Central Park Stolen From

[Glennfs]

That’s because your question isn’t intelligent. Of course Harvard is harder. Doesn’t mean that black people can’t hack it. Every black person that makes it in via affirmative action is qualified to handle Harvard. Can’t say as much for the legacy kids.

Legacy kids have had private college prep school and have the basic knowledge needed.
We also do not know how many graduate. Or how many get in.
Once it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with having the proper educational foundation

[gounion]

Legacy kids have had private problems school and have the basic knowledge needed.
We also do not know how many graduate. Or how many get in.
Once it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with having the proper educational foundation

Again, Obama didn’t have private schools. But then, you don’t think he should have been admitted to Harvard, do you?

Let’s be clear, for YEARS you have complained about black students getting into these schools over “more qualified” white students. So yes, it’s race.

[Glennfs]

Again, Obama didn’t have private schools. But then, you don’t think he should have been admitted to Harvard, do you?

Let’s be clear, for YEARS you have complained about black students getting into these schools over “more qualified” white students. So yes, it’s race.

Obama did not go from high school to Ivy League. He went there as a graduate student.
Again when you are getting owned you pull out the race card

[Libertas]

Again, Obama didn’t have private schools. But then, you don’t think he should have been admitted to Harvard, do you?

Let’s be clear, for YEARS you have complained about black students getting into these schools over “more qualified” white students. So yes, it’s race.

DRives the cons nuts...they really hate Black people.

[gounion]

Obama did not go from high school to Ivy League. He went there as a graduate student.
Again when you are getting owned you pull out the race card

We went from public schools. And Columbia is an Ivy League school. Oh wait, you can't go from a public school to Ivy League, right? You have to have private prep schools, right?

But then your side always said he was an affirmative action kid, and didn't deserve to be in Harvard, right?

[ProfX]

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson went to a public school before going to Harvard. As it turns out, the same one I went to.

Granted, she was the valedictorian.

[ZoWie]

Columbia is an Ivy League school. Since the campus is north of Central Park, Glenn probably thinks it's in Harlem and an HBCU, but neither is the case. In fact, until fairly recently, it owned the land Rockefeller Center is on. Skating rink and all.

[Libertas]

Board con shows ignorance and racism all the time, but here it is overwhelming and clear what we are dealing with.

DANGER Will Robinson.



https://youtu.be/OWwOJlOI1nU

[ap215]

Don't know how I missed this silly thread title the first time.

Central Park is in Manhattan. The folk tale is that Manhattan was purchased from the Native Americans for $24, which would be a steal even in 1600s money. It's just that, a folk tale. The Dutch already had a fort on Manhattan when this supposed deal went down. The goods exchanged were very likely for the right to hunt and fish on the island for the rest of the season, since most Native American tribes/bands/nations had no concept of real estate and/or land ownership granting full and perpetual control. Those were European concepts. Manhattan wasn't theirs to sell. The 24 dollar figure is one erroneous estimate of the value of the goods traded, and an implausibly low one even for the 1600s.

All the stories agree that the Native Americans were quite surprised to learn that they were not allowed to trespass on whatever parts of the island the Dutch chose to exercise their European statutory right. They didn't know they'd bartered that away. It wasn't in their culture.

Now, Central Park. Like a lot of urban features, it was indeed taken from a largely African American community, but by eminent domain. And it wasn't the whole park, it was one small settlement. You can't interpret history in terms of current conditions.

This sort of thing was common in the US right up until the 1980s. Eminent domain requires compensation for the lost property. African American neighborhoods usually had lower property values, and cost the city less. You can find a story like this in just about every American city. For example, nearly all of the LA freeways built in the 1950s and 60s took out neighborhoods of color. Dodger Stadium is on land taken in the 1930s for a housing project, and the tiny number of people displaced 20 years later to build the ball park were squatters. They had never built the planned project after clearing the land, because prominent Republicans argued that it was socialism.

Point is, though, that the seizure in both cases was was completely legal. Likely influenced in one way or another by racism, but legal.

Central Park is one of the things that makes Manhattan inhabitable. It's a treasure. While one can quibble about unequal use of eminent domain, one can't disagree on its being a huge improvement on what otherwise would have been taken anyway by one legal dodge or another, and turned into just more tenements and pollution.

Well done Z you get what NYC is all about & this is coming from someone who’s proud to call this city home for almost 50 years.

[gounion]

African Americans

https://www.centralparknyc.org/articles/seneca-village

I saw this the other day and was very surprised to learn that around 1855 what is now known as central park was home to around 225 African Americans.

Why is it we have been constantly hearing in the media lately about Tulsa but, they never bring up central Park.

Stories like this is why we can never have reparations. Regardless of your opinion on the subject at the end of the day we simply can't afford it.

I read where California which was never a slave state is recommending $360,000 per person. I imagine in slave states that number would be significantly higher. Take the people related to those 255 families.

Can you imagine what the value of the land central park sits on is worth today. Sometimes there is just no way to correct mistakes of the past.

You know, that's why I should ALWAYS read your links, because you lie about them.

The inhabitants of Seneca Village had their land taken by eminent domain, for which they were compensated, making it public land. This is NOT the same as the black Tulsans who were murdered and burned out of their homes and land, of which land was then divvied up among the whites.

This is also NOT the same a reparations. The descendants of the Tulsans murdered and burned out should be the rightful owners of that land. Isn't it funny, Glenn, how you think it's great that Paris Hilton is a very rich person because of money and land inherited from a great-grandfather that was long dead before she was ever born, but the folks from Tulsa don't deserve anything because it was too long ago.

Are you making an argument against eminent domain? Well, you sure defended it when Arlington, TX took land from homeowners and, instead of making it public property, they gave it to rich people like GW Bush to develop commercially. Plus, they gave the homeowners so little for the land, that they sued and made the city pay millions more. But it was still free to GW Bush.

[ProfX]

So, while I agree with everything stated above, Zowie did note one particular problem.

I think eminent domain is lawful; except I disagree with the SCOTUS in Kelo v. New London, where they allowed it to be used to transfer land to a private corporation. It should only be for a public purpose.

But there's a bad history in this country, particularly when it comes to the building of the interstate highway system, of seizing African American land to build the highways. These neighborhoods were chosen because along with the redlining at the time, those neighborhoods were cheap to seize, because they were undervalued. And the people living in them couldn't afford the attorneys to fight City Hall.

BTW, there indeed is a long and complex history to Central Park and several websites go into it; Wikipedia has another summary. There's the Robert Moses era of the 1950s. Some say Moses cleaned up the park after a long period of decline and neglect. Others say once again he dispossessed people and ruled as a quasi despot, getting rid of beloved parts of the park without nary a public hearing. He was a complicated man, and I think both things are true.

[gounion]

So, while I agree with everything stated above, Zowie did note one particular problem.

I think eminent domain is lawful; except I disagree with the SCOTUS in Kelo v. New London, where they allowed it to be used to transfer land to a private corporation. It should only be for a public purpose.

But there's a bad history in this country, particularly when it comes to the building of the interstate highway system, of seizing African American land to build the highways. These neighborhoods were chosen because along with the redlining at the time, those neighborhoods were cheap to seize, because they were undervalued. And the people living in them couldn't afford the attorneys to fight City Hall.

BTW, there indeed is a long and complex history to Central Park and several websites go into it; Wikipedia has another summary. There's the Robert Moses era of the 1950s. Some say Moses cleaned up the park after a long period of decline and neglect. Others say once again he dispossessed people and ruled as a quasi despot, getting rid of beloved parts of the park without nary a public hearing. He was a complicated man, and I think both things are true.

Yes, as I mentioned in my thread, it's an abomination that the government can seize property from middle-class families and give it to rich people. But I'm sure Glenn's all for it, unless, of course, it happened to him.

[Glennfs]

Yes, as I mentioned in my thread, it's an abomination that the government can seize property from middle-class families and give it to rich people. But I'm sure Glenn's all for it, unless, of course, it happened to him.

⁰
Except that doesn't happen. As for central park I am sure in 1855 those people were given a fair deal.

[gounion]

⁰
Except that doesn't happen. As for central park I am sure in 1855 those people were given a fair deal.

Yes, it DOES happen. That’s how GW Bush got rich - by getting Arlington TX to take people’s homes and hand it to him and his partners.

But thanks for admitting your OP was bullshit and has nothing to do with reparations.

[ZoWie]

Nobody got fair deals in 1855. That's just the way it is. This country developed the old fashioned way - the rich stole it from the poor or the oppressed minorities who lived on it.

The very idea of saying that Central Park was stolen is absurd. Every inch of every city in the US was stolen in one way or another. If that hadn't happened, it would still be hunting and cultivation for tribes. LA was basically taken at gunpoint, several times in fact. The Spanish stole it from the Native Americans, who they then enslaved. The Mexicans stole it from the Spanish. The US stole it from Mexico. The rich stole it from the poor. Vast stretches of it were legally stolen, sort of, through eminent domain. We drive over the resulting freeways daily. We don't get to drive very fast, due to mass transit still being something of a no-no in the Covid era, so we get to see what the remaining neighborhoods look like. They're not what you see on TV shows about glitterati in LA. Hours driving past homeless encampments, decaying business districts, and wretched housing for the oppressed.

Much big business in the US is essentially theft. Twitter was stolen legally, through a financial deal. CNBC covers Predators' Balls. (Both kinds.) We don't hear about that, now do we?

[Glennfs]

Yes, it DOES happen. That’s how GW Bush got rich - by getting Arlington TX to take people’s homes and hand it to him and his partners.

But thanks for admitting your OP was bullshit and has nothing to do with reparations.

Actually it has everything to do with reparations. I am pointing out that regardless of a person's position on reparations, we simply do not have the funds to pay them.
Without running the numbers I am sure at 250k per person we would be looking at well over 10 trillion dollars.
There are some wrongs that simply cannot be corrected.

[gounion]

Actually it has everything to do with reparations. I am pointing out that regardless of a person's position on reparations, we simply do not have the funds to pay them.
Without running the numbers I am sure at 250k per person we would be looking at well over 10 trillion dollars.
There are some wrongs that simply cannot be corrected.

Then the OP was just a deflection. We knew that.

And some things CAN be corrected. For instance, the heirs to the black people in Tulsa that were burned out and driven from their homes can at least be made whole financially, if not having their land returned to them.

[Glennfs]

Then the OP was just a deflection. We knew that.

And some things CAN be corrected. For instance, the heirs to the black people in Tulsa that were burned out and driven from their homes can at least be made whole financially, if not having their land returned to them.

Again with that argument. Ok does the heir to the person living in the $2 a week hotel get the same as the heir to the person who owned the hotel.

[gounion]

Again with that argument. Ok does the heir to the person living in the $2 a week hotel get the same as the heir to the person who owned the hotel.

You have no argument. Why is it only white people deserve to be heirs of anything?

[Glennfs]

You have no argument. Why is it only white people deserve to be heirs of anything?

Nice diversion of the question.

[gounion]

Nice diversion of the question.

It's a stupid question. This is about people that owned land and businesses, and churches and all the things that make a community. They were killed and burned out. But you don't think their descendants deserve anything. They get nothing, but Paris Hilton gets millions from a man that had died long before she was ever born.