So I am looking to discuss your (and my) ideas on racial inequality. Today I read what I thought was an interesting article on 538 about differences in white democrats and black democrats thoughts on what should be done.
It should be noted that the reason democrats only were discussed, is that between white and black democrats, comparison can be made to see common ground or differences between the two. The article mentions that based on polling there is almost no common ground on these issues between white republicans and black democrats (and most blacks identify as democrat).
The article looks at income inequality, education, housing and work place politics (and confederate statues, which I left out of my discussion).
For income inequality, the article looks at differences in white and black democrats opinions on reparations. Not surprising that black people support this idea more.
I can’t come up with good reasons to support reparations for slavery, as I think people paid reparations need to be those directly impacted, and they need to be paid by those doing the harm. That isn’t possible now.
I am convinced that the people who suffered under Jim Crow laws and are still alive should get paid. However, tracking down the people responsible for those laws and holding them responsible seems impossible.
I can’t support general tax dollars being used for reparations, because why should a non involved person foot the bill? It is a punishment on an innocent person.
The next topic was education. Differing views exist on that between white and black on a few of the questions. Of interest to me was black democrats thoughts on race being considered for college admissions, which was much lower than expected and pretty in line with white democrats.
Busing students to different districts was supported more by the black people polled. On this, the question involved forcing students to bus outside of the district for both white and black kids. I don’t think I support that. Seems like it should be a choice, and I would be okay with that.
Housing was discussed next. These opinions matched up pretty well. I was a bit disappointed that the article did not get into white people moving more to black areas (or programs to incentivize that). I have seen many areas in my state get improved with amenities, lowered crime, better schools, just with gentrification. I think gentrification is more efficient at improving the rough areas compared to building low income housing in the burbs, which I think doesn’t do much to improve the rough areas, and ends up making the burbs rougher.
Next was the workplace. Black and white both polled the same on race being a consideration for hiring and promotion, which surprised me. I was thinking blacks being polled would be in larger favor of this. I can’t support an idea like race being considered for hiring or promotions, as it just seems to racist to me.
I guess my main position is that, I don’t support the idea of using racist policies to reverse past racial injustices. I support removing any remaining racist policies, and I support helping unfortunate people in general without regard to race (I feel that this will help reduce racial inequality too).
Anyways this was a long article, and these are just some of my thoughts. Looking to see what other ideas you have. Maybe other ideas not related to the article to reduce racial inequality.