this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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A few Europeans from a few countries committed horrific crimes over half a century ago. Leopold III of Belgium in the 1950s during the independence of the Congo being the most modern example I'm aware of, and he died forty years ago.
If we are talking about the slave trade bound to the US, that ended a century and a half ago. Not that things turned instantly great for the freed slaves, of course.
So how much should we chastize people who were not even born when these things happened, and how much reparation needs to be paid to people who were not even born when it happened either? Because the way things work in the real world, I fear that in the end it will be middle class folks who will be paying "reparations" that will do nothing but fill the pockets of a few corrupt politicians from the receiving countries.
im aware that it was largely a rich few that were actually responsible for these acts, im arguing that responsibility isnt all that relevant
it shouldnt be about chastising or punishing, it should be about getting folks who continue to have an advantage from horrendous acts to help out folks who continue to have a disadvantage resulting from those horrendous acts in order to level the playing field, because thats the right thing to do