A NEW TWIST ON THE IDIOTIC IDEA OF REPARATIONS
One of the reasons the U.S. pulled representation from that absurd UN racism conference in South Africa was the continued attention paid to the issue of reparations. Jesse Jackson is down there pressing all the right buttons, as is Georgia Democrat Cynthia (“The cutest little Communist in Congress”) McKinney.
The idea of reparations for slavery is all but dead in the United States. The vast majority of Americans are steadfastly opposed to the idea of the government using force to seize money from people who have never had a role in slavery and handing that money over to people who have never been enslaved. Even the NAACP’s Internet poll shows an opposition to slavery reparations.
Now --- please notice that I have been careful to tie the idea of reparations here to slavery. There’s a reason. That reason is a new twist.
Here’s the thinking. Reparations for slavery are truly a losing idea. Many blacks in America aren’t descended from slaves. Should they get any money? Many whites in America were begat by ancestors who came here well after slavery ended. Should they have their property seized? Then there’s the reality that politicians who depend on reelection simply aren’t going to go along with the idea. So --- let’s stick with the idea of reparations, but come up with another reason.
Here’s your new reason: segregation, Jim Crow laws. The new twist, now being promoted by Eric Rauchway and Clarence Walker, a couple of University of California history teachers, is that reparations should be paid, not for slavery, but for “The wounds left by segregation on the souls of black folk …”
Rauchway and Walker have written a commentary that is appearing in newspapers across the country … including (of course) the Atlanta Constitution. Here’s a paragraph from that commentary:
“The age of segregation lies well within the living memory of most of the U.S. population, and its victims still suffer the real consequences of an inability to get a good education or good jobs.”
Read that again. These two members of the University of California academic team re telling us that there are black people in this country who today can’t get a good education or a good job because of segregation. So, tell me. If some blacks could get a good education and move on to a good job when we had segregation, what is it in the air that prevents them from doing so now, decades after segregation ended?
It’s nonsense, of course. That doesn’t matter, though. Look for the idea of reparations to gain steam – but based on segregation, not slavery. At least that way you can find some “victims” who are still drawing breath.
One of the reasons the U.S. pulled representation from that absurd UN racism conference in South Africa was the continued attention paid to the issue of reparations. Jesse Jackson is down there pressing all the right buttons, as is Georgia Democrat Cynthia (“The cutest little Communist in Congress”) McKinney.
The idea of reparations for slavery is all but dead in the United States. The vast majority of Americans are steadfastly opposed to the idea of the government using force to seize money from people who have never had a role in slavery and handing that money over to people who have never been enslaved. Even the NAACP’s Internet poll shows an opposition to slavery reparations.
Now --- please notice that I have been careful to tie the idea of reparations here to slavery. There’s a reason. That reason is a new twist.
Here’s the thinking. Reparations for slavery are truly a losing idea. Many blacks in America aren’t descended from slaves. Should they get any money? Many whites in America were begat by ancestors who came here well after slavery ended. Should they have their property seized? Then there’s the reality that politicians who depend on reelection simply aren’t going to go along with the idea. So --- let’s stick with the idea of reparations, but come up with another reason.
Here’s your new reason: segregation, Jim Crow laws. The new twist, now being promoted by Eric Rauchway and Clarence Walker, a couple of University of California history teachers, is that reparations should be paid, not for slavery, but for “The wounds left by segregation on the souls of black folk …”
Rauchway and Walker have written a commentary that is appearing in newspapers across the country … including (of course) the Atlanta Constitution. Here’s a paragraph from that commentary:
“The age of segregation lies well within the living memory of most of the U.S. population, and its victims still suffer the real consequences of an inability to get a good education or good jobs.”
Read that again. These two members of the University of California academic team re telling us that there are black people in this country who today can’t get a good education or a good job because of segregation. So, tell me. If some blacks could get a good education and move on to a good job when we had segregation, what is it in the air that prevents them from doing so now, decades after segregation ended?
It’s nonsense, of course. That doesn’t matter, though. Look for the idea of reparations to gain steam – but based on segregation, not slavery. At least that way you can find some “victims” who are still drawing breath.
