Bearing the Mistakes of our Ancestors
 

I was just perusing a different thread in which somebody said that women have been subjected to hundreds of years of injustice. I hear the same statement out of many people; whether it be for race, sex, religion, nationality, or whatever. Whenever somebody says this, it is implied that people of that certain group deserve something extra, and that people belonging to the group that caused the injustice should be punished.

Of course, the problem with these arguments is that the injustices weren't involving living individuals of either group, and, in most cases, aren't as much- if at all- of an issue anymore. In turn, believers in this system are doing me an injustice by making me pay for mistakes that I never made. Say somebody was thrown into jail for a murder that they didn't commit. It would be an outrage! Holy shit, we're dealing with the same thing here. Basically put, you're being what the French call a "hypocrite" if you use this for ammo. If you want equality, call me up and I'll fight by your side. Like in a note to my parents from my 3rd grade teacher said:

"I could not get [tspikes] to apologize to [name removed] in front of the class. However, I could not bring myself to make him embarass himself. It would only humiliate him and mean that she won and would "lord over" the situation."

This was one of the topics of my ethics class.

The other perspective, is that because of past injustices, said people are "behind" and need help to catch up and thus deserve something extra.

I'm a little conflicted on both sides personally.

No one individual deserves any more or less than any other individual.

There is equality and justice, and there is revenge.

i dunno, i think that sort of comment depends on the context. if we are talking about injustice to women on a global level, it's still an issue. and it might have nothing to do with wanting special treatment, just a statement of what women have been through and where they are now. i don't expect anything extra because of my gender--but there are still areas where men get preferential treatment (salary springs to mind). although, there are also areas where women get the perks--paternity leave is gaining in popularity, but nothing like what women get. staying home to take care of the kids is a socially acceptable choice for a woman--a man who wants to do gets funny looks. and mr. mom? don't tell me that doesn't imply that the parenting role belongs to women.

as for being hypocritical, again--it depends. just because you don't see something as an issue, doesn't mean the group in question doesn't feel the effects. and arguing that the issue still exists doesn't mean there are cries for punishment of any particular social group either. i don't think men of my generation should pay for the crimes of their great-grandfathers. they weren't crimes against me anyway. but some of the effects remain and i do feel that influence. you choose to interpret the statement that women have suffered for hundreds of years as an implication that they want "more" and men should be punished in some way. i interpret it as meaning, life as a woman has sucked for a long time, for a lot of women it's better than it used to be but still not what it should be.

this discussion assumes that whatever past wrong is being considered has in fact ceased.

in several of the situations you mention, i would argue that there is still a wrong that is operative in today's society.

Right. I don't know about race equality, but I think I heard recently that women are still making substantially less than males in the same jobs.

I dream of a world where the past stays once and for all in the past and we can look with clean, clear eyes at what FUTURE we want to invent, given what currently exists in the present.

Unfortunately, there are people with a vested interest in trumpeting (and thereby perpetuating) the past. I say, in this case, that history will teach us nothing.

Yes. But dwelling on history teaches us annimosity and contempt.

'Bearing' the mistakes of the ancestors is putting it a little dramatically. After all, many of us are also reaping the vast rewards of our ancestors' success. Isn't it reasonable for someone to feel disenfranchised when they see that one family has a head-start on another family?

Perhaps they do have a right to be pissed off. I say fair enough. More power to them. Do I feel their pain? Do I suffer because they feel inconvenienced? Not one jot. Why should I get upset because someone else feels they have a right to something I already have a right to? They are not harming me. That being said, thank goodness I don't live in Mugabe's Zimbabwe - I care about the sins of today. If someone wants to cause me a personal injustice, then let them try - let that be a sin of today, and not some retribution for injustice in the past. Fair is fair - let sin and hatred continue, everything should pretty much even itself out in the end.

However, I would prefer it if someone wants to work with me in order to help both me, and themselves out. It saves time and money, and is a more secure way of dealing with these issues, because injustice breeds injustice and before long, it could be someone else's ancestors crying foul play.

I couldn't agree more. Affording preferential treatment to a particular group (at the expense of another, necessarily) justifies the sentiment that the dominent group "owes" something to the subordinate group. For example, people who favor reparations to be paid to descendents of slaves think that I, as a white person, have a responsibility to counteract the injustices committed by members of my race in past centuries. This kind of thinking leads to racism on both sides, as well as hostility.

It's sad that the situation for women or other races are as they are. It is true that there is still a problem with some people who refuse to give equal respect and treatment to all others. It's also true that women or other races almost have MORE special treatment than their counterparts. Part of this is somewhat the natural course of things. There is a pattern to social norms. They swing like a pendulum.

For example: Years ago in the early 70's, manufacturers had developed formula. The Dr's were really pushing mother's to formula feed the infants. Anyone who breastfed was a hippy, crazy, or child abusers. Now the medical community has discovered the benefits of breastfeeding and are pushing it to the exclusion of formula in some cases. Some even criticising the formula feeders. With any action there is often an equal or opposite REaction even in society - not just thermodynamics. If we recognise this trend than perhaps we can slow our REaction so that it does not bounce back on us just has harshly as it did the first time.

OK. Let's agree to not dwell on the past. Let's look at the inequity and discrimination in the here and now...

Two problems with this:

1) not everyone agrees that there *is* a problem (there is).
2) it is difficult to understand today's inequity and discrimination without knowing how it came to pass that we are in this situation.

We *can* learn from our past and make change for the future. Ththe problem is many don't like the inconvenience that change can represent.

What debate or issue needs is greater focus on the continuing injustices rather than past ones. The whole issue gets derailed when people start thinking they are being held responsible for great-granddaddy's sins when in reality they are being asked to make a commitment to not continue the secondary effects of the original sin/crime. Slavery was a horrendous crime in itself, and the subsequent fallouts from it (segregation, denial of civil rights, denial of educational, social, employment opportunities, debasement of a large sector of the population, etc.) are what is crippling the country today.

The crimes against former slaves did not end with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863; they continued in the decades that followed. There were the Plessy v Ferguson case that legalized inequality and enforced segregation in transportation, the Poll Tax that only a Constitutional amendment could defeat, the Black Codes that dictated how citizens of color could live and restricted their ability to fully enjoy all the benefits that American citizenship conferred upon others, and so on. These laws could be seen in every aspect of American life: sports, entertainment, housing, the workplace, recreation, education, legal, every thing.

What some are saying is that these postbellum crimes and injustices, while not as prevalent as in the decades immediately following the Civil War, are still with us in some form today.

As far as reparations are concerned, are the objections on par with reparations for Americans of Japanese ancestry who lost their property, their liberty, and their dignity during World War II, or for Native Americans who were reimbursed for the loss of their lands?

Consider a more recent injustice where many of the parties involved are still living. Japanese-American citizens had their property and assests seized and were forced into intern camps during WWII. When the war was over, their homes and businesses were not returned to them.

I believe there is general agreement today that bit of history was a moral low point for our country. Restitution should have occurred 60 years ago.

The fact stands though that individuals involved were still living.

I'm not sure about you, but I agree with a central theme of a speech given by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 2004 Republican Convention. He told a breif story of his life (he came to America as a poor Austrian) and how through hard work he got to the place that he is today, because anybody can do that in America. I honestly believe that our legal system can enforce equality (the only thing that I can see a struggle with at a legal level is homosexual unions). Therefore, individuals who do not achieve what they want can win a court battle over it 99% of the time, or they haven't worked for it enough. It is irresponsible to not use the court system to battle these injustices.

That being said, if we were all born in the same situation the world would be a heap of shit. The ethos that is the central topic of this thread is about power, not equality.

The US government offered the 60,000 surviving internees a letter of apology and a one-time payment of $20,000. Most of Grace's family lived in Hawaii, where the Japanese residents were mostly allowed to go free, but also suffered from widespread discrimination.

However, those who did live in the US on the West Coast were forced to sell businesses and homes at a fraction of their value to greedy neighbors who were happy to snap them up at bargain prices. Post war lawsuits declared these sales entirely legal. Some properties were simply abandoned and taken by the state. When the Japanese attempted to get reparations afterwards, get their homes and businesses returnded to them they were denied. Discrimination and resentment towards Japan lingered and made rebuilding from scratch all but impossible for many, and resentment towards Japan that was misplaced onto loyal Japanese-Americans delayed justifialbe reparations for more than 40 years.

Having had their economic base taken from them, not returned, and having been long denied the opportunity to rebuild left many without the ability to build a legacy to hand down to descendants. Those who snapped up thier property at bargain prices had opportunities to parlay their ill-gotten gains.

So here we have assets taken from group A and given to group B at little to no cost, and a system that then favored group B for decades.

$20,000 was a token, not nearly what those people deserved.

We need to remember such things because it helps to prevent them from happening again. So that we don't start rounding up Muslims and locking them in camps to "protect" the rest of us.

Gilda

Handouts are just as crippling as the original discrimination. However, persons should also be judged on their character, not a physical trait. This is not always the case, hence the feeling of entitlement. Being a token is no better than being outright discriminated against. They are essentially saying the same thing, that you are this color, this sex, this race, this disbaility;that and that alone dis/qualifies you.

I was truely afraid this was going to be the case when our government began arresting any Muslims that appeared even slightly suspicious.

I agree about the importance of understanding history, but I would extend that to prehistory as well, and for me that understanding just emphasizes how much we are all in the same boat.

All we humans descended from the same common ancestor not long ago at all relative to the history of any species. If you held hands with your mother, and she with her mother, and so on, to form a long line of people, that line would reach back to the common ancestor of everybody very quickly and would stretch a distance equivalent from around Philadelphia to NYC.

Considering the amount of real time involved, several hundred thousands of years, it is inescapable that there are unspeakable, horrific crimes committed by the ancestors of each and every one of us. Probably every single one of us would not exist at all if not for the fact that many of our ancestors were raped. We each have murderers and rapists, and probably genocide in our family tree.

If we're all going to pay for the crimes of our ancestors, then who is going to receive the payment?

My preference is to restrict our ethics to those events that occurred within living memory.

"Right. I don't know about race equality, but I think I heard recently that women are still making substantially less than males in the same jobs."

Not exactly. The way that statistic is compiled is taking the average full time income for all males and the average full time income for women. Going right to the middle and coming up with a figure.

It does not take into account. Experience, education level, hours worked per week, overtime, job experience and how many consecutive years you've been in the workforce.

http://www.glennsacks.com/is_pay_a.htm

http://www.iwf.org/articles/article_...?ArticleID=800

http://www.glennsacks.com/should_men_still.htm

And the best resource of all on this issue is of course Dr. Warren Farrell's book released last year entitled "Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

I did not even begin to think about thinking about it that way. I've been caught up in different arguments from too many bull-dyke feminists. Those articles are all eye-openers for me. I am in shock.

Your view of the big picture puts things in perspective. The same kind of thing can be said about countries and land ownership. Almost all the land was taken from someone who in turn took it from someone, and on and on.

It boils down to lust for power.

Every group wants more. In this case it just happens to be a group of people who want something for nothing.

At the apogee of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, most of white America came to see the injustices against black people as unacceptable. The moral authority of Martin Luther King's leadership made it impossible to sustain institutional racism in the United States. His vision of one color blind nation "where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers" spoke to the heart of white America, and white America saw the necessity of change.

Today, Martin Luther King's call for equality has been transformed into one for special treatment; equality under law has been replaced with a demand for equal outcomes, preferential treatment, and reparations. The hunger for freedom has become the thirst for superiority, which should not surprise the student of history.
Martin Luther King's vision of little black children and white children joining together as brothers and sisters has clearly been lost by today's generation of "civil rights leaders." A deeply moral movement and struggle for justice has become a shakedown scam with self-serving hypocrites for leaders.

I always argued in class that the reason there was a supposed inequality in pay was due to the completely different nature of how men and women pursue different jobs. As well as all the other reasons listed above.

It made perfect sense to me, but everybody else was convinced I was a bigot. And perhaps I am. I just don't think that the vast majority of women aim for and work at the highest paying jobs available. Culture or nature, that seems to be how it is.

Is this about the 40 acres and the mule no one ever got?

I think sexism against women and misogyny are first-level kinds of injustice -- you can't divide people on a higher plane than gender. It's a clear prejudice that can be practiced openly even among family members within the four walls of a home. I laugh a bit that only the last few hundred of years are mentioned -- I think the hardships and second-class status of women has endured for a lot longer than a few hundred years.

Reparations and penalties are sometimes appropriate for individual acts of injustice -- that's what the legal sysytem is for in society -- but I believe when we are discussing broad classes of people, penalties and reparations are a step backwards. Education is the real tool for change.

I don't think it's the civil rights' leaders who have lost the vision. The problem with accusing minority groups of wanting "special treatment" is that whites have been recieving special treatment for 300+ years in this country, and continue to reap the benefits of this treatment. The reason that equal outcomes, "preferential" treatment, and reparations are now becoming debated/used is because those things are easily observable and quantifiable. And they also help bring minorities into a position of equality, so that there's a chance in the future to do away with those types of programs. Whites who argue against them fail to notice how they are benefitting even now from past injustices (not to mention current injustices). They assume that everyone else want's something for nothing, but don't understand that much of what they have has nothing to do with their personal accomplishments but what previous generations secured. And blacks don't have that same structure of past economic growth.

Thank you for posting those links. I was going to post some, but yours were better. It's indicative of the mindset at NOW that they still spout the "75%" mantra.

See my signature.

Wow a lot to digest, and a lot of thoughts that come to mind. I will do my best not to ramble here. I hate to say that past injustices should affect the present, but a lot of those injustices may in fact be still occurring. Also some injustices do not go away after.

My wife wrote up a dissertation regarding post-traumatic stress disorder multi-generational dealing with genocide survivors. In the past century this can mean anyone from the holocaust to how it will affect Bosnian survivors. I can tell you from a personal note, my family definitely has had some after-effects from the holocaust (not in a positive way, but negative attributes that occurred because of this, this is not the forum to get into specifics). I know it might seem weird to hear that re-brought up but my parents grew up in the ruins after. Do I feel that I deserve or should have or ever bring up the holocaust whenever I want, the answer is no. I will not say that I will never bring it up, but I have yet to wave my arms, (except once a year when we remember what happened) and shout about equality or anything.

But the point I guess I am trying to make is that there are certain injustices that do occur in the world, that cause ripples more then most people realize. And these ripples can cause even more ripples, and continue for a while (including spanning several generations).

So when someone cries about an injustice that occurred in the past, I do not just roll my eyes (well mentally sometimes to be honest), but I try to listen. I do feel at times we need to do our best to put the past behind us, and use it as a tool to learn. But the truth is a lot of these injustices still exist, while highly condemned they still happen.

I am not trying to justify or rationalize people who stand up and say, such and such happened half a century ago, we deserve more. But it should give us pause to consider their view point.

EVERY group has their righteous grievence against other groups. The Irish dispise the English, the Poles the Russians; and the French, well, just about everybody. Greeks should be demanding free money from the Italians because the Romans held Greeks as slaves. And why not? We are all victims if we choose to be.

My Cherokee ancestors certainly deserve free money from the Iroquois, Catawba, Chickasaw and especially the Shawnee. It is common knowledge that Shawnee wealth had nothing to do with their personal accomplishments, but instead it came to them through what previous generations secured.

Perhaps the answer is for EVERY group to give free money to every other group that they have offended. If your ancestors were members of an African tribe that sold their African enemies to Dutch slave merchants, then your money goes to African Americans whose African ancestors your African ancestors sold. Mormans will line their pockets with the cash of those other Christians who chased them out of Missouri and into the deserts of the West. If you happen to be of mixed Cherokee and Irish desent, you will get a check from dozens of groups because everyone knows your ancestors got screwed by just about everybody.

Don't forget my English ancestors who were enslaved by the Romans, and my great, great, great grandparents on to my parents who grew up in Appalachia.

I recently had stats II and we used data that was anon. donated from a company, meaning it was real and current. White males still make the most money, get promoted the fastest, etc. or at least in that co.

"I recently had stats II and we used data that was anon. donated from a company, meaning it was real and current. White males still make the most money, get promoted the fastest, etc. or at least in that co."

I would love to see those stats, studies, etc posted here for all to view.
Himbo

At some point every group has been subjected to mistreatment, and every group has mistreated another. Let's take my ancestors, the Germans, for example. It's well known that the Romans commonly owned German slaves durring the reign of the Roman Empire. Then Germans turn around a few hundred years later and persecute the Jewish people. The same can be said for any group. If I am to be heald responsible for persecuting Jews, they have to be heald responsible for their historical crimes, and the Romans have to be heald responsible for enslaving my ancetors. The bottom line is that I've never been persecuted, and I've never persecuted anyone. It's completly unnecessary to try and hold people responsible for the acts of those they'll never even know.