John Oliver fills GOP-legislated gaps in Black history by tackling housing discrimination
"The past is the past," only seems applicable when white America might have to pay for something
TV News John Oliver
The recent Republican push toward state-mandated literal whitewashing of American history to remove all that pesky racism and genocide has seen a lot of not-willfully-ignorant people stepping up to the historical plate. On Sunday, it was John Oliver’s turn at bat. His extra-long Last Week Tonight return from hiatus saw the reliably funny, research-supplied, and pissed-off Brit doing an especially comprehensive job of examining yet another area where white Americans’ perceptions of their history (and the inarguable and deeply inconvenient facts thereof) are skewed, predictably, in favor of said white people’s self-satisfied need to do nothing.
In his piece on housing discrimination, Oliver, as is his way, plucked out one representative case from which to expand his argument that the institutionalized bigotry in home ownership continues to undermine the potential of Black prosperity. In this case, Oliver’s pick of a depressingly voluminous litter came from Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan, California. That’s where a black couple’s valuable beachfront property was seized by the now-wealthy town, but only after even the most strenuous efforts of the local Ku Klux Klan failed to terrorize Willa and Charles Bruce from their legal residence. As Oliver put it in summarizing the way that the actions of government and cross-burning yahoos’ to disenfranchise Black Americans have always gone hand in soot-covered glove, “Sure, the vigilante racists are spooky, but you’ve really gotta worry when the motherfuckers with advanced degrees show up.”
Just to channel his most skeptical (and whitest) viewers for a moment, Oliver asked what’s to be done about this generations-old racist swindle, anyway? After all, didn’t Manhattan put up a nice plaque about how it stole a Black family’s land and put out a proclamation condemning the act but pointedly not apologizing? What more do the millions of Black Americans legally denied their chance top own property and accumulate wealth at the same rate as their white co-citizens want? (Psst, it rhymes with “steparations,” and Oliver asked his more historically clued in viewers to keep the answer under their hats until his wrap-up.)
Essentially preparing to act as a deeply necessary educational adjunct for GOP-controlled areas sweatily legislating Black history out of the classroom, Oliver’s story took the long view of racial discrimination in housing and home ownership. The long, ugly, racist, still-happening history. Did your American history class not cover your town’s centuries-long practices of block busting, redlining, and straight-up codified “racial covenants” (which are 100 percent as demonically evil as they sound)? Oliver’s here to fill on those gaps—gaps which conveniently reinforce white Americnas’ desperately clung-to “myth of white Americans’ post-war prosperity powered by ingenuity and self reliance.” (The widely-praised G.I. Bill excluded the millions of returning Black veterans from those wealth-building home loans and cushy interest rates almost entirely.)
Again addressing those—like Republican obstruction Mitch McConnell (R-KY)—saying we can’t be a racist country since we had a Black president that time, Oliver pointed out that, not only did Mitchie publicly state his intention to block President Obama’s agenda at every turn, he and his party are also urging us to “just move on” to avoid facing up to the consequences of what America has done. Oliver enlisted clips and references from such Fox News-demonized scholars as Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates to suggest that simply saying “the past is the past” is an awfully bland way of telling generations of Black Americans that nothing is ever going to be done about the artificially created and massive wealth gap between Black and white families, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
Except, as Oliver laid out when the wrap-up finally came, there’s a lot that can be done to redress the decades of local and federal disenfranchisement, bigoted housing policy, and straight-up grand theft—it’s just that white Americans don’t want to pony up. Yup, housing reparations are, as Oliver says, not only right and just, but also a way to make up for “quantifiable harm done in our lifetimes to people who are still alive.” Just one example would be for Manhattan, California to take the $350 thousand it laid out not for public art saying, essentially, “Our bad—except we don’t apologize,” and giving it to the still very much living Bruce family. (Beachfront homes in California like the ones the Bruces were forced out of are worth millions today.)
A larger (but still paltry) way for the American government to actually close the home-ownership and wealth gap would be to undertake a targeted policy of investment and lending specifically to Black communities and individuals affected. Cutting off those hypothetical white viewers sputtering about the unfairness of only providing benefits to people based on skin color, Oliver stifled his laughter long enough to restate the fact that that’s exactly what the federal government has done all along. You know, but for the white people now telling everyone to just move on.
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We’ve had the Hawaiian Homes Commission At of 1920, the Indian Claims Commission of 1946, and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. We have also seen support for Holocaust reparations and reparations for Christians in Iraq.
So there is precedent.
Yeah we’ll even do it for people IN OTHER COUNTRIES before they do it for Black people here.
thankfully I don’t interact with nearly as many cultists and obnoxious Republicans as I used to, but I’ll always wish I had John Oliver’s deftness in dealing with these dipshits and their bullshit. I know they react to the concept of reparations with the same combination of reflexive dismissiveness and outrage as defunding the police, but I wish I had the quickness of thought to say “what about just doing something to right how wrong black people have been fucked over buying homes? We don’t have to give them each a million dollars as I assume every Republican thinks is meant by “reparations”, but how about doing something?” and watching Cocaine Mitch blithely dismiss reparations because “we” didn’t do it…JFC, can you NOT leave his picture up there while you finish your idea? I can’t stand seeing him. The thought that that piece of shit is 79 years old and will undoubtedly live another 40 years to smirkingly thwart every attempt at progress (because evil never dies) is nauseating.
Why are you not so deft? Because you don’t have a crack writing and research staff (including yourself, with a ‘search google for’ button) when you talk to people on the street.
Because you don’t have a crack writing and research staff LOL yeah, a few reasons…no crack writing/research staff standing next to me…John Oliver seems like a genuinely smart and quick-on-his-feet guy (I think most comedians are) and I am not…but I guess when some cultist dipshit says with total sincerity “what did T***p do that was so bad?” it just makes my brain lock up. I guess it’s akin to trying to channel a tsunami through a garden hose. It also doesn’t help that literally anything you say is going to be dismissed as bullshit (“T***p didn’t admit to downplaying the pandemic…OK maybe he did and it’s on tape, but Obama did much worse”). Then the embarrassing realization sets in that you’re trying to debate an idiot whose ONLY goal is to troll liberals. To quote one of my most-used John Oliverisms, “it’s a lot to unpack.”
I feel ya. It’s “fun” to practice verbal judo on those sorts of people. Basically, get them to contradict something that they just said. Again, easier on the internet, when you can go back and quote them to themselves.“What did Obama do that was so bad?”“X, Y, Z.”“Well what did you think when Trump did X, Y, Z?” The last part is tricky, you have to appear to be completely, guilelessly asking a question – not about to own their stupid asses.And if logic doesn’t work, you know you’re dealing with bad faith arguments, in which case politely find a way to never talk to that person again.
the most honest exchange I have ever had with a Cult 45er was ironically with one of my former co-workers (who has since left because it turns out he was a high-functioning but world-class alcoholic), who when he found out I detested T***p asked why with total sincerity…this was back when Russian collusion was still “out there” and when I laid out a bunch of evidence that he of course reflexively excluded because “that came from the Washington Post” or some bullshit, I finally said “is there ANYTHING I could show you that you would accept as proof?” and he laughingly said “no”, and that was probably the last and most meaningful interaction I had with a Cult 45er.Since then I always remember the meme about how interacting with one of them is like playing chess with a pigeon–no matter how well you do, the pigeon will overturn the board and strut off like he won anyway.
Oh, I so feel you. It’s hard not to get heated or emotional when you’re talking with people whose beliefs are essentially “own the libs” and “watch the world burn.” It’s nice to fantasize there’d be some magical statistic you could share that might cause them to ponder their beliefs, but there’s no rational conversation to be had there. There’s no way reparations is going to be a fun topic to discuss with people whose brains are infested with ideas of Jewish space lasers, pedophile pizza sex rings, and microchips in vaccines.
look up 2008 recession – cause. There is some unwanted history you would not like
and watching Cocaine Mitch blithely dismiss reparations because “we” didn’t do itI wanted someone to hit him with a wiffle bat while shouting “Yeah you didn’t do it BUT YOU STILL BENEFITTED FROM IT, ASSHOLE”
how could they benefit from it if racism doesn’t exist? Checkmate libtard! (that was a joke.)
If reparations ever came to America… that would be the end of systemic anti-black racism, outside some counties in some states, but fuck those guys.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be grand, it would, but the preeminent political wedge issue would be gone, and some politicians can’t have that.
Right now it seems impossible to imagine our government enacting something that would directly benefit everyone, like universal healthcare or a basic income, so I am not holding my breath that we’ll actually accomplish something like reparations for the black community (which of course would benefit everyone anyway, just not directly). But it’s certainly something I support and would vote for candidates who supported it.
Listen, I’m not one to defend the GOP, because fuck those assholes, but labeling redlining and housing discrimination as a GOP problem absolves more liberal areas when they emphatically do not deserve it. This type of racism was and is bipartisan and widespread, and fixing it will require white people who think of themselves as playing for the good guys to give back some of the ill-gotten luchre that Uncle Sam stole for us. Whether that’s through relaxing zoning laws to allow for more mixed use developments and housing density or government programs that white people are ineligible for, I don’t really care. Whatever works.This country systematically stole wealth from every generation of black people since they were first kidnapped to our shores, the present included. They are owed. Pay them.
You’re absolutely right, but as of right now, the Democrats are the only ones willing to even have the conversation. The G.O.P. can’t even hear the conversation without accusing someone of trying to divide America.
Oh yeah, that headline is deeply misleading. This wasn’t a “GOP-legislated” shit-sandwich, everybody gets a bite of this one.
Counterpoint: no they weren’t.
He’s a ‘pissed off Brit’? He does seem ‘mildly concerned’, but maybe that’s as expressive as Brits can be.
Whitey bad always!
The name of the city is Manhattan Beach, not just Manhattan.
among other misspellings in the article because apparently all the copy editors were put to death, as is common these days.
Eminent domain has been used indiscriminately against ALL people not just blacks. Especially ocean front properties. #History #Facts
#youreanidiot #youruseofhashtagsis embarrassing
@20 million? How about what it was worth when it was taken plus a few years. There’s no way anyone can say that land would have been in their family for 100 years.
This was a great episode to come back to, but is anyone else happy he can leave this void and go back to his studio? I was really happy to hear that.
Also, Jon H. Benjamin as the anthropomorphic void was excellent but the animation was stunning to see.
As a world history reminder, self-interested governments of large population societies BENEFIT from dividing the people. The US has a rich history of this(to its founding even), so why not continue stomping on the backs of the minorities that built the country? They need a community to continually steal from, undermine, gaslight, and even criminalize/demonize.
Keeping the people divided(afraid, hateful, ignorant – the 3 main dividers)is definitely a higher priority in the GOP agenda, hence their rallying against anything that benefits minorities, especially with CRT which would make the majority population more aware and empathize with minority populations. Can’t have that!
It’s no secret that the GOP loves to project, so whenever they are accusing other parties of something out of nowhere with a smarmy smirk, it’s often safe to assume that they are projecting.
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Cutting off those hypothetical white viewers sputtering about the
unfairness of only providing benefits to people based on skin color,
Oliver stifled his laughter long enough to restate the fact that that’s
exactly what the federal government has done all along. You know, but
for the white people now telling everyone to just move on.”Yes, I, too, laugh at this. Like, for instance, when all these white people got irate over affirmative action, claiming it was unfair to diversify and consider black people for jobs just because they were black. Grossly unfair to award jobs and promotions based on skin color. From where I sat, it had always been this way. If you were white, you got the job, the promotion, the higher salary. Of course whites defended this practice by declaring, without shame, that they got these jobs because they were superior which made their positions merit-based. Everyone knew that black people could not compete intellectually alongside white candidates which made their employment an event of charity and pity that would destroy the white family.
It’s horribly brutal to do battle with these attitudes day in and day out. Then, adding insult to injury, you’re supposed to laugh when the n-word is used “playfully.”