The Homestead Act I am referring to is the one from 1862.
I went and read the Act. It doesn’t contain the inheritance provision you reference. Moreover, it didn’t prevent free blacks from its provisions. That’s not just my interpretation, that’s the History Channel’s interpretation as well: “Signed into law in May 1862, the Homestead Act opened up settlement in the western United States, allowing any American, including freed slaves,….” http://www.history.com/topics/homestead-act. So among other insurmountable obstacles to some form of “reparations” (which you seem to suggest) your position begins with a false premise. In reality, most of the “best land” went to speculators because few of the poor could afford the $1.25 per acre fee and much of the rest went to farmers already settled in the area where western homestead property was avaliable.
[This] represents a theft of opportunity to participate in and benefit from the commons.
Again, your concept of law is very loose. About the closest legal doctrine to fit your novel “theft of opportunity” proposition would be interference with prospective economic advantage. However, the elements of that tort would not come even close to addressing what you seek. In addition to the fact the Act did not do what you claim it did, the persons who obtained the property under the act were not the perpetrators of the interference, and so could not be held responsible. You would have to (1) identify a black person who applied for a homestead; (2) had the realistic means of complying with its requirements (i.e. the $1.25 per acre); a third party to the transaction intended to and did prevent that person from obtaining the property in a manner not otherwise authorized by law. Forgetting for the moment the fact any statute of limitations has long passed, you can see that such a claim would be exclusive to the individual actually cheated and would not support an across the board remedy. Moreover, the person liable would be the person that interfered, not the next applicant who happened to comply with all the requirements and be granted the homestead.
Many cities used redlining to keep black people from owning homes except in certain, less desirable neighborhoods
Many cities used “redlining” regarding many ethnic groups. Blacks are not unique in this regard. Additionally, “redlining” is not a legacy of “slavery” but a reflection of racism. When you seek to address “racism” there are a host of laws to protect existing, living real people from its effects. But the law can’t hold an entire classification of people based on complexion responsible for what some wrongdoers did or do, which is what you are advocating.
it’s impossible not to see these echoes
When your entire argument rests on the inherently amorphous concept of “echoes” then, like the “echo” it lacks substance and simply fades away. You can’t hold a class of people today responsible for an “echo” from the past.
Black people during slavery were depicted as lazy, stupid, and deserving of their status. Today we have variations on that same theme
I don’t think we have that today, except with a fringe element. Moreover, you can’t punish a whole class of people categorized only based on complexion for what some other people of a similar complexion think. We have laws to protect against putting such thoughts into action, but they restrict their application to the actual victim and the actual perpetrator. To go beyond is to ascribe bad behavior to an entire class of people because they look similar based on your chosen criteria. Once again, you fail to recognize in yourself what you purport to despise in others.
Each strategy to undermine the economic advancement of black Americans has roots in the previous era, going back to slavery.
Strategy? Really? That’s how you get there? Please direct me to the memo because I missed the meeting. You think if you state it a different way it changes what you’re doing? You essentially accuse all “white” people of engaging in a concerted effort to undermine black people. I hope you realize what an incredibly specious argument that is.
When there is a conflict between two people, an apology only means something if the behavior fundamentally changes for the better.
Maybe so, but you’re not talking about “two people.” You trying to ascribe the wrongs of a very few to an entire class of people who had nothing whatsoever to do with those wrongs. What, for example, am I supposed to apologize for? I’ve never owned a slave (nor have any of my ancestors), redlined a city, discriminated against any race with respect to housing, jobs, loans or anything else. Nor has anyone that I know. So what are we apologizing for?
these echoes that continue to today prove that there isn’t enough will on a societal level from the white community to reconcile with the black community to fundamentally change the underlying behavior.
First, your entire “echo” theory that all racism stems from “slavery” is absurd. If there are folks today who don’t like black people or who don’t like Chinese, Korean, Native American, Eastern European, etcetera, ad nauseam because of their race it is racism, pure and simple. I doubt there is a single racist that got that way because they read about a particular classification of people being enslaved at one time in history. As for racism, we have many laws in place to prevent adverse economic consequences stemming from a racist individual acting upon his belief. But those laws grant relief to those directly harmed and punish those directly responsible. There is no “race-wide” blame because there is no “race-wide” culpability, and your attempt to do so is itself an attempt to paint an entire classification of people with the wrongs of others who happen to bear a similar complexion. Do you know what that’s called?
Getting defensive about it doesn’t show the harmed party that you are really seeing the pain they are in
Again, what precisely do I have to be “defensive” about? If you’re trying to say that I am somehow responsible for the problems of a class of people simply because of the color of my skin, well that’s been done in history and it wasn’t right then and it’s not right now.
What that change looks like and how amends are made is negotiable
So what wrong am I guilty of that I have to make any “amends”? Don’t worry, the question is rhetorical and answers itself, none. Your notion that an entire class of similarly pigmented people owe “amends” speaks volumes about how willing you are to apply racial classifications. You are part of the problem, not the solution.
