Posty, you did a FINE JOB. Here's another good book for those interested in the topic:

Family Properties: How the Struggle Over Race and Real Estate Transformed Chicago: Beryl Satter, Picador, 2010.

Beryl Satter's father was involved in an effort to help black people resist and defend themselves from being ripped off by the post WWII Chicago real estate industry. It was a valorous but loosing battle, but the book provides a lot of up-close and personal stories about dispossession rather than stats and maps.

We well-supplied people should feel guilty because we have more than people who are as deserving as we are. or maybe they are more deserving. — Bitter Crank

Who says? Who is to judge?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/racism_in_real_estate_landlords_redlining_housing_values_and_discrimination.html — PostyMcPostface

The article links to this book, Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City [Baltimore] by Antero Pietila. Haven't read it, but it looks like a good read.

I've focussed a lot of my attention on Chicago, just because segregation was so much more massive there than it was in Minneapolis, which I am more familiar with, and because Chicago's housing segregation and racial history is better documented. Chicago's problems are just much more spectacular than those of fly-over states. Baltimore looks like a good city to study too, with plenty of archival material available.

One of the interesting bits in the red zoning maps in Boston was the reference to "cosmopolitan populations" a code word for undesirable ethnics from Europe. I don't know why they used that term, because in the same paragraph they would state "Jewish infiltration a threat". Or black infiltration, poor infiltration, welfare infiltration.

Who says? Who is to judge — charleton

Click bait phrasing. People can, should, or may feel guilty for personal behavior. I don't think people should feel guilty for governmental or corporate policies they had nothing to do with and wouldn't have been able to affect, unless they were in charge of policy making, which most people are not.

People shouldn't feel guilty for being the beneficiaries of bad policies--up to a point. Folks are not personally responsible for being white, in the majority (70 years ago whites were a larger majority in the US), or that their government gave them benefits it didn't give other people. We can at least be aware of the difference made by either getting the benefit or not getting the benefit. Blacks didn't get the FHA benefit, and it consigned them to poverty which white folks who got the benefit were not consigned to.

We can also be aware that not all whites received the benefit. When the FHA was in full swing, one had to have enough income to afford to buy a house, even an FHA mortgaged house. Lots of white workers with families could not afford to buy a new house, even at favorable terms. Large scale developments of mass produced housing were not built everywhere. They were generally built adjacent to large urban areas, and not in rural areas. In the 1950s far more people still lived in small towns and rural areas than they do now.

So, lots of whites were not beneficiaries and it affected them in ways similar to the ways it affected blacks -- it was a big missed opportunity.

Who says? Who is to judge
— charleton

Click bait phrasing. People can, should, or may feel guilty for personal behavior. I don't think people should feel guilty for governmental or corporate policies they had nothing to do with and wouldn't have been able to affect, unless they were in charge of policy making, which most people are not. — Bitter Crank

No - Who says who is or is not 'deserving'.

Who says? Anybody who wants to offer an opinion on the matter. Hey, it's a free country. Tell it like you think it is. You are perfectly free to offer an opinion on whether x, y, or z got more or less than they deserved.

Mate BC, you must have stayed up like the entire night! What's happening, insomnia strikes?

↪charleton Who says? Anybody who wants to offer an opinion on the matter. Hey, it's a free country. Tell it like you think it is. You are perfectly free to offer an opinion on whether x, y, or z got more or less than they deserved. — Bitter Crank

In which case your guilt is completely self generated both internally and externally.

When it comes to guilt, action, etc. on the current affairs of our society, I feel at this point only time matters. None of us are guilty of the actions of our ancestors, but over the hundreds of years of the slave trade in America and abroad, this half a century of a more realized freedom for the African American is still a considerably fresh wound. The black men of today can still remember the words of their grandparents spoken when they were just children. The realization of there recent ancestrial past is not a light burden to carry and not an easy one to let go.

I think the only solution to to the wall that stands between is to simply make a sincere nod, look them in the eye, and move forward into our future. Of course, when it comes to being a female, you should probably take their hand as well (being a female myself) ;). With time, the wall will break down, and allow the past to be set aside.

As I manage restaurants, I once had a boss tell me, "Managing change in a single restaurant is like driving a speed boat, but managing change in an area of 12 restaurants is like the slow turn of a whole battleship." Considering the change of an entire society, I believe this to be relevant.

No, not insomnia - it's the gradual shift from normal sleep time. I don't like it, but I haven't gotten it under control. I slept from 10: 30 pm to 1:30 am, then woke up -- wide awake. I'll probably have to take a sleeping pill for a few evenings, get to sleep early, then wake up early. Hopefully that will get me into a more normal sleep cycle.

What'd I do if King, is put all the wealth in one bucket and then divide it equally among all (except the Dutch will only get 1/3 of a share obviously) and then the resultant economic collapse and starvation would Darwinistically cull the herd, ironically creating super humans better equipped at dealing with guilt.

I think some people might be confusing 'shame' and 'guilt'. Helen Block Lewis in Shame and Guilt in Neurosis (1971) defined the terms as - "The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, [however,] the self is not the central object of negative evaluation, but rather the thing done is the focus"

Neurological studies by people like Tangney have since shown considerable empirical support for such a distinction. In fact, in Shame and Guilt (2002) the authors sum up their results from meta analysis of dozens of psychological tests quite bluntly: "The pattern is pretty clear-cut: guilt is good; shame is bad"

We should no feel shame for the actions of our ancestors because they were not our fault, but if we have excess while others suffer (regardless of the reason), guilt is an entirely appropriate response to doing nothing about that.

In which case your guilt is completely self generated both internally and externally. — charleton

I'm wondering how else guilt gets generated.

We should no feel shame for the actions of our ancestors because they were not our fault, but if we have excess while others suffer (regardless of the reason), guilt is an entirely appropriate response to doing nothing about that. — Pseudonym

Linda Radzik wrote an excellent book called 'Making amends' about collective atonement. One case study she analyses is that of the Magdalene Laundries for 'fallen women' in Ireland that treated women discarded by their families like something close to slaves: to what extent are (a) present volunteers and members of the charities that ran the laundries responsible for doing something about the charities' past actions; and (b) Church members in Ireland responsible?

It's worth remembering that for every direct transgressor there are many who turn a blind eye, or who are complicit in minor but meaningful ways. Herein lie shades of responsibility.

I'm not offering any kind of neat answer. I've been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates about slavery: he believes there has to be a collective reckoning in the USA, avowing that slavery was wrong and setting up explicit large funds to redress that wrong, because the harm done in the past still afflicts descendants of the harmed - and benefits descendants of the harmers - in the present. None of my business, I'm a Brit, but I'm interested in the principles at stake. But I heartily agree with BC, we've got to be clear, if we start engaging in any kind of collective breast-beating about such issues, that, for instance, other disempowered people had no chance of a say about many past moral wrongs.

You're right, but it doesn't take many iterations of the consequences before mapping exactly who is complicit and to what extent becomes incredibly difficult.

We can say with a high degree of certainty that Western civilisations as a whole have benefitted from the oppression of slaves and colonies, but to say that any individual has benefitted more than they have suffered simply by virtue of their birth is practically impossible.

More importantly though, I think the concept of reparation payments undermines what I hold to be an important virtue of social responsibility. If we make the claim that one group are responsible for the suffering of another by virtue of an historical linked we can establish, then we must also accept the converse; some other group is not responsible for helping to alleviate the suffering of those in their community (because no culpability can be demonstrated). That is not an ethical statement to which I hold.

I take it you are demanding a general social responsibility, rather than the accounting system that reparations would require.

I agree that tracing the consequences of slavery up to 1864, and then since 1865 is inordinately complex. In addition, there was more than one system of oppression operating throughout the period of slavery There was in the colonial period, a system of white-worker indenture which was often a short-term slavery; there was a system of share-cropping (mostly in the former confederate states) that was a no-win game for either white or black sharecroppers. Capitalist operations were always somewhat exploitative, but some times grossly exploited their workers, black and white together. We can't leave out the American Indian who was subjected to genocidal policies, or Chinese railroad workers who were very cruelly exploited.

The basic principle of redress should not be "your ancestors were slaves" (or severely disadvantaged in some other way) but rather, "you have been disadvantaged in this present time". Let's call "the present" the last X number of years. Let's say "since the end of World War II", or 70 years (give or take...) Seventy years takes in government policy which benefitted, or harmed, the young people of the late '40s and '50s, and the one or two generations since. Segregation of schools was ruled unconstitutional in 1954, but since then multiple solutions to redress educational inequality have been subverted. Cuts and restrictions in the social safety net that existed in 1970, for instance, have made life more precarious for poor people of all races.

Many of the bad things that happened to people int he last 70 years have happened through the action of the State, or through the acquiescence of the state. After 1954, many parents in the south decided they would take their children from public schools and place them in new private schools created for the purpose of avoiding school desegregation. The state may not have instigated these moves, but it validated this effort to subvert integration. Individuals may have disapproved of welfare programs, but The State, of course, provided the social safety net, and it was the state that moved to reduce it.

There are actions that were harmful to some communities, but were not carried out by the state. The owners of industries which moved from one part of the country to another, then moved from this country to other countries to reduce labor costs are responsible for job losses in the communities they abandoned. The state was not directly responsible.

Individuals, whether workers or industrial magnates, will have to make their own amends. The state, however, has a collective responsibility, and can be collectively compelled to make structural amends.

There are two government agency acronyms that are most relevant: Housing (FHA) and Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) cover the areas where Government can be held most responsible. Bluntly discriminatory housing policies, acquiescence to subverting efforts equalize education for all children, and the general area of health and welfare.

There is no likelihood in the foreseeable future that the government will do a damn thing about redressing systemic wrongs, but that's what we should be working for, and the sooner the fewer new wrongs will be done.

Guilt is a choice.
You are just beating yourself up, for no reason.

One case study she analyses is that of the Magdalene Laundries for 'fallen women' in Ireland that treated women discarded by their families like something close to slaves: to what extent are (a) present volunteers and members of the charities that ran the laundries responsible for doing something about the charities' past actions; and (b) Church members in Ireland responsible? — mcdoodle

There was an article on the Magdalene Laundries in the New York Times today; what to do about one of the laundry buildings--tear it down or make a memorial?

First, one would need to ascertain that wrong had been committed, and who were the beneficiaries and victims. This is an evidentiary procedure involving investigation and analysis. In many cases where there has been systemic wrongs done, this isn't all that difficult but it could be a lengthy process. It is in the evidentiary proceedings that the unpleasant truth is revealed.

Institutions that were responsible at the time for the wrongs done need to be investigated to determine which of them still exist. Again this is a fairly straight forward procedures. The order that operated the Magdalene Laundries may still exist, and whether it does or not, the Church of which the order was a part still exists -- but that needs to be defined.

The resources of the responsible agents or their successors have to be assessed. Then a court, probably, or a office established by the courts, would have to establish the degree of liability. Finally, a payout of some kind (either in a radical change of the organization or a liquidation of its assets) can be executed.

In the various priest-abuse cases in the United States, all this has been carried out in adversarial court proceedings. What has happened in several dioceses is that the settlement has liquidated a good share of the church's assets, sending the church into bankruptcy. If the hierarchy of the church was morally bankrupt, then financial bankruptcy seems reasonable

One of the reasons for adversarial litigation is that parts of the church will vigorously resist being classed as a liable property. For instance, a Catholic owned hospital in the diocese might enter into the litigation to protect itself from the court's decrees.

It has not been an altogether satisfactory result, in my opinion. The institution itself doesn't seem to have be sufficiently chastened. During the long proceedings in the Minneapolis Saint Paul Archdiocese, the church was very persistent in its resistance -- continuing to obfuscate, cover up, and so forth. That behavior became part of the overall case. One archbishop was replaced, only to find that the replacement also had problems of covering up, and so forth

I would guess wading into the Irish Catholic Church's behavior would be similarly complicated by layers of resistance and deceit. And this would go for other organizations too, whether it was Magdalene Laundries, Apple, Microsoft, government agencies, and so forth. Problems are always stacked up several layers deep.

Investigation and Litigation isn't going to have the same cathartic results that a Truth and Reconciliation procedure will. Something that combines both? Not sure here. We know that the courts can extract substantial penalties and benefits for victims but it isn't in a position to reform the church.

Just one case among many possible cases of systemic wrongs.

Investigation and Litigation isn't going to have the same cathartic results that a Truth and Reconciliation procedure will. — Bitter Crank

You have an admirable, but I think misplaced, faith in the ability of 'Truth and Reconciliation' procedures. They work well enough in places like Northern Ireland with regards to the violence there, and probably with slavery, but that's not because they have some kind of cathartic power, it's because the whole of society has moved on, no-one sees slavery as OK any more, most people in Northern Ireland are tired of the fighting.

The moral authority of the Catholic Church is severely eroded, but is still very strong, particularly within the communities where the atrocities took place. The 2009 report of the Irish Governement into Catholic child abuse concluded not only that rape and molestation were "endemic" in Irish Catholic church-run industrial schools and orphanages, but that the government and local community leaders were reluctant to act against them.

In 2011, abbot of Glenstal Abbey said Ireland had become "a concentration camp where [the Church] could control everything. ... And the control was really all about sex. ... It's not difficult to understand how the whole system became riddled with what we now call a scandal but in fact was a complete culture."

The Parkinson report, highlighted the way in which teachings about sin directly lead to victims being reluctant to speak out about abuse, has the Church altered it's teaching about sin? - no.

The Higgins and Macabe report highlighted the way in which teachings about papal infallibility and the moral authority of the priesthood allowed abusers to continue their abuse. Have the Church retreated from it's position about moral authority? - no.

Truth and reconciliation only works when society is already willing to accept the truth anyway.

Investigation and Litigation isn't going to have the same cathartic results that a Truth and Reconciliation procedure will. Something that combines both? Not sure here. — Bitter Crank

I agree, it's a tough call. A class I did last autumn usefully compared South Africa with Argentina - Truth and reconciliation, led by Desmond Tutu, on the one hand...Bring transgressors to justice, which is what's happening in Argentina. It feels like different States and institutions have to go through different rituals. Tutu's heavy emphasis on forgiveness left some South Africans feeling that there had not been enough retribution for wrong-doing; some Argentines feel reconciliation is made too difficult when punishment is the order of the day.

As for the Catholic Church and its institutions, in Ireland the successive abuse scandals have been followed by a related but different sort of crisis: hardly anyone wants to become a priest. A couple of friends have told me that their local churches are becoming run basically by laypeople. There just aren't enough new vocations to go round even the dwindling number of believers. Interesting to see where it leads.

As for the Catholic Church and its institutions, — mcdoodle

It's pretty much the same situation in the U.S., though these downward trends in both lay participation in church and vocations began before the numerous priest abuse scandals began. The Catholic Church is in better shape here than in the UK -- not sure what it's condition in Ireland is. But the priest shortage is very bad to severe.

Vocations began to fall in the 1960s because many priests, nuns, and monks simply could not stand to continue living the kind of life that professed religious were living. It wasn't about sex; it was that the cost/benefit balance of religious life tipped in favor of secular life. The orders' rules for living were too antiquated, too rigid. The lives of the professed were too constricted by the weight of their hierarchy.

Priests found that the life available to them when they weren't working was either dry, empty, and lonely -- life in a rectory with several dissatisfied middle aged to older single men just wasn't healthy, or it involved having a sometimes not very surreptitious sex and social life outside of the church.

What precisely caused many millions of Christian laity to depart the church are varied, of course. A long thread could be devoted to the matter. Well, I quit going to church in the 1960s; it wasn't a crisis of faith; I just didn't find... whatever it was. I am a member of a church now -- first time in many years -- for reasons that have little to do with "religion". It's pretty much just someplace to go, mix with a few people, do stuff with others, that sort of thing. If I didn't live directly across the street, most likely I wouldn't be there at all.

See this is why Truth and Reconciliation won't work with regards to the Catholic Church's history of abuse. With slavery, apartheid, even sectarian violence we can look not just at what happened, but why it happened (the really important 'truth') so we can prevent it from happening again. This is essentially the difference between the satisfactory resolution of an atrocity and a cover-up.

People want to see the perpetrators of the atrocities brought to justice, but by and large there have been no calls for those responsible for allowing them to commit such acts to be punished similarly. With regards to the institutions, people are largely just calling for something to be done to stop it from happening again.

The trouble is, religion seems immunised from criticism in this regard, we can't have a truth and reconciliation process if one of the possible 'truths' has been ruled out before we even start. If we look into what it is about religious institutions that allows these things to happen (in order to stop it from happening again) then we have to allow that some tenet or belief within that religion might be the cause. If we rule that possibility out before the investigation has even started then no-one is going to have any faith in the process.

In the UK Carillion has just gone pants up, leaving 20,000 people without a job and thousands of subcontractors without payment putting further jobs at risk.
The directors of Carillion, however, have managed to protect their bonuses and pensions, despite leaving debts of £1.6 billion.
150 years ago, all the directors would have ended up in debtors prison until their debts were paid.
In Brighton, austerity measures have caused the deaths of 17 rough sleepers, this winter.
Victorians values for the poor, Zimbabwean values for the rich.

At a certain level of analysis, group identity, in and of itself, seems to be a deeply confused and inextricably racist/sexist or otherwise superficially discriminatory concept. So society is only spinning its wheels on the matter.

The way I see it, experience is a fundamentally individual thing. The individual is the ultimate minority. When you look to assign me guilt, pity, or whatever, look at my actual circumstances and not traits that are statistically correlated with my appearance. That's how to avoid making enemies out of allies in the quest for a better world.