Slavery in the United Stares has resulted in an African descended citizenry that has more liberty, opportunity, education, wealth and prosperity than any other similarly sized group of black people on the face of the earth. I suspect that the perpetually racially aggrieved discomfiture with the notion that black people should express gratitude for this eventual outcome has much to do with the realization that it undercuts much of the basis for “White Guilt” that the Politically Correct so love to wield as a cudgel to beat back dissents against slavery reparations.
I have always been mystified by racial grievance mongers who pontificate on the glorious Nirvana that their lives would be had they only been left in Mother Africa, notwithstanding the general quality of life there. Since most American blacks have some measure of Caucasian genealogical ancestry, and since slavery was the transmission belt that enabled the mixing of their black and white ancestor’s gene pools, (whether by rape, semi voluntary or voluntary sexual associations) what they are really saying is that they and their descendants would rather not exist.
I acknowledge the kidnapping and suffering of my African ancestors, and the resultant decades of slavery, oppression, and discrimination that amounted to a monstrous crime for them and to this nation’s creed. I experienced some of that horrid legacy in the form of beatings and assaults as a youngster when I strayed into white neighborhoods in 1960’s Chicago. But the result was me and my family living in a nation that is the enormous net benefit that this one is NOW. I am profoundly grateful to be here. That reality is the embodiment of the meaning of “paradox.” As progressives and liberals LOVE to say GET OVER IT!!!!
Do not misunderstand me. I welcome the opportunity for any clarification of the historical record, and should that clarification reveal more evidence of the often bestial nature of the American institution of slavery, than we should unflinchingly face and acknowledge it. The historical record should be properly contextualized, and honestly examined without any attempt to inflate the crime beyond the actual truth of the injustice. We also should acknowledge that the only organized political and philosophical opposition to the once nearly universal institution of slavery was centered in the Western world, principally the US, Great Britain and France. The racial navel gazing, racial identity posturing, and puffed up grievance mongering should be rejected for the PC irrelevance that it is.
Reparations advocates often attach a variation of the of the tiresome “Uncle Tom” argument without using that epithet by referring to black opponents of reparations as “black people who didn’t want to leave the Masters plantation when slavery ended.” I can safely conclude that most of them view contemporary issues first and foremost through the prism of racial identity politics. It is probably inconceivable to them that historically aware black people can object to reparations for principled reasons that are grounded in constitutional, historical and cultural factors.
They will speak of of the legacy of colonial exploitation as though it was completely negative with absolutely nothing of significance to contribute to any nation’s future successful growth. Much of Great Britain was subdued and conquered by the Romans, at an enormous price in slaughter, blood and enslavement, but the infrastructure, basis for law, and technology that they left behind had much to do with Britain becoming one of the greatest empires in history from a disparate aggregation of uncivilized tribes. Singapore, Ireland and Hong Kong were brutally colonized, but despite being devoid of natural resources are now among the most prosperous countries on earth, owing in large part to the civil service tradition that the British left behind. Similar institutions were extant in most of the British and Belgian African colonies. I do not attempt to gainsay the proposition that colonial rule is often brutal, exploitative and cruel. Rather I say that it can often serve as a basis for the future success of nations that are freed from the colonial yoke should they embrace capitalism, the rule of law and liberty. Africa’s contemporary problems have more to do with corruption, graft, strong man rule, tribalism, and an undue infatuation with Marxist socialism than with any legacy of slavery or colonialism.
Similarly many of the contemporary problems of the black community have little to do with the legacy of slavery than that of a “monopoly of philosophy” (i.e. an unwarranted loyalty to the Democratic party and many of the tenets of modern day liberalism) within the black community that rejects educational alternatives such as school choice, charter schools, and home schooling instead of the ignorance factories that many public schools within the inner-city have become. In his book “Unfounded Loyalty” the Rev. Wayne Perryman lays out a solid case that due to the singularly racist and destructive historical policies of the Democratic party (and I will include the Great Society Welfare state of LBJ’s democrats which has been shown conclusively to have been the single most important factor in the destruction of the two parent black family) it is THEY who should be paying reparations to American blacks.
The main reason that I am not entitled to slavery reparations is because I was NOT ENSLAVED. I grew up in an era in which I remember all of the visible (literally) signs of Jim Crow when I visited relatives in the south in the early 60’s. I experienced physical racial attacks as my newly acquired South side Chicago neighborhood underwent racial integration. I experienced some minor racial discrimination at other times and places. No one has to tell me how bad it was, I have first hand experience. The United States today is NO LONGER THE NATION THAT ONCE LEGALLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IT’S BLACK CITIZENS, unless you wish to consider “Racial Preferences” for preferred minorities, which is another form of legally codified racism in the guise of cultural Marxism. None of that changes the fact that I am blessed to be a citizen of the greatest nation in the history of mankind, with a higher standard of living, opportunity and liberty than any other.
If you want concrete evidence of the butcher’s bill to atone for the sin of slavery, than look for the thousands of Civil War graveyards of Union soldiers that proliferate the length and breadth of this country, particularly east of the Mississippi river. Sometimes it seems as though the race industry merchants and class action lawyers would divide us into warring ethnic enclaves with mortar pits in the streets sniping at each other ala the Balkans, all of them seeking racial spoils with government help. I truly think that the reparations racket is nothing more than an immoral cultural Marxist wealth redistribution scheme, spearheaded by the shock troops of the divisive racial industrial complex.
If reparations are to be paid, they should be paid by the Democratic Party. They were the slavers, they were the authors of Jim Crow. They are the ones who fought against freeing the slaves, they are the ones who fought for race repression, and they are the ones who continue to be obsessed by race in the modern era.
When you look at old photographs of lynchings there isn’t a Republican to be seen, except for maybe some of the people hanging from the trees. When you see old photographs of people being fire-hosed, the only Republicans in the picture would possibly be some of the people being fire-hosed.
I remember those days, and it pleases me to know that with the passing of my generation there won’t be anyone left alive who remembers how it once was. I admit, I was shielded from much of it, my folks were Republicans and the church we were raised in taught us that in Christ there is no jew or greek, no white or black. We believed it. But I saw enough and heard enough from the surrounding world and it disturbed my sense of right and wrong.
Nobody could explain it in a way that didn’t make it worse.
And I remember otherwise good people defending what was clearly wrong, and that taught me a life-long lesson:
Evil persists because of otherwise good people. The evil people are easy to spot and you can defend yourself against them. Its the good people who accept evil who are the most dangerous, because you don’t see them coming, and believing in their own goodness they can’t accept that they can be on the side of evil themselves.
A corollary to that lesson is this: most people get their sense of right and wrong from the culture that bred them. It makes it impossible for them to see when the culture itself is going off the rails.