear to be asking for is reparation for lack of participation in economic and social progress. That is much harder to judge, and part of the reason the fixed pie fallacy is such a problem with your analogy.

        The economy is nothing like a poker tournament. The economic success of the past has built massive infrastructure, both public and private in addition to large public institutions. The vast majority of people on the planet would choose to born in the USA if they could, that is an advantage shared by all of the population, but completely absent from any look at inequality. Particularly when one looks at national statistics, as they effectively remove the baseline from the discussion. If I remember correctly the top 10% of households in the US pay almost 70% of the total tax take, and if anything this proportion has been about that level for the last few decades. Those that have benefited the most from the “system” have certainly paid the most, and it isn’t clear that it is at the expense of others.

        As a broader point you suggest that inherited wealth is unfair, what about inherited beauty? Drive? Intelligence? Some parents invest a lot in their children’s education, having parents that read to you as a child and spend time talking to you has a gigantic impact on your educational achievement. Does a parent making that time investment in their child do it at the expense of other children?

        Personally I think the much more persuasive argument is tax reform. It is a lot easier to argue that earnt income should be taxed at a lower rate than inherited income.

        • ““The problem is that if you follow that chain back, you realize that at some point, at least in America, most of that wealth was stolen.”

          That is a huge statement that I think you will struggle to reconcile with any sort of data. The vast majority of household wealth has been created in the last 50yrs, it was neither stolen or inherited.

          The aggregate value of slave labour as a proportion of current “white” household wealth would be small. Dividing that monetary amount by the number of heirs would make any reparation a derisory amount and almost impossible to calculate on the individual level.”

          Sorry, I didn’t do a good job of distinguishing these. I didn’t mean to imply that the vast majority of wealth in America is a product of slavery. This was in the context of talking about my disillusionment with Ayn Rand, who argues that property rights are absolute and inviolable. She grounds this argument in the claim that someone gave of his own labor and/or creative genius to create that property, and that he can pass it on to whomever he pleases. The problem is that if you were to trace back the flow of money through all the hands it’s passed through, I think you’d find some sort of transfer that even Rand would consider illegitimate. So what then grounds this absolute and inviolable property right?

          Basically, she argues for an extreme capitalism on moral grounds. Although she also thinks it produces good outcomes, her main point is that it doesn’t matter. No one has a right to tell anyone what to do with his property ever, no matter how good the cause might be. If you take away the absolutist moral grounding of the argument, then it just becomes a pragmatic one: property rights might be a useful tool for organizing society, but they aren’t inviolable, and they have to justify themselves as more useful than the alternatives.

          “What you really appear to be asking for is reparation for lack of participation in economic and social progress. That is much harder to judge, and part of the reason the fixed pie fallacy is such a problem with your analogy.”

          My point with the analogy is to say that even if you believe that all injustices committed against African-Americans are “behind us” and, formally speaking, they now have just as much opportunity to “make something of themselves” as any white American, the legacy of slavery still hinders their ability to compete. I’ve given several examples of zero-sum competitions (college admissions, hiring) for which this is relevant. I think it’s important to take that into account when we talk about the extent to which individuals are responsible for the circumstances in which they find themselves, when we discuss preferential hiring or admissions practices, when we discuss punishment vs rehabilitation for certain types of criminal offenses, etc. More than anything, I want to refute the “it was in the past, time to forget about it and move on” argument that crops up in so many different forms, and I thought this was a way of framing the issue that would resonate with poker players, who in my experience tend to skew conservative on issues like this without having thought about them too deeply. I still don’t see how the fact that the economy isn’t a fixed pie undermines any of what I just said.

          “As a broader point you suggest that inherited wealth is unfair, what about inherited beauty? Drive? Intelligence? Some parents invest a lot in their children’s education, having parents that read to you as a child and spend time talking to you has a gigantic impact on your educational achievement. Does a parent making that time investment in their child do it at the expense of other children?”

          Of course, that’s why they do it. They want their child, and by extension not someone else’s child, to get into the best preschool, kindergarten, private school, college, law school, investment bank, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as everyone has an equal opportunity to do it.

          I also think it’s worth distinguishing between inherited advantages gained purely through luck of the draw, so to speak (eg attractiveness or drive), and those gained through a crime (eg slavery, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, etc.). White children born today, even those whose ancestors didn’t participate directly in these crimes, are more likely than black children to inherit any kind of wealth (meaning even a modest house or a college savings account, not necessarily millions of dollars), and this is a result of the structural disadvantages under which their ancestors had to compete. The whole idea of American (as opposed to Randian, which wouldn’t care about the outcome) capitalism is founded on the premise that when you have competition, the cream will rise to the top. The smartest kids will get into the best schools and therefore receive the best educations enabling them to do great things that improve the lot of the entire country. But when millions of kids enter the game at a disadvantage, the meritocracy doesn’t play out that way, and instead you get tons of talent that is never cultivated and massive amounts of educational resources, not quite wasted, but not invested as well as they could have been because they aren’t going to the people who could actually do the most with them.

          Towards your point about estate tax reform, I certainly agree with that and think it could be the most practical solution to this problem. Although it would be equally fair, I’m not familiar with any poker tournament where players start with randomly determined stack sizes. In other words, every tournament I know of gives players, for example, 30K chips for $100, rather than some random amount of chips such that the mean of the entire field of starting stacks is 30K. As long as each player had an equal chance of getting a big or small stack, this isn’t intrinsically unfair to anyone, but I don’t imagine it would be a popular idea. Yet this is the game we play in America, where the circumstances of your birth determine a lot about your opportunities. Social mobility is something that, as I understand it, America has generally prided itself on doing better than its European ancestors, and I think that doing something about inherited wealth would go a long ways towards realizing that ideal.

          • You’ve convinced me by now that, contrary to your initial disclaimer (“I get that an economy is not a zero-sum thing”), your thinking is dominated by the fixed-pie fallacy. Here you explicitly endorse the view that when a parent reads to their child he/she does it at the expense of other children. As for your job example, notice that the amount of work available is not a fixed pie (that’s called the “lump of labour fallacy”). Even looking only at one particular job offer right here right now (which is myopic anyway), there are instances where a job remains unfilled for lack of a suitable candidate, or conversely where more candidates are hired than originally planned. And the supply of education is not fixed either. The only zero-sum aspect I would concede is when you speak of “elite” universities, since prestige/status is indeed zero-sum.

            “The problem is that if you follow that chain back, you realize that at some point, at least in America, most of that wealth was stolen.”

            You say you didn’t mean to imply here that the vast majority of wealth in America is a product of slavery, but what else could this refer to? In any case the sentence just screams fixed-pie fallacy whatever the context.

            “Ayn Rand […] argues that property rights are absolute and inviolable. She grounds this argument in the claim that someone gave of his own labor and/or creative genius to create that property, and that he can pass it on to whomever he pleases. The problem is that if you were to trace back the flow of money through all the hands it’s passed through, I think you’d find some sort of transfer that even Rand would consider illegitimate.”

            So if someone creates wealth and passes it on, we can find an illegitimate transfer by “tracing back the flow of money”? I don’t quite understand what you’re saying here but it’s probably a confusion between money and wealth, the core of the fixed-pie fallacy: see my original comment.

            Finally, you insisted to me that your point about reparations is unaffected by the fixed-pie fallacy (and by a “red herring” I brought up). But BRaven says that, if you take into account that most of today’s household wealth is quite newly created, any reparation would be a derisory amount. I’m not quite sure from your reply whether you challenge this statement, but if not then I wonder what is left at all of the arguments in your original post?

            • Maybe I’m still not understanding your argument, but just because it isn’t zero-sum doesn’t mean it isn’t competitive. Consider three “worlds”:

              A) No one reads to their children
              B) Everyone reads to their children
              C) Some people read to their children

              Everyone is better off in B than in A (ie it’s not zero-sum, everyone can do better in some worlds than in others, and yes I can see how the poker tournament analogy distorts this). However, I do believe that although B is overall a better world than C, there are people, namely those who are read to, who are better off in C than in B. And those who aren’t read to are worse off in C than in B, even though they are getting the same amount of reading in both worlds. There are plenty of ways in which better-educated people leverage that education to benefit themselves at the expense of others, poker being one example with which we’re all familiar.

              Perhaps you’re old enough to remember the 1983 “A Nation at Risk” report that threw the US into a panic because our students seemed to be underperforming compared to those in other countries. The reaction wasn’t “Oh super those Japanese kids are really smart, that will mean a better world for all of us!” It was “Oh shit we are falling behind the Japanese if we don’t turn our schools around we are going to lose our dominance in the global economy!” There are clear economic advantages to being among the most well-educated, and there are two ways to get your kids to that point: educate your own kid, or deny education to others.

              To be clear, I’m not saying anyone is a bad person for wanting to give their kids the best education they can. I just think everyone should have a roughly equal chance to do that, and right now there is a very clear pattern where the descendants of slaves are much less likely than the average American to have this sort of access.

              I really am open to being convinced otherwise – you’ve already convinced me that my original analogy was sloppy with regard to this point. But you’re going to have to be a little more specific than just repeating “fixed-pie fallacy” over and over again. Demonstrating why my example above is wrong would be a good place to start.

              • Everyone is better off in B than in A, so you have disproved the fixed-pie fallacy. But my previous post came from a renewed suspicion that you’re not immune to the fallacy, so I counted down examples. Naturally, the term fixed-pie fallacy got repetitive.

                Whether the other two comparisons hold (I think “worse off in C than in B” should read “worse off in C than in A”) depends on the balance between competition and cooperation. If your competitor for a place in the best university hasn’t been read to as a child, that’s good for you, since there can be only one best university (zero-sum). If your doctor hasn’t been read to, that’s not good for you. Certainly I can see now how your view “a parent reading to their child does it at the expense of other children” is in fact nuanced, but to support it you would have to prove that competition outweighs cooperation. My starting point, by contrast, was only that competition is by far not all there is, unlike in the poker tournament analogy.

                The Wikipedia site of “A Nation at Risk” says that the educational scores of American children went down in absolute (not just relative) terms. Also, part of the reaction was probably specific to a country that locates itself at the top of the world (zero-sum). In any case, whose reaction are you referring to? We would need to look at the reaction not of the majority or of politicians but of people who know and understand the fixed-pie fallacy.

            • “But BRaven says that, if you take into account that most of today’s household wealth is quite newly created, any reparation would be a derisory amount. I’m not quite sure from your reply whether you challenge this statement, but if not then I wonder what is left at all of the arguments in your original post?”

              I’m not arguing for reparations specifically. I say that in the OP. My point is just that white Americans need to acknowledge this as a problem for which we are at least as responsible as black Americans for finding a solution. The status quo is not fine the way it is, and if we aren’t happy with the solutions that have been proposed so far, then we have an obligation to keep looking.

              The Ayn Rand point is a tangent that’s not worth exploring. My comment makes sense only if you’re familiar with her very specific and unconventional moral justification for an extreme capitalism.

11. Nice post, Andrew.

    The thing I think you need to address more clearly is the inherent deficiency of the status quo. You seem to be arguing that “because X and Y aren’t equal due to an unjust past, and X and Y should normatively be equal due to our collective moral/ethical beliefs, then the status quo policy regarding X and Y is not optimal.”

    That’s not inherently true. And I think the status quo on racial issues in America gets (something of) a bad rap. Let’s take the following premises:

    1. The material/educational/social conditions for African-Americas have changed for the better of the past 50 years, basically on a continuously improving line. Anyone assessing current African-American conditions should not be pleased if they are compared to current conditions for whites, but should be able to see clear progress if compared to African-American conditions in 1965, 1980, or 1995.

    2. We have littler reason to believe such improvements will not continue going forward. While its true that the current recession has impacted minorities more than whites, that tends to be a class thing, not a race thing. Given that generational replacement is clearly trading out negative racist views for less-negative ones, we have every reason to believe that progress — albeit slow progress — will continue.

    If those things are true, then the status quo is a net positive for African-Americans. Thing are getting better, in both the short term and the long term. Not as quickly as one would hope, and certainly not with any equality endpoint in sight, but at least heading the correct direction.

    Given that, I don’t think the burden is on the status quo to defend itself. I think the burden is on an alternative public policy to show that it strictly dominates the status quo. I believe those alternative public policies probably exist, but it’s not an airtight case in my mind. And to the degree that they do exist, my hunch is that they tend to be alternative policies that aren’t specifically based on race.

    There are lots and lots of policies that are helpful in the short-term but might be harmful in the long-run, relative to the status quo, if only due to hostility from whites about the short-term policies. That can manifest itself as furthering cultural racism, or it can manifest itself in more insidious ways, such as opposition to policies that help the poor in general, or by exacerbating the racialization of conservative political parties.

    Finally, I think it’s important to remember that, generally speaking, there are ways to help African-Americans and other minorities that aren’t explicitly racial. Given that African-Americans are disproportionately poor relative to white Americans, the graduated income tax combined with redistributive social programs *inherently* helps African-Americans in a disproportionate manner (so long as the program isn’t administered in a racist way). Given that, you can help African-Americans simply by supporting a more progressive tax structure and more generous redistribution of resources to the poor. I think this is probably both more efficient, more realistic, and perhaps more desirable than targeted race-conscious ideas.

    I certainly don’t want to come across as opposed to your original column. I concur with its assessment of the situation. It’s just not obvious to me that the solution is further exploration of race-conscious public policies. That strikes me, at best, to be a pipe dream right now, and at worst potentially a long-term negative relative to the status quo. On the other hand, I see plenty of room for achieving improved conditions for African-Americans by improving the general conditions of the working class and the impoverished.

    m

    • I know this wasn’t for me, but I hope it’s ok that I interject to say what I think I have learned from this conversation.

      Before hearing Andrew’s POV on this topic, I would have had a similar argument. That is, “whatever we come up with to do nationally probably wont fix the problem, therefore we probably aren’t going to do anything nationally.” (and so I will do my part individually.)

      I think we are on the same page there, although I disgree somewhat with your point that current African-American conditions are better. In some areas this is true, but it can be argued that we were better off before the 1980s when the US government allowed Contras to market crack in poor neighborhoods. It’s funny that we let them give poor people a highly profitable product to sell and then we blame the poor people for selling it.

      However, what I have learned from Andrew is that this is a separate issue. Many people argue that the status quo is not so bad (in many ways, I agree), but this does not change the underlying fact that wealth was taken from a group of men and women and it has never been returned to their would be heirs and this has led to widespread social problems for those heirs. Even if African-American conditions were perfect today, that fact would still be true. I believe that Andrew is saying that even though we may not be able to do much about the symptoms, we can do something about the cause. Even if that something is just acknowledging that it is the cause of those symptoms.

      • Yes, thank you for saying that more clearly than I have. Even if we decide that it’s simply not feasible to make restitution for slavery and subsequent crimes now, we should acknowledge that the descendants of slaves are essentially being asked to “take one for the team.” We’re saying that we acknowledge they have a legitimate claim, but it’s simply not one we can pay, and for the sake of social stability we hope they will agree to accept that and move forwards with us. Trying to put myself in the shoes of one of the people asked to make that concession, I can imagine it would be very important to me to have the legitimacy of my claim acknowledged and to know that we would proceed with a genuine desire to minimize the hardships that this bargain imposes on me, rather than acting as though those hardships were entirely my fault.

      • Not saying that this is the right thing or enough but I thought it was interesting…

        http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93059465

        • Agreed. I think it’s also a good example of what Matt Glassman was saying. Personally I think it was a good acknowledgement to make, but as I recall it was a polarizing issue that probably resulted in some backlash and of course it’s purely symbolic.

    • Thanks, Matt, for a very thoughtful post. In terms of what to do about it, see my response to Carlos above about asking African-Americans to “take one for the team.” My point isn’t that African-Americans are worse off now than they were 50 years ago, but rather that they are worse off than they would have been had newly freed slaves been compensated for their stolen labor. That’s enough for me to think that there is some inherent injustice in the status quo that, when we tell the current victims of that injustice simply to wait because things will get better eventually, we are asking them to live with.

      As for the progress of the last 50 years, which I agree continues in the status quo, that’s been the result of people advocating for equality. It’s not some natural and inevitable change that happens independently of our struggle for it. To stop doing the things that create that progress would be like quitting your job and expecting to keep collecting the paycheck.

      • I agree with pretty much all of this, particularly the idea that any gains made were on the back of people fighting for them. There’s certainly no free lunch, and I would encourage you or anyone else to continue to press this sort of case in the public sphere. It’s the only way to make things happen.

        However.

        From a practical political point of view, I don’t see this as a fruitful avenue to take. While I do think getting people to understand the underlying concept that the legacy of slavery/segregation/etc. is a prime contributor to current African-American conditions is a worthwhile and noble intellectual goal, it strikes me as more or less a dead end as a way toward political solutions. Not just because you have the tricky problem of picking and choosing among the disadvantaged and/or weighing the various claims of historical disadvantage, but because racism *still* exists. I think this problem is a heck of a lot easier if it’s *truly* a historical injustice that has no cache in the present.

        For an example close to my heart, imagine left-handers were systematically poorer because of how our ancestors were treated in the 19th century. Perhaps some sort of compensation could be determined that would undo the disadvantages. And imagine you could get it through the majority right-handed Congress. Seems like it might be helpful. But a key reason it might be helpful is that very few people currently have hostility toward lefties.

        Not so with African-Americans. Therefore, you have to deal with a basic problem of politics: interests and voting constituencies create policies, but policies also create interests and voting constituencies. Forget the impossibility of passing any sort of reparations right now; instead, imagine the consequences! It strikes me that one immediate consequence would be the radicalization of whatever conservative political party existed on the dimension of race, and the cultural transformation of a large number of politically moderate whites into anti-African American policies, if not latent (or outright) racists.

        That’s why I think it’s better to aim for two goals: one, as I stated, is the general goal of aiding the working class and the impoverished, which by its nature is something like a hidden racial transfer payment, since African-Americans are disporportionately poor and/or working class, meaning they will pay less share of a more progressive taxation scheme and receive more benefits of a more progressive redistributive scheme. This also has the virtue of not asking why someone is disadvantaged; there are many, many poor people who got where they are by historical forces we would consider neither moral or in their control. Why pick and choose.

        Second, we need to end contemporary racism, period. Most of the work for this is being done by the graveyards. Some of it is being done by schools. But the most important thing is for each and every one of us to make a firm commitment to not only treat everyone as an individual, but not tolerate racism in our presence, period. Regardless of how mild it is, speak up. Once contemporary racism recedes — and I have no doubt that generational replacement is hastening the cause — policies that aid African-Americans will be (1) more politically viable; (2) less prone to backlash; and (3) less enormous in needed scope, because not all of the problem is slavery’s or segregation’s legacy. Some of it is contemporary racism.

        I sympathize with people who want massive direct aid/change now. How the fuck am I helping them, here and now? It’s tough. But I don’t think race conscious policies — be it affirmative action or reparation or whatever — get nearly close to the bang for the buck that people think they do. They provide tiny symptomatic relief to the problem. But they also contribute to the underlying illness that is causing the problem. On balance, I don’t think it’s worth it.

        m

12. Japanese Americans were rounded up because of an Executive Order 9066 by then President Franklin D Roosevelt. Many people were interned but you cant equate that with us because there was a direct order by the Federal Government to imprison us because of race. Its ridiculous that we have to have that explained again and I have nothing more to say about that. Its like the White guy complaining about reverse racism. Yeah ok if that’s how you view it fine.

13. Rant let me explain it to you this way.

    White Guy who I just met
    Say what country are you from.

    ME Huh? Why?

    WG You know what country are you from?

    ME Uh here I was born here.

    WG but what country are you from

    ME America

    WG OK What country are your parents from

    ME America

    WG yeah but what country are you REALLY from

    ME America.

    WG How do you say “its raining” in Japanese.

    ME Google it mofo.

    • barring the last line, ever wonder if he is asking your ethnicity but has a limited vocabulary?

      • Oh God, never mind.

      • Oh God never mind

    • He is almost certainly asking your ethnicity.

      You should obviously ask him what country he is from. 8)

      Do you think he is putting himself above you? Why?

      • If I asked you this question with 3 little words-“Are you Stupid?”. Do you think I would be asking for your Intelligence Quotient? Or your GPA? Or your SAT scores? Or what level of college you last attended? No you would think something not as naïve as that.
        When someone says to me “What COUNTRY are you from?”. They are objectifying me and saying I am a foreigner. That you are different from me. That I am the other”. With that comes a lot of questions. Like Why are you here? or When do you plan to go back? or What is your status as a visitor? Do you have a green card? or Are you on a student visa? or Do you know any Asian women I can meet? Don’t laugh. This has all been asked of me and many of my ilk.
        It is an elitism where you think you are better than me or that you have rights that I obviously wouldn’t have if I was a foreigner.
        This is why we reject totally the work ORIENTAL. It means a person from the East. East of what? East of you? And you are the Center? When Asian kingdoms originate 1000s of years before yours. Youre the center? That’s a bit xenophobic if not chauvinistic. But nevertheless I am you. I am one of yours and you are one of mine. Can you dig?

        If this “other” concept continues we will never be united as a people. This is the reason why so many hate OJ for murder when they can excuse Trayvon’s death as a mistake. The fact that scores of men of color were lynched because they looked or whistled at a white woman still lives in that contradiction as to how we judge “others”.
        This is why poker is so great. Because my set overcomes your TPTK has nothing to do with politics . And we can judge on the cards itself instead of some chauvinistic notion of superiority unless you make it so.

        • maybe its because I’m not American, and come from a country where literally everyone is an immigrant or descended from relatively recent ones, but the question “what country are you from?” from doesn’t carry any of the implications of “are you stupid?”.

        • keone –

          Your responses sound very, very insecure.

          The comparison between “Are you stupid?” and “What country are you from?” is absurd unless you somehow think that your country of origin is a negative thing like being stupid obviously would be.

          I have no doubt that you are sometimes asked where you are from in a derisive way but I find it hard to believe that it is usually intended negatively.

          People are self-centered. People are clannish. People notice things that are different from themselves. I unfortunately don’t think these things are going to change.

          Give people a chance to be honestly interested in you. Be proud of who you are and your family history. There is no shame in it. We should ridicule the people who try to put down different classes. They should be treated as the arrogant fools that they are.

14. “My point isn’t that African-Americans are worse off now than they were 50 years ago, but rather that they are worse off than they would have been had newly freed slaves been compensated for their stolen labor.”

    Andrew, the above is a HUGE stretch by any measure. There has been ample evidence of an overabundance of wealth being dropped into unprepared hands being a waste.

    Do star athletes of today handle wealth well? ESPN did a story “Broke” about this very subject.

    I would think that class is the biggest dividing line for schools. The poor stay because they have or perceive few options. Richer neighbors leave. Perhaps it is race related, but I find few middle and upper income blacks living in the ghetto. (but I am not looking that hard). Have you found many middle class blacks living in Baltimore’s poor areas? (if enough stayed, would the areas still be considered poor?)

    One thing I struggle with is the way we use today’s perceptions to color the past. Today, we consider it brutal, what before was common. Slaves were accepted for centuries, not just in the US, but even before the bible. Would not the world owe the “have-nots” for all the “haves” now have?

    • What? Do you think they would have bought a bunch of gold chains and Jordans? My guess would be that a lot of the makers of frivolous items would not have wanted to do business with black people any way and even if they did, parents with starving children would have made better decisions than that. And not all abolitionist were unprepared. I am sure they would have been willing to advise the unprepared ones. When a group of people are being murdered by terrorists, they tend to stick together and follow the capable leaders. (remember 9/11?)

      I am sure there are tens of thousands of star athletes in the world who handle their wealth just as well as anyone else. This Broke show couldn’t have had more than 10 to 20 stories. What percentage of athletes do you think end up broke? I would be shocked if it was more than say 20%. I can only name about 20 out of say 10,000 myself.

      But obviously this is not the point. Even if in your opinion I am not prepared to handle my wealth, that does not give you a right to take it from me and leave me in poverty. I am much better off if I keep it and do the best that I can with it than I am if you take it and leave me with next to nothing.

      I’d imagine slavery has been going on since the beginning of time up until say tomorrow, but this does not excuse it. I would love to hear a good argument of why it is ok that a group of people took so much from another group of people and never compensated them for it once we unilaterally decided that this was wrong. I dont know about haves and have nots, but the question “Would people who directly benefit from the fruits of stolen labor owe a debt (even if it is just one of gratitude) to those from whom it was stolen?” seems so obvious to the point that it’s rhetorical. I can see why people think it is not feasible for that debt to be paid, but to deny the validity of the claim and attempt rationalize it away seems like nothing more than a diversion tactic.

      • most importantly the example from ‘broke’ is extreme wealth across a few individuals, fair allocation of earnings would have resulted in moderate wealth for an entire generation, two radically different concepts.

        yes institutionalized racism was rampant prior to WWII, that doesn’t excuse it, any more that genocides hundreds of years ago suddenly become more acceptable. We are also at our most socially evolved point in history so we should be held to higher standards

15. In the poker hypothetical, the solution would be to restart the tournament. I guess this would carry over with the coming of the messiah, where we are all reborn into heaven… something like that. Maybe the day 2 administrators are an angry god casting the players out of that poker tournament.. in the garden of eden? How the tournament rules make sense to begin with, I do not understand. Maybe there is some Hindu thing in that, karma.. being reborn into another players stack.. something.

    The proposal isn’t just flawed. It is just wrong. I don’t know what you think you want, but work that out before you call me out on my inability to solve the problem of humanity.

    “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” – Obama

    Stop bitterly clinging friend.

    Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberatin’ and conjugatin’ the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

16. Argentina[8]
    Bolivia
    Brazil[9]
    British Empire[1][10]
    Chile
    Colombia[8]
    Danish colonies[1]
    Netherlands[1]
    Ecuador
    French colonial empire[1]
    Mexico and Central America
    Paraguay[8]
    Peru
    Spanish Empire
    Sweden[11]
    Uruguay
    Venezuela[8]
    United States (Washington, DC only)

    These countries are listed in Wikipedia as ending slavery and having some form of compensation at the end.

    NO, those aren’t who were compensated, the slave owners were!

    Slavery was legal. The governments ended it. The governments paid lots of inflation adjusted money.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slaveowners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

    Carlos,

    If you think that the debt is NOT being paid, albeit too slowly or not publicly enough, maybe you forgot about affirmative action? There are plenty of examples of black children given advantages that others don’t have. And no, I am not suggesting that it is better in today’s world to be black than otherwise. BUT, there ARE students who were denied admission to schools due to race (they were white).

    So, your answer to that kid is “So, my best friends neighbor, who’s only claim to being disadvantaged is some sort of skin pigment deserves some charity” ?? It isn’t like there is some financial test for this, right? So Mohamed Ali’s children get the same percentage advantage others do when they check that box?

    Let’s step away from race, and perhaps notice that economic prejudice might be behind this. Rich people leave the city when the have nots become some critical mass. It may not be racism, it may be elitism.

    And as a side note. How black is black? Who really knows when you check the ‘african american’ box. Do they check how dark you are? Your birth certificate? I mean, its a self selection process right? So when the reparations come due, who gets in line? Is Tiger Woods black? His kids? How about Obama? If my son married Obama’s daughter would the children get an apology, or have to apologize?

    My point about “broke” was not that anyone cheated should not be compensated, rather that putting any material belongings into hands unprepared will lead to much disaster. I am sure that your abolitionists would have prevented any fraud and abuse though, so I am withdrawing that point.

    which

    • Wow, which. Thank you for that article. I learned something. I had no idea slave owners got reparations. They didn’t teach us that part in school.

      “This legislation made provision for the staggering levels of compensation for slave-owners, but gave the former slaves not a penny in reparation.”

      This quote from the article and opinions like yours that freed slaves didn’t need to be compensated for their labor because they were unprepared to handle wealth (which I am glad you finally withdrew) hit hard. It’s the reason I told Andrew that I don’t see a point in trying to convince those that benefit from what was stolen to provide some type of reimbursement. My solution is to keep on keeping on and helping others as I go. I really appreciate the kindness of strangers because it is completely unexpected. But your article and this documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4IvFXPGYNA) I watched yesterday just reinforce my feeling that for the most part, I cant wait on anyone else to make it right so I’d better get on my grind.

      And in the end, no one can deny the fact that an offense was committed and the victims have never been made whole or even received acknowledgement from many that, if it were feasible, they should be made whole. All attempts to justify this fall flat.

    • Yes, affirmative action is an extremely imprecise tool that can be gamed and even when working as intended can produce unjust results. The point I want to make is that a world without affirmative action is also full of unjust results that are rarely acknowledged as such. I’m sure you realize that a lot more goes into a good LSAT score than just innate intelligence or aptitude for lawyering. Having money (for prep classes) is the most obvious way in which being born into advantage enables students who are perhaps less innately qualified to game the system and achieve higher scores than those who could not afford the test. It’s a big failure of the pro-affirmative-action crowd to allow it to be painted as some sort of charity or reparation for undeserving minority students. When used correctly, it’s a way of counteracting an inherent bias in which students have high LSAT scores or were able to gain admission to elite universities in the first place.

      I used to play poker with a bunch of Harvard Law School students, and although I held the above beliefs before I met them, I was nevertheless blown away by the extent to which some of these guys were really not very intelligent at all and had presumably drifted this far in life on the back of inherited privilege. I’ve also had the experience of seeing extremely bright and capable young people who were born into poverty end up not going to college at all.

      I believe in merit, but I also believe that the means by which American society supposedly filters for merit (I think it’s arguable the extent to which this is really even the intention) and tries to invest educational resources in the most meritorious students is extremely bad at actually finding those students. Basically, if you’ve had every advantage educationally and can barely outscore a student who has not had those advantages on the LSAT, you probably don’t deserve that seat at Harvard Law more than he does.

      To be clear, I’m just giving you the rationale behind affirmative action, which I think makes a lot of sense and is not what you assume it to be. There are a lot of different things that get lumped together as “affirmative action”, and some of them are better at accomplishing this task than others. You’re right that in some cases what ends up happening is that more economically privileged minority students get preferential treatment over less economically privileged white students. This is a problem, but not necessarily an intrinsic damnation of the entire concept.

      To your point about economics being more salient than race, it’s worth pointing out that the two issues are closely interwoven. In other words, being born black in America greatly increases the chance that you will also be born poor.

      Oh and the apology for slavery was on behalf of the government, the same institution (composed, of course, of different individuals) who permitted the practice to exist for as long as it did. So your and Obama’s grandchild, or any other individual, would not be included as an apologizer.

      • Andrew,

        Another point about affirmative action that I have always found interesting is that is helps so few people in the target group. I don’t know much about it, but it seems to be designed to help you get into some of the better colleges or get some of the better jobs. This does nothing for those that decide not to go to college (which is clearly not the answer for everyone) or those who are seeking more of a blue collar job. Currently my friend, who is a nurse, is still looking for work after being turned down repeatedly for the past three months since her old office was bought out. It’s not doing anything for her. I don’t think she is being discriminated against, but it would be nice to have inherited a generational safety net so that losing a job didn’t mean you’d be on the brink of homelessness.

        Seems to me that affirmative action was designed to prevent discrimination of minorities and women in hiring practices, not to pay a debt owed due to slavery.

        It does not answer the central question which is why wouldn’t people who directly benefit from the fruits of stolen labor owe a debt (even if it is just one of gratitude) to those from whom it was stolen?

    • We should be helping poor people IMO – not races or women.

      College admissions should be scrubbed of race and sex as much as possible.

17. “tens of thousands of star athletes in the world who handle their wealth just as well as anyone else.”

    Sports Illustrated estimated in 2009 that 78 percent of NFL players are bankrupt or facing serious financial stress within two years of ending their playing careers and that 60percent of NBA players are broke within five years of retiring from the game

    I am assuming SI does its research fairly well. Feel free to find the 20,000 plus success stories. I mean, really “tens of thousands…star athletes” . You’re bluffing right 🙂

    which

    • The are many more star athletes in the world than the ones in the NFL and the NBA. In the history of the billions of people who have lived on this Earth, I am almost certain that at least 10,000 of them have been star athletes.

      How many of the 78% of NFL players and 60% of NBA players that are bankrupt or facing serious financial stress did your article say were star athletes?

      If your talking players in general, sounds like these people handle their wealth just as well as anyone else who lives paycheck to paycheck and then loses their career.

      And even if every one of them were likely to lose every dime, it would be with money they earned. If Jerry Jones forced the Cowboys to play for free and gave this as his reason for not paying them, I think they would have a pretty good case in court.

    • LOL at the idea of withholding money from someone because you don’t think they will handle it ‘properly’! That is a disgusting point of view.

      Do you want to be on the receiving end of that one?!?!

18. “opinions like yours that freed slaves didn’t need to be compensated for their labor because they were unprepared to handle wealth…”

    Carlos, you sound wounded, so I will skip the jokes, but this is a far cry from what I wrote.

    And mischaracterising something so drastically, on such a sensitive subject? hmmm, not very nice.

    Race is a sensitive topic, and I grew up with it far closer to the surface than nowadays. Although your being black, you are probably very aware, but one reason it’s such a taboo to talk about is assumptions, conclusions being jumped to, etc..

    I still remember a white guy asking a black woman whether they “could ever discuss busing without jumping to racism right away” on TV.

    • “this is a far cry from what I wrote.”

      FWIW Carlos’ summary is exactly what I understood you to mean. As I understand it, the compensation most commonly discussed as the Civil War drew to a close was 40 acres and a mule, ie means by which the former slave could become self-sufficient. Instead, as you probably know, many ended up in conditions not so far removed from slavery, working as sharecroppers for former slave-owners, living in housing built for slaves, and still at the mercy of the landowner with regard to what payment they received for their work, since complaining or questioning could result in lynching.

    • Im sorry. I wasn’t trying to be not very nice.

      You mentioned that placing wealth into their unprepared hands would be a waste and a disaster. I assumed (my mistake) that you wouldn’t want to facilitate a perceived waste or disaster which logically led me to infer that you wouldn’t want to place the wealth into their hands.

      My bad. My assumption stemmed from me not being clear of your point.

      So for clarity, should slaves and/or their families have been compensated for their stolen labor?

      If your answer is yes, then there is no debate.

      If your answer is no, then my assumption and the logical conclusion I jumped to was correct.

      If your answer is a non-answer which includes more tangents about athletes or affirmative action, then you can see the need for assumptions or better yet, an end to the circular debate all together.

      Either way, I enjoyed this topic and thank Andrew for posting it and thank those who participated (over 100 posts. is that some kind of Thinking Poker record?).

    • IMO in an ideal world slaves should have been compensated and their descendants should possibly be compensated now.

      In the real world, IMO, it is MUCH better to just help all poor people.

19. “How many of the 78% of NFL players and 60% of NBA players that are bankrupt or facing serious financial stress did your article say were star athletes? ”

    this is what you took away from the article? Not enough of them were stars?

20. Andrew says “My point isn’t that African-Americans are worse off now than they were 50 years ago, but rather that they are worse off than they would have been had newly freed slaves been compensated for their stolen labor.”

    Which says “Andrew, the above is a HUGE stretch by any measure. There has been ample evidence of an overabundance of wealth being dropped into unprepared hands being a waste. ”

    These two statements are what we are referring to, right?

    I was questioning an overly broad (indefensible, IMO) view that suggested that if you gave some type of equity into slaves’ hands, which had never before had property rights, that the outcome is NOT guaranteed.

    Please show me where I am saying “don’t do it”

    C’mon Andrew, you were in Debate, this writing is not that difficult.

    Please tell me ‘how much’ equity would be needed to be placed in slaves hands to make the ‘worse off now, rather than then’ trade off work. What percentage of success are we willing to accept to deal with the inevitable failure? Would 1 out of 100 be enough to say, “absolutely, we should have given them something” And whatever was decided on, that that amount would be sufficient to make a difference.

    Please explain how a society that moments ago viewed slavery as legal would have valued this ‘stolen labor’. Let me take a guess – highly would not be the answer. And in fact, Washington, DC was the only place that gave slaves any compensation.

    My point with the SI quote was that wealth placed into unprepared hands has shown to be wasted in studies of pro athletes, arguably the highest compensated individuals on Earth.

    Are pro athletes, the broke ones, now better off since they were compensated so well? There is a not-small contingent of people that say professional sports (and the pay to go with it) are a huge draw that is distracting many youth from a sure path to long term stability– education. Andrew, as an educator, does this sound familiar to you?

    • One of the biggest things I learned in debate was not to assume that the implications of my argument would be properly understood without my making them explicit. I’m sorry to say it’s still not clear to me what exactly your point is. My initial understanding was “they probably would have wasted the money anyway, so it doesn’t matter that they weren’t compensated.” It sounds like that that was a misunderstanding, which I’m glad to hear. I guess, then, you are saying that, “We can’t guarantee that it still wouldn’t have been squandered in the ensuing 150 years, leaving their descendants no better off than they are now, so we can’t say with certainty that compensation would have made a difference.” This argument, though literally true, isn’t very persuasive.

      Yes, what I am actually saying is that in all likelihood, though not with 100% certainty, the descendants of freed slaves would be better off today had their ancestors been given the means to become economically self-sufficient. Money can be wasted, but having it tends to be better than not.

      Also we’re not necessarily talking about a lump sum cash payment. I don’t see how 40 acres and a mule would have been so easily squandered. Slaves may not have known a lot about managing a fortune, but they did know how to tend land and scrape by with very little, which is what they would have been doing as independent homesteaders rather than sharecroppers.

      Finally, as I believe you’ve agreed, it’s all sort of moot because they deserved the compensation. EVEN IF they were somehow going to squander it, it was still rightfully theirs to squander.

21. “I was nevertheless blown away by the extent to which some of these guys were really not very intelligent at all and had presumably drifted this far in life on the back of inherited privilege.”

    really? I am not surprised at all. Most poker players think they are better than they actually are. Most drivers are better than the one next to them on the road. And most of my kids are ‘above average’.

    Andrew, I am not sure of your background, but if you believe American principles of capitalism and meritocracy to be fair, then the only heartache I would acknowledge to having is the education system. I think the schools in the US are an embarrassment. But poor people take a large role in this. Rich people take a large role in this. We all do.

    Why are many immigrants from Asia/India/and the middle east so quick to gain a foothold in the opportunities the US offers? Many articles point to the emphasis on education. And to be fair, the negative pressures that comes with this drive to succeed.

    Not all groups make it, but how would you explain third generation immigrants graduating valedictorians far higher than their minority percentages would predict, especially considering their parents may not speak English well, and their grandparents DON’T?

22. “To be clear, I’m just giving you the rationale behind affirmative action, which I think makes a lot of sense and is not what you assume it to be.”

    Andrew, I am willing to listen to you explain what my ‘assumptions’ are…. 🙂

23. Andrew says “My point isn’t that African-Americans are worse off now than they were 50 years ago, but rather that they are worse off than they would have been had newly freed slaves been compensated for their stolen labor.”

    so to be explicit, and trying to be fair, I understood your statement to mean that I take a group of slaves and compensate them. I take a group of slaves and don’t compensate them. Both are freed. The ones who are not compensated are now ‘worse off than they would have been” if they were in the compensated group.

    If this is an accurate depiction of your point, then I would make some counter arguments.

    We have ample evidence of wealth being dropped into unprepared hands. You argue they are prepared. Perhaps. But land and a mule does NOT have to be the form the compensation takes. And even if it were land, the land would probably not be prime property (check out Native American history for that).

    Can you really defend the point? Got any facts? Figures? Anything except conjecture?

    You made statements that seemed very broad, overly so in my opinion.

    I dislike certainty. I am unsure about most things.

    My intent was just to say, “Hey, that is a broad characterization of what the possible consequences might be”

    Not to discuss the actual merits of the action.

    • You’ve accurately summarized my position, and I don’t see why we have to be dealing in certainty here. I don’t think it requires a big leap of faith to say that starting off with something is better than starting off with nothing and will be MORE LIKELY, if not guaranteed, to produce better outcomes. If that’s not a premise you’re willing to accept, we can just agree to disagree.

    • “ample evidence of wealth being dropped into unprepared hands.”

      Is no justification for withholding what those unprepared hands deserve.

      “Oh, I don’t think I’ll pay you for your labor because I think you are going to waste it.”
      LOL

      Again, put yourself on the receiving end of this one and see how you feel.

24. “Why are many immigrants from Asia/India/and the middle east so quick to gain a foothold in the opportunities the US offers? Many articles point to the emphasis on education. And to be fair, the negative pressures that comes with this drive to succeed”

    You must remember the new immigrants from those countries are from the top 10% of their field. Many of them come over with doctoral degrees and have a connection.

    • This is true a lot of the time but there has been significant immigration of poorer and uneducated Asians as well.

      For example:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_American

25. To Carlos.
    Its great that you are doing what you are doing and have arrived to where youre at. Which I have followed here and on TPE. I commend you. But we cannot forget others before us who paved a path of struggle in which we can walk with our heads upright.
    I came here with nothing but 2 pairs of pants. 2 shirts. A couple of pairs of socks and 1 pair of shoes with about $400 in my pocket. I have risen greatly since then. But I did not do that on my own. Had I not had the masses of people behind me who seeked fair representation, voting rights, equal employment, and fair housing I don’t know if I would have gone as far as I could.
    Sure I used my wits and humour to help me survive but I don’t underestimate the power of people added to those who have been kind to share their knowledge who have had such a influence on my life. It is only with a unity of all groups that we will progress.

    • Good point Keone and thank you. Let’s keep inspiring each other.

      I know I owe a tremendous debt to the people who were slaves in this country and those strong willed individuals who came after from MLK to 2pac who tried the best they could to push me in the right direction and the countless people for whom they served as figureheads.

      I am speaking more specifically about the personal burden I feel to help my close friends and family to rise up out of the poverty into which we were born. The only way I see to do this is to come up with some money and show them how to do the same. No matter how much we collectively make an air tight case, there is very little chance that the victims of slavery will ever be made whole. Others can inspire me and help me along the way, but as the most capable one in my immediate family, I know if it is to be, it is up to me. With the spirit of those who came before within me, I know I cannot be stopped.

26. Foucault writes: “Oh and the apology for slavery was on behalf of the government, the same institution (composed, of course, of different individuals) who permitted the practice to exist for as long as it did. So your and Obama’s grandchild, or any other individual, would not be included as an apologizer.”

    Andrew, I AM the government, so are you. So is every American. It baffles me when folks talk about the government like some entity of its own. It isn’t. If is full of people like you and I. Some elected, some appointed, and some just hired. Oh, and don’t forget the volunteers. But we all pay for it collectively. If the government is separate, can I distance myself from what they do? Should I?

    Slavery was tolerated/encouraged by America/the world back then. Governments did not do it, people did.

    I feel “very” responsible for what the US does. I allow every single thing that happens. If not by action, then by inaction. I have a choice of voting, and for whom. Civil disobedience, public discourse, etc.. If I (as a group) wanted change bad enough, the world would notice.

    If my government apologizes for something do I shrug and say “so what, it’s not about me”??

    which

27. Carlos writes: “So for clarity, should slaves and/or their families have been compensated for their stolen labor?

    If your answer is yes, then there is no debate.”

    I do not think you will like my answer Carlos, but in my opinion the labor was not “stolen”, it was paid for. The slave owners paid someone for the slaves. It was legal. I may not like it now, I may not have liked it then. But some did. And enough did not object, right?

    So, I think the best solution, now not an option, would have been to compensate the former slaves somehow when they were first freed. It is the best and the easiest time to see the victims, find an amount of money/property, and get it to the ones who in our opinion deserve it.

    But, to think that this amount would somehow result in an America that is different than now is suspect. The slaves, now freed would probably have not gotten much. Subsistence level grants is even an amount I would strongly question. I believe, given the attitudes back then, they would have had minimal compensation. I would guess they would get the equivelant of prison pay, i.e. NOT MUCH!

    and now, with racism still rampant back in the day, their lot would not really change.

    I believe assumptions about former slaves miraculously ending up better generations later, after being granted some amount of property when they had not had property rights before to be a long shot.

    Andrew seems to argue that the opportunity is better than not. Okay, maybe.

28. Carlos writes: “a non-answer which includes more tangents about athletes ”

    You think stats about pro athletes and sudden wealth are a tangent?

    okay, but I would ask you to read with a more critical eye.

    When I mentioned the article it was with the intent of showing how “unprepared for wealth” -COULD- rather than -WOULD- result in waste.

    huge difference, and totally independent of -because-

29. “Economic and other disparities between groups have been common for centuries, in countries around the world — and many of those disparities have been, and still are, larger than the disparities between blacks and whites in America.

    Even when those who lagged behind have advanced, they have not always caught up, even after centuries, because others were advancing at the same time.

    But when blacks did not catch up with whites in America, within a matter of decades, that was treated as strange — or even a sinister sign of crafty and covert racism.”

    the above is an excerpt from a a noted Harvard graduate Thomas Sowell.

    http://www.creators.com/opinion/thomas-sowell/a-poignant-anniversary.html

    Andrew writes: “I don’t think it requires a big leap of faith to say that starting off with something is better than starting off with nothing and will be MORE LIKELY, if not guaranteed, to produce better outcomes.”

    So “how much” is -something- ? And if it turns out that black america does not make appropriate progress (according to whomever gets to decide) will it be because the “how much” was insufficient? Then what? Pay more? Again, “how much” ?

    Once the -something- gets paid, does America get to say, “okay, now you are on your own. Don’t look to me for anything else” ?

    There are unintended consequences for many of these proposed solutions. Not saying they are so important that nothing should be done, but it does not follow automatically that “something is better than nothing”.

    it is so easy to say, so hard to prove.

    • There are two types of arguments against affirmative action and other proposed remedies: those made as part of a good faith of effort to find a better solution, and those made with the intention of casting aspersions upon all proposed solutions.

      For instance, it is widely acknowledged that efforts to boost admission of students from troubled school systems has resulted in a disproportionate number of students dropping out of college. Some people look at that and say, “Well then, we need to figure out what problems they are having and address them.”

      Quite a few BDL students were admitted to Hampshire College as part of its POSSE program. Hampshire believed that part of the problem was students lacking a support system and not fitting in with other students at the school, so this program gives full scholarships to pairs of students from the Boston Public Schools who are already friends and whom it believes will have a better chance of graduating when they are able to support each other.

      Others look at these examples and say, “See, affirmative action is fatally flawed, why bother?” IMO it’s the difference between wanting to find a solution and not wanting to find one.

      Most of the arguments you’ve made in this thread have been of the “oh it’s going to be messy to sort it out, let’s not even bother” variety. Those don’t refute at all my claim that there is a problem to be sorted out, in which case it’s just a matter of whether you believe our efforts should be directed towards trying to find a way to pay our debts or trying to find an excuse to welch.

30. “Does Affirmative Action Hurt Minorities” is an article in the Los Angeles Times

    http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/26/opinion/la-oe-sander26sep26

    it speaks to how pushing students who are unprepared may lead to academic/career failure.

    Now some might argue that “it’s better than nothing”, but it is a wasted opportunity, and perhaps has severe consequences to not just your life, but others watching you.

    On the flip side, I was in Dallas when the original newspaper series chronicled a young woman from a disadvantaged school. Another ‘mismatch’ destined for failure it seemed.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/headlines/20130809-student-who-almost-quit-utd-after-first-year-now-works-there–and-soon-will-earn-a-doctorate-from-unt.ece

    I can’t tell how many successes mitigate ‘X” amount of failures.

    But I -do- think its not automatic.

    • IMO we need a much more holistic (and race-neutral) solution.

      We need to improve bad schools.
      We need to take poverty into account in college admissions.
      We need additional support for those poor students through college graduation and possibly job seeking.

31. Most of the arguments you’ve made in this thread have been of the “oh it’s going to be messy to sort it out, let’s not even bother” variety.

    Andrew I have re read all my posts and have yet to find any “let’s not even bother” statements in any.

    Maybe you are reading too many posts from too many sources, but please show me at least one to justify this statement.

    which

32. Andrew writes: “it’s just a matter of whether you …. find an excuse to welch.”

    This isn’t debate/discussion Andrew……. not sure what it is 🙁

    which

    • Arguments like “it was a long time ago, and now it’s hard to figure out exactly who was affected, or exactly what is owed, and maybe paying what was owed at the time would actually have done more harm than good” all come across to like as excuse-making. Yes, they’re real challenges that need to be confronted in searching for a solution, and some of them might just have to be accepted as necessary evils that are less bad than the evils that we’ve for too long tacitly accepted in the status quo, but none of them refutes the existence of a debt. So when I say “a debt is owed”, and you respond with all of these arguments instead of making constructive suggestions about how that debt could be paid or what should be done about it if it can’t, it doesn’t seem like you are taking responsibility for the debt. I don’t mean to single you out as particularly guilty in this respect, in fact this has been America’s collective response to the problem, and you at least are more honest about it than most.

33. ” it doesn’t seem like you are taking responsibility for the debt. ”

    “Debt” implies obligation doesn’t it. I have a question for you Andrew,) one of many I have yet to get responses to):

    A slave holder (owner sounds too harsh) in Africa has three slaves. A 60 year old grandparent, the 35 yr old son, and the 12 yr old grandson. The slaveholder sells the 12 yr old to a slave trader headed to North America. Three years later the now 15 yr old is proclaimed “free” by the US government. The parent and grandparent are still slaves for the rest of their lives.

    And you want to blame the US government for being bad? How about if the 12 yr old is freed in a month? Is the US government to blame, or to be applauded for finally ending a horrific practice that had been accepted for centuries. Now some might cry, “too little, too late”, but the US was not the last country to end legalized slavery, so at least some credit should come their way.

    The United States borne from a country that was deep into slavery. From 1776 to 1808 for a brand new country with huge issues on its plate, to end importing slaves is a huge step in my opinion.

    To end an institution that was considered so vital and ingrained in half of its land in 60 more years is a phenomenal thing. And it was paid for in no small part by the lives of countless Union and Confederate soldiers. Thousands died Andrew. On both sides. And you pronounce from lofty heights “A debt is owed” (and yes, I realize the Civil War was not about slavery per se)

    You have throughout this discussion kept your head down and silent when various posters have said something along the lines of “hey, rough times back then, the solutions might be messy. You thank them politely for their thoughts, and keep pushing your point.

    You have yet to address any “What about the negative effects of any solutions” argument.

    You press on as if any solution is better than no attempt at all. I have referenced several articles, several authors, and several sources. All bringing up various issues with various solutions that come to my mind, or brought up by you.

    You have kept your head down, failed to do anything but complain that I am attempting to confuse things, and pressed on.

    You seem to have this mantra in mind: — It is a debt. We need to pay it/acknowledge it/apologize for it.

    I have seen you jump to conclusions about various posts I have made. I have asked you to document any of these, you keep your head down, and keep repeating “it is a debt, it needs to paid/acknowledged/apologized for”

    You remind me of someone who comes in and tastes the food at a cheap buffet. You start complaining to all that will listen. A few diners join you and agree, “hey, Excalibur buffet food is not great!”

    Now you feel better, right? You have made your point. And then you give some half baked solution “The Excalibur should add some salt, or maybe some pepper, I don’t know, but they should add something !”.

    And again, more folks join you, with increasing outrage.

    But, the ‘solutions’ you propose don’t work. The food now, instead of being just palatably bad, is worse. And now, instead of the diners being somewhat blissfully ignorant, or at least, not focused on the quality so much, just that they were hungry, are agitated. They are dissatisfied now, where before, they were just looking forward to what to do after dinner.

    Oh well, you feel satisfied. To paraphrase you “At least they did something” And “It is a problem that had to be addressed”

    but in reality, you have made it worse. The food is worse, and the diners are ever more unhappy.

    Congratulations, you have pointed out the obvious, reminded folks that they are part of a bad situation, and caused much time and effort to be spent fruitlessly, with far ranging consequences unforseen by anyone for years to come.

    but, you are the ‘good guy’

    and I am the ‘welcher’

    Frankly, I expected more from an ‘octofinalist’ 🙁

    • I’m sorry if I offended you at some point in this process. You’d told me that you were here to play devil’s advocate, and I may have taken too much license in speaking quickly and bluntly. It was not my intention to pillory either you or the United States, nor to valorize myself. I haven’t yet found a way to satisfy what I believe to be my own obligation to the descendants of former slaves in this country, so it’s not my intention to look down on others for the same. I do, however, view trying to convince others that this is an obligation that exists to be part of my own “repayment”.

      That was the purpose of my original post, to use an analogy that I thought would speak to the audience of this blog in order to counteract a few common (in my opinion mis-) conceptions about the relationship between the crimes of the past (including but not limited to slavery) and the present-day conditions of African-Americans:

      1. That slavery is behind us, and that there is no need to make any allowance for its legacy when thinking about public policy in 2013 America. This is “post-racial America” argument that got new legs with the election of Barack Obama. In my view racialized crimes are not merely a thing of the past, but the purpose of this post was to argue that even if they were, there would still be an obligation to account for their legacy. Just as in a poker tournament, a crime that cost you chips on Day 1 can affect your prospects for success on Day 2.

      2. The the success of individual African-Americans, most prominently Barack Obama, proves that all African-Americans are now on a level-playing field, and thus that no further compensatory action is necessary. Again, I think the poker tournament analogy is apt: just because it’s possible, through a combination of tremendous luck and skill, to parlay a short stack into a win doesn’t negate the fact that those who begin play with a short stack are at a disadvantage.

      3. That present-day white Americans bear no responsibility for correcting the crimes of the past. Although I don’t believe we are morally responsible, whether or not we are directly descended from slaveholders, I do believe that many of us have inherited some advantages, financial and otherwise, that are the fruits of those crimes, and I do believe that that creates some obligation to make whole the people who still experience the negative consequences of those crimes. If I didn’t do so explicitly enough before, I will say now that I think the “fixed-pie fallacy” argument undermines my third point here in part but not entirely.

      I don’t think it’s true that these are things everyone knows/accepts already, though I certainly wish they were.

      My purpose was NOT to defend a particular solution, such as affirmative action or reparations, but simply to make the case that there is a problem that we, collectively, are responsible for solving. This is why I have not been as responsive to your particular objections to affirmative action: I agree that it is often implemented in a flawed way, and I am not tied to it as a solution. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, there are many reasons not to and you list some of them. The important thing is that you recognize some personal responsibility in finding that solution.

      The arguments I’m more interested in engaging are the ones that call into question whether this debt exists in the first place. If I have not been adequately responsive to those, I apologize. Let me try to address them each, briefly, now:

      1. Reparations would have been squandered by newly freed slaves.

      A: If someone owes me money, he doesn’t get to tell me that he’s not going to give it to me because he doesn’t like the way I’m going to spend it.

      2. Any reparations paid in the 1860s would have been inadequate and rendered moot by other racial injustices.

      A: This is probably true, but I don’t see how it refutes the existence of a debt now. The freed slaves were owed something for the labor extorted from them and the torture and bondage they endured, and they didn’t get it. Their descendants still feel the effects of that crime today. Maybe, as a practical/political matter, nothing could have been done about it then, but that’s not a reason why we shouldn’t do something about it now.

      3. The slaves were purchased, so their labor was already paid for.

      A: People can’t ethically be purchased. Their original kidnapping was a crime, and to buy them from their kidnappers was to be an accessory to that crime as well as the perpetrator of many additional crimes, all of which require restitution.

      4. Slavery was considered just at the time.

      A: Now we know better. If someone takes something from me because he thought he was entitled to it, but then later realizes he wasn’t, he needs to compensate me for it.

      5. Many other countries, including African countries, had slaves.

      A: That was also wrong, and they probably owe restitution also. If I were a citizen of one of those other countries, I hope I’d be taking them to task for that debt. I don’t mean to single out the US as uniquely bad, but it definitely was also bad in this regard, and the fact that others were doing it too doesn’t make it OK.

      6. African-Americans are better off in the US than they would be in present-day Africa.

      A: Even if true, that doesn’t retroactively justify slavery. This is an unknowable counterfactual. Who knows what African would look like today if not for the slave trade? We have to look to the ethics of the action itself, not to its unintended consequences. Besides, no one has the right to make that determination for someone else, which is what happened when people were forcibly brought to this country in chains. If someone stole something from me, I don’t care that he thinks I’m better off without it, he needs to compensate me for it.

      7. America freed its slaves, at great cost to the union.

      A: This was a laudable thing, and everyone who fought, either literally or figuratively, for this purpose was doing his moral duty as a citizen of a nation in which slavery was legal. Still, anyone who has in some way benefited from slavery owes a debt to anyone who was harmed by it. If I were a slave, and someone were to buy me and free me immediately, I would be very grateful. If he were to make me clean his house or till his field for several years before he freed me, he would owe me compensation for the value of my labor and for the pain he caused me.

      8. There’s no good way to make restitution.

      A: If someone stole money from you, and then told you, “I can’t really figure out a good way of getting it back to you,” would you consider that acceptable? It seems to me that is the situation we are in. It is the responsibility of the person who owes the debt to find a way to repay it.

      I believe that as a country we need to get to the point where we can have a serious national dialogue about what that solution should be, and I think that convincing people of the need for a solution is the first step.

      As I said, admittedly in a blunt and inartful way, there is a difference between saying, “Here is a problem with affirmative action, let’s talk about how to fix it” and saying, “Here is a problem with affirmative action, let’s throw the baby out with the bathwater.” I didn’t and don’t mean to make accusations about which you personally believe, because you’re right that I have access only to what you’ve said here and not to what you actually believe, but rather to make a suggestion as to which position you ought to adopt.

      Again, if I’ve offended you with regard to the way I conducted this discussion, I apologize. I do appreciate your willingness to engage with it. I think we’ve reached the limits of what we’re going to accomplish here, and frankly with WCOOP starting I won’t have much more time to make further thoughtful contributions. That said, I will read and consider seriously any last thoughts you’d like to offer here, even if I don’t respond again.

      Thanks,
      Andrew

34. Andrew–

    I am not hurt, nor indignant towards your posts. If I seem so, I wrote it badly.

    I am making two last points:

    1) Those that point at racial inequalities anywhere usually point to some moment in the past to say something along the lines of “Hey, here is something really bad, and if THIS had not happened the current group of disadvantaged would be better off” now. (and not perfectly so, just the proverbial better). Then they want to offer some ‘after the fact’ redress as a solution.

    If you disagree with this, sometime after WCOOP please come back to this.

    My response would be, careful what you ask for. Sometimes a country as a whole can be better off just moving on. NOT fixing a factual evil may be better than bringing it up again and again. (I mean you are not the first white kid from the Northeast to bring this issue up, right?)

    2) You (not Andrew, just whomever) get to be the good guy. You are the compassionate one. Everyone says, “Wow, even if misguided solutions were offered, even if nothing was offered, at least he acknowledges factual inequalities of the past. He is someone we might not all applaud, but we at least do not pillory.

    If you disagree with this, again, let us know. Has anyone rained hate and discontent on you?

    I on the other hand take real chances in debates like these. Any one of my sentences taken out of context could be misinterpreted. I mean octofinalists jump to conclusions I think would have thought impossible. Others give me “either….or” questions that in my opinion do not relate to each other, but manage to make me look bad if I do not agree (to the great unwashed perhaps 🙂 )

    If I had a career, or a job dealing with the public, if I was worried about public opinion impacting me, I would have serious misgivings about even engaging in these discussions.

    But, agree with me or not, I am never the “good guy”. I am either “the welcher” as you so eloguently put it, or worse, racist.

    I think I have the nation’s best interests at heart with my arguments. I think ‘fixing’ racial issues focuses the US on something that is counterproductive to a country attempting to move away from noticing color. In the short run, AND in the long run.

    but thanks for the discussion.

    • Thanks for the thoughtful response, which, and sorry that I’ve been so long in getting back to it.

      1) My central question here is that even if this is one of those cases, what gives us the right to put “the country as a whole” above a legitimate claim for restitution. “The good of the country as a whole” was one of the main justifications for keeping slavery around as long as we did – that it would have been catastrophic to our unity as a country to try to abolish it. It’s one of the central tenets of our democracy that there are cases where the majority isn’t allowed to sacrifice the minority for its own self-interest. At the very least, if we are going to do that (as is the case with Native Americans – it seems like we’ve pretty much just decided we’re keeping some land and some money that came into the possession of the US government in some pretty underhanded ways, because returning it would be so massively disruptive to the country), then we ought to find a way to make it up the affected group. This is where the idea of a debt owed by the entire country to its black citizens. We are asking (well, requiring, really) them to forego a legitimate claim to restitution because it would be too problematic to address it adequately. So OK, given that they’ve had to take one for the team in that way, what are we going to do to think them or to compensate them for that?

      2) I think you’re overestimating the political palatability of acknowledging a legitimate claim to reparations. I have no doubt that if I tried to run for office this post would be used against me. I’m actually surprised that I didn’t get more hateful responses than I did. I think that says good things about the readership of this blog 🙂

35. Rant,

    totally agree with you that if you took race and gender out of applications in general, it would be better.

    Also agree with the idea of trying to focus on poverty rather than other issues. To me, economic inequality is far more related to a disappearing middle class than any other issue.

    As for not giving money ‘since they would have squandered it anyway’ I also agree it is not a justification.

36. Andrew –

    I assume you agree that at some point it could be better to ‘move on’ and stop treating these problems as being rooted in slavery?

    What are the criteria?

    —

    I also can’t resist pointing out that ‘welcher’ is racist. 8)

    • The question of whether or not slavery is the root cause of the present-day problems of African-Americans is really beyond the point. Something was stolen, and it was never returned. If someone stole something from you, would you accept “Well, you seem to be doing alright without it,” as an excuse not to repay you?

      I’d never considered the origins of the term “welcher”, but I suppose you’re right! My apologies to anyone I offended in my ignorance.

      To answer your question, though, I’d say it will be time to do away with any consideration of race when it’s no longer a useful concept. Right now, I think it would be disastrous. If, for example, we stopped collecting statistics about the rate at which various ethnicities are targeted by the police for searches, targeted by prosecutors for punishment, found guilty by jurors, or considered eligible for parole, we would fail to see some of the biggest problems in our legal system. As long as race continues to be a meaningful line along which advantage and disadvantage are distributed, it’s not something we can ignore, because ignoring it won’t make it go away.

      • I agree that ignoring racism won’t make it go away. But, it can’t go away until we ignore it either. 8)

        I guess I think it should be on a case-by-case basis. Law enforcement and the judicial system still have very big problems.

        I think we would probably be better off though if college admissions didn’t consider race.

      • I’ve been done with this post for a while now but I do make a point to read Andrew’s new comments because I love how clearly and logically he thinks.

        When I saw this one, I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of him apologizing for possibly offending anyone by using a “racist” term like welcher while speaking up for people like me and the ones in my family who suffered one of the highest offenses which was having our names and history erased and replaced by the word in question.

        I wonder if I offend anyone when I use my given last name instead of the one that I will never know or even if I should go by Carlos X or something. If so, I too apologize.

37. I think that if a class does not integrate then it will experience unequal results even without oppression. I don’t think there is necessarily anything unexpected or bad about this.

    For example, some cultures may value dedication, persistence, hard work, and education. Some may value enjoyment of the moment over planning for the future. Some may value community over individual achievement. These will result in different outcomes and I don’t think wealth should necessarily be what we measure success by. We shouldn’t expect equal outcomes for groups with different values (and hopefully each group with healthy values will get what it is striving for).

    Other cultures appear to value harmful things like violence, or ‘easy’ income from crime. Again, these values will have strong effects on outcomes. We shouldn’t expect further reductions in oppression to have strong effects on the outcomes of an unhealthy culture.

    I think it is folly to ignore the effects of culture and integration in discussions like these. I think that at this point healthy cultural values (which lead to whatever results are desired) or progression towards integration have a better chance of solving our problems than further decreases in oppression. (We do have to remain vigilant against oppression and it would be good to continue to reduce it.)

    Integration should be a decision that each individual makes for themselves (which means that advantaged classes have a responsibility to allow it). I think that integration takes generations and requires significant patience.

    We also need to focus on providing adequate infrastructure for success.

    To me the biggest problem we have is inadequate schools so we should focus hard on improving them.

    The next largest problem IMO is poverty. Poor people need support so they have enough security and energy to make good decisions and improve their lives or at least the lives of their children. Conveniently, helping poor people should also help those that continue to suffer from oppression.

38. http://open.salon.com/blog/travis_darby/2009/05/27/do_african-americans_deserve_reparations_for_slavery

    • We put a man on the moon. lol

39. I think the decendants of the African Cheifs who sold their captured from other tribes to Europeans for goods are equally as responsible as we are!!! They even began raiding other towns to take the children to be sold as slaves.

40. Wow I had no idea this thread was still going on/had blown up until I heard it on the podcast today. Interesting. I suppose not totally surprising.

    I will say a few things. They will not be comprehensive. And I will forgo my usual sarcasm, innuendo, and deadpan. So y’all don’t have to guess at my meaning here, as I might have unfairly made you in previous posts.

    I notice people talking about “sides” —

    If you consider yourself part of one side or another, you’ve already made a mistake. You can’t think objectively and your analysis of any portion of the dichotomy, rhetoric representing your side, coming from the other side, will be hopelessly mired in your subconscious self-interests. If you think you can still think about it objectively, you’re mistaken.

    I don’t really get why someone like Andrew would self-identify himself as “a white American.” It seems to me these are two labels he would be happier to reject. I would guess, or suppose, that stating it in the ultimate sentence is, if anything, a device denoting responsibility. Andrew may not walk around thinking of himself every day as an American or a white person, but he’s happy to invoke these labels to show he won’t pass on political (he might use the word moral, I’ll pass) responsibility.

    I say Andrew because as the proprietor of this space, I know he can handle it. I’m not so sure some of the people commenting here could take such an attack on their identity, particularly their “white” identity, which, in case you don’t already see where I’m going, is a phantasm. It is in your imagination. It’s too bad, I suppose, that people have been telling themselves their whole lives that they are white, or American, or this or that, when no such group-identity is necessary (or sufficient, of course) for a healthy happy disposition in life. As we see even here, in a controlled, relatively enlightened (emphasis on relatively?) space, people’s own identities shade how they view and react to every word written.

    Let me be a bit more specific. What is the benefit of identifying yourself as white in this debate? So that you can defend atrocities? Or feel the need to? There is nothing white in which to take pride. Nothing.

    What’s the point in such self-inclusion when it will exclude you from the incredible freedom of taking an open ear to any man’s opinion? It is a fundamental error to include yourself in an imagined community, its a fundamental error to label yourself on one side of a dichotomy (republican v democrat, and so on) because you will stop playing the “let me consider everything for my own good” game and you will start making little (or big) forays into the “I can’t let my side lose this point” game. Again, if you feel you are the exception to the rule, that you personally are above such slippage, I have news — you are mistaken.

    I suppose I am not empathetic enough to those who are already “stuck in” with their white identity. I have no idea how you unlearn such a thing, because however you learned it must have been powerful and gotten you at an early age. How else could you believe something so ridiculous? So perhaps I do not appreciate what an immense, impossible toil it would be for someone who already has one score or more years under their belt to sit around and start dispelling their own illusions. I guess you’re stuck in with white, sunk costs and all that, forever doomed to view things through a prism of laughable, contrived tribalism.

    Anyways, with that little piece of hyperbole out of the way, I thought I would include an excerpt from an interview I did, perhaps four years ago, with a philosopher by the name of Joseph Heath, who happens to do some work in the way of economics, specifically economic-belief fallacies. I’ll append it below, because I own it, and I can do whatever I want with it! Hopefully it is not too out of context. I’ll include the link to the full interview under. Good luck everyone.

    GC: In chapter six [“Personal Responsibility”] you write “This ‘blame it on the circumstances’ response has become almost an automatic reflex for the left. Indeed, much of what it means to acquire a ‘progressive’ education seems to involve learning how to take any sort of self-defeating, irresponsible, offensive, or just pain antisocial behaviour and explain it away as the effect of poverty, sexism, racism, or some shortfall in the achieved level of social justice.” After that, you say there is a kernel of truth in those explanations. So if we can’t dismiss them outright, how do we have a dialogue with those ideologically committed to them?

    JH: There are a lot of cases of this. Take something like teenage pregnancy.

    The impulse on the left is to say that it is a product of disadvantageous circumstances and therefore the way to address the problem of teenage pregnancy is to address the disadvantageous circumstances. There is an element of just wishful thinking in that. Anyone who looks at it dispassionately, it seems to me, can see clearly there are cultural factors at play there, there are choices being made. There is an aspect of the conservative critique of the so-called culture of poverty that is clearly correct. I think that in Canada, we can say that more without getting into trouble because elements of the culture of poverty are absent in Canada. When you look at the States as a foreigner, you see there are cultural factors that are reproducing poverty in certain areas. In the States, you just get pilloried for even suggesting that because it is considered a conservative view. And if you think there is anything to this culture of poverty stuff, then you are just blaming the victim.

    The problem is there is a feedback relationship between disadvantageous circumstances and the culture of poverty. That it may be the case that this culture evolved from disadvantageous circumstances thirty years ago or whatever, but there are many ways in which the cultural pattern make it impossible to address the circumstances without addressing the cultural pattern as well. You just can’t give people money. It may be because of racism but you can’t get rid of the racism as long as you have a pattern of fifteen year olds getting pregnant, two thirds of kids being born out of wedlock, that kind of thing, which generates negative social attitudes, and economically is totally catastrophic. You can’t address the underlying issues, assuming they are underlying, without addressing the cultural issues as well.

    There is an element of the conservative view which, as an explanation of where the problem comes from, is in my mind self-evidently correct. It seems to me you just have to have the nerve to say, yes, the explanation is correct, the proposed remedy is wrong. That’s what I try to show in the chapter: a lot of conservative views that blame the poor are correct, as an explanation. The poor are agents just like you and me, and they make choices, and often they make very, very bad choices that generate a self-perpetuating trap of poverty. It is not totally forces beyond their control.

    The left needs to have the nerve to say that the explanations provided by conservatives have a great deal of truth. But the proposed remedy isn’t really a remedy—it’s just piling on. Conservatives want what amounts to kicking people when they’re down.

    The programs I admire –– Opportunidades in Mexico, Bolsa Familia in Brazil –– what is attractive about them is they restructure people’s incentives temporally. Your kids should go to the doctor, to school, and so on. Everybody understands that. The problem is that the benefits come ten years down the road. Rather than making the downside of that more catastrophic, which is what conservatives typically propose, you need to bring the incentives into the present. You get an incentive at the end of the month for sending your kid to school. That is an example of accepting a conservative explanation, but leaves it open to what you are going to do about it. The left can propose more effective, more humanitarian remedies.

    http://garethchantler.tumblr.com/post/1041683661/filthy-lucre-interview-part-1
    http://garethchantler.tumblr.com/post/1103334128/filthy-lucre-interview-part-2

    • From my earlier posts I obviously agree that culture is a big factor.

      But, when looking for a solution it is important to find ways to make the climb out of poverty reasonable.

      Yes, teenage pregnancy, dropping out of school, violence, and drugs are issues of personal responsibility but the solution is not solely to tell people to get their acts together and to behave responsibly. That is only one part of it.

      We need to work hard to drastically improve public schools. We need to work hard to help poor people make good decisions. Recent literature and research on poverty has theorized that poverty makes it hard for people to make good decisions. Very interesting and important stuff IMO.

      For example:
      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976
      http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-Having-Little-Means-ebook/dp/B00BMKOO6S

      Also, here’s a very interesting article from The Atlantic:
      http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/can-smart-economics-turn-us-into-better-parents/279695/

41. I sincerely hope I wasn’t one of the posters that bothered Andrew or Carlos.

    • Going back to the original analogy –

      I feel like in addition to the situation Andrew laid out

      1) The dealer is only giving some people one card.

      2) Some players are playing very, very badly – going all in every hand, throwing chips onto the floor, not showing up on time, etc.

      and all anyone talks about is that the starting stacks weren’t even.

      • To be honest I don’t see the relevance of (2) to the question of whether players in the analogy would be entitled to compensation. It seems really clear cut to me that not agreeing with the choices someone makes doesn’t make it OK to steal from them, either in poker or in life.

        • I completely agree.

          All I’m saying is that there are lots of issues involved.

          I think poor schools and other problems of poverty have become more significant factors than racism or historical injustices.

          I heard a natural experiment along the lines of reparations mentioned elsewhere and thought of this discussion:

          http://washingtonexaminer.com/poverty-trap-new-study-shows-little-impact-of-financial-windfalls-for-families/article/2534702

          I think we’d probably be a lot better off strengthening the ladder out of poverty than focusing on specific injustices of the past.

          • I agree that strengthening the ladder out of poverty (good term for that, by the way!) ought to be a priority, but I’m not sure what it means to say “poor schools and other problems of poverty have become more significant factors than racism or historical injustices”, because I think those things are linked. I also think that highlighting the justice aspect is important because it is the answer to “why should I have to sacrifice to help them?” It seems like even a lot of well-intentioned people draw the line at helping the disadvantaged if it turns out to require any sacrifice on the part of the advantaged. Hence the “but what if a white student with good grades doesn’t get into college!” objection to affirmative action.

            The thing that makes me uncomfortable about the “we’d be better off…” is who is the “we” here? Again, it seems like a common line-drawing point (not sure whether this is your position or not) is at anything that would help blacks more than the country at large. The way I see it, something was done to hurt them as a group, and they may be entitled to something that benefits them as a group. I’m not sure that the majority has the right to say “yes, yes, we acknowledge that was wrong but we’re not going to do anything about it because it would be inconvenient for us.”

            • “but I’m not sure what it means to say “poor schools and other problems of poverty have become more significant factors than racism or historical injustices”, because I think those things are linked.”

              I think poor white people are nearly as disadvantaged as the descendants of slaves. Maybe I’m naive. 8)

            • “The thing that makes me uncomfortable about the “we’d be better off…” is who is the “we” here?”

              The ‘we’ is our country as a whole. The US is moving down a path of increased inequality and decreased opportunity for escaping multi-generational poverty. This is unsustainable and bad for everyone.

              I also think it would be better for everyone if assistance was strictly based on poverty and not on race.

              I’m perfectly happy to sacrifice some of the advantage my kids have so the kids of poor people have a better chance of success. For example, our school district already gives a lot of our property taxes to other districts and I think that is great.

              It is key, IMO, to focus on what is holding people back. Too many of the current ‘solutions’ are hand-outs to disadvantaged people at the direct expense of others. For example, I would MUCH prefer to improve bad public schools than to give under-educated kids scholarships or internships they wouldn’t earn on merit. (Fully acknowledging that their lack of merit is partially or largely not their fault.) I’d rather give them a reasonable shot at getting properly educated than giving them an opportunity at the expense of a more qualified person. Of course it is important to make sure that the determination of who is qualified isn’t racist or classist as much as possible.

              I also think that it is absurd that a country as rich as ours has so many people without food and shelter security. Worrying about food and shelter makes it very hard to make good decisions and do other things well (see other links in my other comments like the book ‘Scarcity’).

42. Gareth says: “their “white” identity, which, in case you don’t already see where I’m going, is a phantasm. It is in your imagination.”

    so is a “black” identity also in their imagination? because if you believe that, you are sorely minimizing the issues facing many in the US.

    I may sound anti-‘whatever’ in this thread to many readers, but I never presume to feel the pain many black americans are subjected to in this country, even today.

    which

    PS Gareth, for someone who professes color blindness as a goal, how can you like ‘the imagined community’ of “south american” women so much? why not, all women? Or was Nate mistaken when he mentioned that?

    • What he said. Neither my whiteness nor my Americanness are things I can turn off at will. Even if I were able to get to the point where they didn’t shape the way that I think and act (which is far easier said than done, and all due respect I seriously doubt you are as far along in this regard as you seem to believe), they would still shape the way people treat me, the options that are available to me, etc. I think it’s much more practical and pragmatic to acknowledge this, talk about it openly, and consider its implications than to pretend we live in a color-blind world.

      • To be clear, that’s addressed mostly to Gareth – was just replying to Which’s comment to second it.

    • which — that is implied in my post, yes. I don’t think this view minimizes the insane racism that exists in America. If anything the perspective looks at America (and/or its more commonly held beliefs/cultural mores) as more insane.

      I don’t like the imagined community of South American (or Peruvian) women more than any other community of women no. I don’t think Nate implied that particularly in the episode you’re thinking of, but could see how you would think that. I happened to live in Peru, and as a result, dated three Peruvian women. I was 25, had money, and was in good physical shape — nothing unusual there. Now I’m dating a Norwegian woman for the past six months. The thing about women is that they are all amazing creatures — nymphs of astounding beauty.

      Actually your post reminds me of a funny anecdote I like to tell people. Often when you meet a Canadian retiree couple who has come back from vacation in the Dominican or Cuba or some resort somewhere — they invariably say “oh and they were the nicest people” or “oh and the people there? nicest you’ll ever meet.” This always makes me laugh. Like people assume since I’ve spent 2+ years in South America that I feel the same way about Peruvians/South Americans. Not at all. People in Peru are pretty much like people everywhere. When they are on their way to work, or to anything, they are assholes, and when they are on a first date with you they are on their best behaviour. I found nothing in my travels to suggest that anyone anywhere is nicer or something like that. There are different cultures everywhere and cultures within cultures. Like Peru for example the culture that takes domestic violence as a natural right is very entitled in the Andes. I have seen domestic violence in plazas in Cusco with cops watching and not acting. I had a friend break up a man beating his woman in the street (broke her nose, she was bleeding profusely) only to get picked up by the cops and told he hadn’t see anything. Then once I was out hiking in the canyons by Arequipa in some remote towns. I met a guy working for the Peace Corps and he was telling me there was a man in the town (pop ~2000) who had raped this 14 year old girl and impregnated her. Her family begged the man to marry their daughter (the one whom he had raped). He refused. Now when she walks by him and his friends in the square, with his son in the stroller, he doesn’t even look at them. This is accepted and there have been no repercussions. So no, I don’t idolize Peruvians. I take the place and culture as it is presented to me and I try to take in as much of it as I can and think critically about it. There are good people there and bad people.

      Don’t get me wrong, I love Peru, but not because of the people in relation to others e.g. Canadians. But yeah, that’s a long way of saying, no.

      Rant — I don’t necessarily agree with everything professor Heath says but I thought he could make a valuable contribution to the discussion. From what I can tell about public schools in the US, and I think everyone here pretty much agrees, they are atrocious, so obviously +1 there.

      I think once Andrew treated the fixed pie fallacy portion of his analogy and reworked it accordingly I think it holds reasonably well for the purposes he was arguing for. I don’t think it needs further modification or at least, don’t see how any of the attacks post fixed-pie-fallacy fix (say that three times fast) mandate him to change it.

    • Andrew, I’m not sure how you can’t turn your Americanness off, but like I said I have a very hard time empathizing in these matters. I don’t think I’m a particularly good empathizer, by nature and by nurture, and this strikes me as a claim that’s particularly hard to believe. You know, because the Westphalian nation-states are so obviously contrived, recently invented etc and nationalism is such a terrible scourge.

      As far as being far along or whatever, this seems to imply I’ve undertaken a long untraining process. I can’t remember the first time someone called me “white” or told me I was “white.” I might have been eight or ten. In any case, I don’t think a lot of people reinforced this to me as I was growing up. And as far as expressing myself that I don’t think race is anything more than folk taxonomy, I’ve held more or less the above opinion for a long time. It is fine that you doubt me, that’s not a problem, people have for the past fifteen years, and the vast majority of the time they don’t preface their comments with “all due respect’! hahaha. Shows you’re a gentleman. But in my mind I’ve always thought in this vein and since I’ve had enough confidence to articulate my views, I haven’t had much in the way of people believing me. No worries.

      Yeah I also don’t think we live in a colour-blind world. That seemed to be which’s inference as well, that I somehow believe that. I don’t at all. I don’t think I am colour blind either. And yeah, the level of racism in the US is abhorrent and frankly somewhat beyond my level of comprehension. But on colour-blindness, in fact, I am incredibly judgmental of people. I judge people all the time and I am relentlessly critical — past it being a fault.

      Thing is, I just don’t ‘buy’ that there are races. One thing I did a lot in university is whenever people would ask me what someone else’s race was “is your friend black?” I would say “I don’t know, I haven’t asked him.” Something like that. If you tell me you are black, want to be referred to as black, whatever, that’s cool with me. I’ll call you by whatever name you claim ownership of. But as far as I know we can divide people up in all manner of ways based on their genes and the papers I’ve read from geneticists on the matter state that there is, at the least, nothing in the genetic code that favours a racial taxonomy. Obviously the human genome project isn’t the be all end all of genetics and the papers I’ve read aren’t the be all end all of taxonomical investigations or musings. Honestly those papers were just reinforcing my suspicion of everyone who used racial terms. They all reminded me of church-goers when I was young — something about the way they talked about it smelled fishy and I never bought it.

    • Again, maybe growing up in Oakville and Mississauga, Ontario during the 90s has biased me incredibly. Mississauga is one of the world’s great success stories in terms of immigration, economic growth, and social cohesion (only 47% of the population of ~750k is English first language). And as far as I know, racism is learned, people aren’t born racists. If you grow up with all kinds of people, then all kinds of people are pretty likely to be ‘your people.’

      But back to being judgmental. I think it is extremely fair that you, Andrew, talk about it openly from your true perspective and don’t pretend to some ‘higher’ view or pretend to something delusional/sanctimonious etc. This is very fair and honest and not many people, particularly on that side of these issues are honest with themselves.

    • I judge everyone, all the time. And it seems pretty clear to me that people have different skin colours and skin tones — I don’t look past that. I take it in, its information, and I process it in some way. But having seen a million faces, I don’t see how there is anything but a continuum in colour and as per above, I don’t see any logic to the base, primitive, folk taxonomy that is in use today across America. I don’t even see much logic behind the necessity of a taxonomy for people in this world, why do we need one again? So when I remember people, it is not as if I don’t remember their skin colour. I do.

      The main thing I was railing against above is the notion that there is something called “being white.” Even if there was, I don’t see why one would want to include oneself in it. It seems like a group with a terrible reputation. In Canada, as far as I can tell, there was a time when Ukrainians, Irish, and Italians were not accepted by French or English, and of course French and English weren’t accepted by one another. And now they are all white. How can you tell me the arbitrariness of this is not apparent? (That was rhetorical.) I just don’t think its very hard to build a case that says 1 race is a silly capricious way to divvy up everyone 2 you don’t have to be convinced you have some place in a capricious divvying up. And obviously my other point was that adopting this as part of your self-identity is going to do nothing but corrupt your analytic powers and even your emotional placidity — if you see one group as ‘your’ group and other groups are outsiders or competing groups. (Actually, as an aside, I wonder if this is why a lot of people who self-identify as white are so obsessed with asking people where they are from — so they can keep teams straight in their heads.) That just sounds awful and bellicose and honestly my ick factor for living that way is so strong I can’t imagine doing it. It just sounds totally nuts!

      • When I identify myself as white, I don’t mean that I’m claiming pride/guilt/responsibility based on things that other white people do or have done. But it’s a fact about more than just the color of my skin, and the fact that doesn’t have a biological basis doesn’t make it meaningless. At least in America, it affects the way people treat you and consequently the experiences and opportunities you have in life and the way that you end up thinking. I agree that it’s best to try to get beyond this innate bias and think about/look at things objectively, but I don’t agree that the way to do that is to pretend that the bias doesn’t exist.

        I don’t know if this was news elsewhere in the world, but there was recently an incidence here in the US where a black man who’d been in a car accident in the middle of the night banged on a white woman’s door asking for help. She called the police and reported a break-in in progress. When the police arrived, he ran towards them, and they shot him. The relationship and interactions with the police that your average white American has had in his lifetime are different than those that the average black American has had, and they color the way that people interpret this story. Some people are inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt and say that it was an understandable reaction and the police have a right to be nervous/cautious in such situations because they are putting their lives on the line to keep us safe. Others are inclined to say that the police are too quick to resort to violence when interacting with black men and that this wouldn’t have happened if the victim had been white.

        In deciding what I think about it, I don’t simply say “Well what do other white people think, that’s the side I want to be on.” Nor do I say “What’s my first reaction? That’s probably right.” Rather, I try to consider consciously what biases there might be to my own perspective and why people with different backgrounds and experiences might see the situation differently. I don’t see where I’d be doing myself any favors by ignoring the ways in which the color of my skin has influenced my experiences and hence the way that I think. It takes a conscious effort to overcome that.

43. The Freakonomics Podcast today was about an interesting natural experiment on windfalls.

    http://freakonomics.com/2013/09/26/would-a-big-bucket-of-cash-really-change-your-life-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

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