General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSlavery Reparation solution-- black votes count as 5/3 of a person
I love this idea. Would give greater political power to blacks. Obviously, it would also turn many southern states blue.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/21/we-used-to-count-black-americans-as-35-of-a-person-instead-of-reparations-give-them-53-of-a-vote/?
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...amount is figured (as to what was lost), we'll tax the corporations more to make up for it.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)I hope it is meant as satire.
pipoman
(16,038 posts)We should develop a plan to fight racism with racism....what could go wrong?
Ace Rothstein
(3,140 posts)romanic
(2,841 posts)therefor I could never support something like this. And that's not even factoring those who believe in the "one drop rule" and those who don't.
Hoppy
(3,595 posts)and sent to Caribbean Islands to work on plantations.
I still feel the stigma today.
Now, you can keep your mule but as for the 40 acres, I'll let you know where to mail my deed.
Orrex
(63,168 posts)I've never heard a better strategy to guarantee a GOP-controlled congress for decades to come.
I would leave the Democratic Party if this was ever part of their platform.
I and millions of others. It would be a boon to the republicans.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)Of course, those who advocate for this can't cite any provision in the Constitution which would allow for it.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Because, you know, they were always treated so well.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)and give them a bold symbol to wear so everyone knows they're black.
Maybe a big yellow star?
brooklynite
(94,301 posts)what if they immigrated from the Caribbean in the 20th Century?
Doingto
(135 posts)5/4, I guess.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)The author of this piece attempts to show that disproportionate representation already exists between states and voting districts and proposes another level of disproportionateness as thence justifiable.
There is no chance whatsoever that this would ever pass Constitutional muster, much less any action by Congress.
Iggo
(47,534 posts)5/6 of a person?
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)The logical formula would be that if you are x% black, the vote you had would be:
1 + 2x/300
So for 100% black (x=100) you would get 5/3 votes.
50% black (x=50) would get 1+1/3 = 4/3 votes.
Iggo
(47,534 posts)Much ass grassy ass.
Nye you never fail to make me laugh when others on here make smh. *thumbs up *
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)The outrage at such a divisive would kill the re-election chances of any legislator that supported it and would swell the ranks of the Republican party.
hunter
(38,301 posts)It's interesting how these sorts of thought experiments upset people.
Just as the classical physicists were upset by the thought experiments of Maxwell, Einstein, and Schrödinger, conservatives are troubled by political thought experiments such as this.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)It seemed to obviously be a thought experiment and not a serious suggestion. Did anyone actually think this was a serious suggestion?
I'd be very happy to see the GOP simply stop suppressing African American votes so each person gets one vote.
Doingto
(135 posts)Men should be stripped of the right to vote for several decades. Are you with me?
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)I thought the case for reparations was pretty good.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
And it would help if the people commenting here read the linked article in the OP:
"Thanks to a compromise between Southern slaveholders who wanted enslaved blacks counted in the population, for the sake of boosting Southern congressional representation, and Northern whites who didnt, the framers enshrined the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. This agreement set the census value of a slave as 60 percent of the value of a free person. Even after the 13th Amendment neutralized the political (and moral) compromise by abolishing slavery, Jim Crow laws, which contravened the 14th Amendments guarantee of equality, stopped blacks from voting. The just answer today is to invert that ratio. If black Americans were once counted as three-fifths of a person, let each African American voter now count as five-thirds.
Reparations in America have come to mean free money, so any serious discussion about them also mandates a discussion of how much an exercise doomed to failure. Other ways of imagining reparations (as the spilled blood of more than half a million Union soldiers during the Civil War; as affirmative action in universities and workplaces; as subsidized education) dont involve cash payments, but they also dont do enough to combat the structural disadvantages black Americans face disadvantages that have gone largely unaddressed by our legislative and executive branches."
TeddyR
(2,493 posts)Are opposed to reparations, and at least that many would oppose this ridiculous idea.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Antidemocratic and unconstitutional also.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)One human one vote.