A Modest Proposal (with apologies to Dr. Swift)
I have a modest proposal which I think addresses the difficult problem of reparations. We should amend the 13th Amendment. Black people and only black people should be allowed to own white slaves.
Participation in this program would of course be voluntary, so no one need feel unfairly included or left out. Rules for slaveowners would conform to the highest standards of the finest antebellum plantations.
Blacks would be able to achieve the superior wealth, education, family values and sobriety of white Southerners. White people would make reparations not in money, but purely in kind. Poor whites would not have abortions, for they could sell their unwanted children at a fair market price.
Several people have been kind enough to point out one shortcoming in my proposal. White people must voluntarily sell themselves into slavery. They would thus be spared an involuntary trip across the ocean and uprooting of their native language and culture.
After all, the whole point of reparations is not money. No black American could be so crass! Rather, it springs from that highest of ethical principles: revenge. Surely the Jews would have forgone Deutchmarks for the chance to cremate six million Germans.
We must take a lesson from history. Traders never had to actually enslave West Africans. Their neighbors were kind enough to perform this service and asked only to be paid in New England rum.*
I propose a revival of the "Triangular Trade". Blacks should import Russian slaves in exchange for vodka. This arrangement will have numerous advantages:
1. Like West Africa, Russia has a long history of serfdom.
2. Russians thrive on a simple diet of potatoes and propaganda.
3. They will very likely persuade their much more desirable East
European neighbors to go along with the program.
4. Unlike Americans, Russians actually have a language and culture worth losing. (Tolstoy will still be available in translation).
5. They only rebelled once against their masters, in 1917. Hopefully they learned their lesson. They currently seem anxious to find new owners.
6. Virile, animalistic men and compliant blonde women.
7. They don't feel pain like we do.
Please note that I have nothing to gain personally from this proposal. I am white and could not hope to own anyone. Since my children are too lazy to take out the garbage, I doubt they would be worth much on the slave market.
*Note: We should organize an immediate boycott of "Old Mr. Boston" brand rum for its brazen involvement in the infamous Triangular Trade.
I have a modest proposal which I think addresses the difficult problem of reparations. We should amend the 13th Amendment. Black people and only black people should be allowed to own white slaves.
Participation in this program would of course be voluntary, so no one need feel unfairly included or left out. Rules for slaveowners would conform to the highest standards of the finest antebellum plantations.
Blacks would be able to achieve the superior wealth, education, family values and sobriety of white Southerners. White people would make reparations not in money, but purely in kind. Poor whites would not have abortions, for they could sell their unwanted children at a fair market price.
Several people have been kind enough to point out one shortcoming in my proposal. White people must voluntarily sell themselves into slavery. They would thus be spared an involuntary trip across the ocean and uprooting of their native language and culture.
After all, the whole point of reparations is not money. No black American could be so crass! Rather, it springs from that highest of ethical principles: revenge. Surely the Jews would have forgone Deutchmarks for the chance to cremate six million Germans.
We must take a lesson from history. Traders never had to actually enslave West Africans. Their neighbors were kind enough to perform this service and asked only to be paid in New England rum.*
I propose a revival of the "Triangular Trade". Blacks should import Russian slaves in exchange for vodka. This arrangement will have numerous advantages:
1. Like West Africa, Russia has a long history of serfdom.
2. Russians thrive on a simple diet of potatoes and propaganda.
3. They will very likely persuade their much more desirable East
European neighbors to go along with the program.
4. Unlike Americans, Russians actually have a language and culture worth losing. (Tolstoy will still be available in translation).
5. They only rebelled once against their masters, in 1917. Hopefully they learned their lesson. They currently seem anxious to find new owners.
6. Virile, animalistic men and compliant blonde women.
7. They don't feel pain like we do.
Please note that I have nothing to gain personally from this proposal. I am white and could not hope to own anyone. Since my children are too lazy to take out the garbage, I doubt they would be worth much on the slave market.
*Note: We should organize an immediate boycott of "Old Mr. Boston" brand rum for its brazen involvement in the infamous Triangular Trade.
