Reddit reviews Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880

Black Reconstruction in America by WEB Dubois is, hands down, the best book about this period in American history from a Marxist perspective.

Glad you looked that up, last time I checked she was proposing $100 billion which MIT Grad/Duke economist Sandy Darity said was inadequate.

>Thanks for including my comments in this important article. Just one proviso; while I do think that @marwilliamson's initial proposed amount for reparations, $100 billion, is paltry, I also think she is open to modifying her proposal toward a much larger sum.

@emarvelous:

>"Universal programs are not specific to the injustices that have been inflicted on African-Americans." Talked to some smart folks on the 2020 conversation on reparations including ⁦@SandyDarity⁩. All say start with HR40, first proposed 30+ yrs ago:

SD:

>Thank you for writing this excellent article. I am especially curious about one matter: Would Whit Ayres endorse black reparations if it was not financed "by taking money away from white people and giving it to black people"?

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He's been interfacing with Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore and was on Ezra Klein's show a few months ago:

Sandy Darity has a plan to close the wealth gap | The Ezra Klein Show

>Published on Nov 6, 2018

> Here’s something to consider: For families in which the lead earner has a college degree, the average white family has $180,500 in wealth. The average black family? $23,400. That’s a difference of almost $160,000 — $160,000 that could be used to send a kid to college, get through an illness, start a small business, or make a down payment on a home that builds wealth for the next generation, too.
>
> Sandy Darity is an economist at Duke University, and much of his work has focused on the racial wealth gap, and how to close it. He’s a pioneer of “stratification economics” — a branch of study that takes groups seriously as economic units and thinks hard about how group incentives change our behavior and drive our decisions.
>
> In this podcast, we talk about stratification economics, as well as Darity’s idea of “baby bonds”: assets that would build to give poor children up to $50,000 in wealth by the time they become adults, which would, in turn, give them a chance to invest in themselves or their future the same way children from richer families do. Think of it as a plan for universal basic wealth — and people are listening: Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a past guest on this show, recently released a plan to closely tracked Darity’s proposal.
>
> I know, I know, the election is in a day. But right now, we don’t know who will win. So how about spending some time thinking about what someone who actually wanted to ease problems like wealth inequality could do if they did have power?

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>Recommended books:

>Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cox

>https://www.amazon.com/Caste-Class-Race-Social-Dynamics/dp/0853451168

>Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams

>https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Slavery-Eric-Williams/dp/0807844888/

>Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. DuBois

>https://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573/

I love this idea.

I'll add some of my own, and I hope others do too:

• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
  
  
• The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement by Richard Valelley
  
  
• Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History by Rodgers M. Smith
  
  
• Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by WEB DuBois
  
  
• John Brown by WEB DuBois
  
  
• Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David W. Blight
  
  
• Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics by Michael Dawson
  
  
• The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters by James McPherson
  
  
• The South's Tolerable Alien: Roman Catholics in Alabama and Georgia, 1945-1970 by Andrew S. Moore
  
  
• Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South by David Sears
  
  
• Obama's Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America by David Sears
  
  
• Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America by Nick Kotz
  
  
• Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David Garrow
  
  
• Town Born: The Political Economy of New England from Its Founding to the Revolution by Barry Levy
  
  
• Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South by Kristina Du Rocher
  
  
• Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972 by Robert Mickey
  
  
• The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America by Ronald Brownstein
  
  

> It's used as an attack by some people, and you can't fault people for correctly reading a word according to its 1000 year old definition rather than your recent metaphorical meaning.

Ok, I'll bite. First you said privilege used to have a legal meaning. Well... it still does. It has multiple meanings, like most words in the English language. The first definition in the dictionary I could find is, "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people." That's not an attack... it's an observation. And frankly, the legal definition doesn't explain the idea of an attack either. Regardless that first dictionary definition has been around for a long time. I don't know if you speak French, but I do. And the word privilege means exactly the same thing in French, because at the time French and Middle English were derived partially from Latin, privilege no longer exclusively or primarily had the legal definition it did in Rome. And the use of the word privilege in the context of whiteness isn't recent either. In fact the first use of the word privilege in this context goes all the way back to 1910. W.E.B. Du Bois isn't some obscure academic, but one of the most prominent members of the early civil rights movement. All of this happened before you or I were born... likely long before. And then in 1988 when Peggy Mcintosh wrote that invisible knapsack article... she continued the tradition of using the word privilege precisely because when she uses it everyone knows exactly what she's talking about. There's no confusion over the word, it means exactly what the dictionary says it means.

So it seems like people aren't unaware of what the word privilege means, they just have a hard time confronting what it means to them and to their skin color. It simply means their skin color entitles them to benefits that others do not have. Regardless of what the definition is, what does it say about white privilege that we're more concerned with whether or not we should hurt white peoples' feelings over calling a system what it empirically is?

Well, I would highly recommend renting some textbooks on American politics, American political history, and American political theory. Perhaps start here and work your way up: http://www.amazon.com/Logic-American-Politics-Samuel-Kernell/dp/1568028911

If you find textbooks too dull, then here is a good list of books to get you started:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Federalist-Anti-Federalist-Papers/dp/1495446697/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453181599&sr=1-1&keywords=federalist+and+anti-federalist+papers

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-America-Penguin-Classics-Tocqueville/dp/0140447601

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ideological-Origins-American-Revolution/dp/0674443020

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573

http://www.amazon.com/The-Nine-Inside-Secret-Supreme/dp/1400096790

http://www.amazon.com/Congress-Electoral-Connection-Second-Edition/dp/0300105878

http://www.amazon.com/What-Should-Know-About-Politics/dp/1611452996

http://www.amazon.com/The-Race-between-Education-Technology/dp/0674035305

http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/1491534656

*If you actually take the time to read these, you will be better informed than 99 percent of the voting public. <-- And after you read these, that sentence will terrify you because you will realize each of these books is just an introduction, and the world is being run by technocrats. JK, but not really.

Edit: But really.

[I hear good things about this] (https://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573)

I'd like to caution you that "reconstruction caused this mess in the first place" is a bit of a weird way to frame such a complicated political period.

If you want to get a good understanding of the period here are some good books you can read that are either on the period or have some material that overlaps with it.

Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner. I've linked you the abridged version, but there is a 600p version if you're really interested.

Nothing But Freedom by Eric Foner.

Capitol Men by Philip Dray

Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont and Sea Island Society by J William Harris

A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn

At the Hands of Persons Unknown by Phillip Dray

Black Reconstruction in America W. E. B Du Bois

If you count all white slaveowners in the USA they were less than 2% of the population.

The first US slaveowner was a black man. Black men continued to own slaves alongside white slaveowners, because slavery was a class issue and not a race issue (at least not until the Jim Crowe bullshit).

And white slaves existed.

Some starting points for people who didn't know some of this stuff (and the stuff in OP's tweet) -

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yextpoQw-w4 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDGQmDArU-o