Posted on 04/29/2015 10:37:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A photo published in The Baltimore Sun on Tuesday showed young black men gleefully, almost hysterically, dashing out of a looted Baltimore CVS store that would later be set ablaze.
One was clutching a box of Froot Loops and half-gallon of ice cream, and one had a couple 50-ounce bottles of Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent, dermatologist tested, for sensitive skin.
The mob mentality that existed at that moment prompted them to grab items worth less than $20. It was a criminal act warped by the African-American experience in the U.S., where they and their ancestors have long been denied the staples of daily life as immediate as food and as abstract as opportunity to participate in the American dream. Their crime makes an undeniably convincing argument for the need to discuss slavery reparations.
The concentrations of black populations in urban centers are the result of generations of racist policies on housing, banking, education, employment and criminal justice. These cities absorbed people freed from a 250-year-old slave economy that required a civil war to end it. The truth is, the bigotry and commercial exploitation of African-Americans that enriched the nation’s earliest industrialists still exists and continues to funnel black communities into dead ends from which escape is difficult, to say the least.
Those young men with their ice cream and laundry detergent have the choice of seeing their neighborhood as valuable, nurturing communities, or as traps built by the power structure that has determined this is where they belong.
The police, who should be serving and protecting, too often rule by intimidation, meting out punishment beyond the charge of their office. This is not about police going into neighborhoods and straightening out black-on-black crime. It’s about men being afraid to go to jail for not paying child support, making eye contact with a police officer or selling loose cigarettes. These aren’t criminal behaviors, they are responses to living under intimidation.
Looting, violence, vandalism and crime are no solution. They are unjustifiable. They are wrong. They are deplorable. But should they be unexpected any less than infection follows an untreated wound? Two wrongs don't make a right, but until the wound is healed, how could we expect to prevent the infection? Reparations is a way to treat that wound.
The reality of life for the urban black American is heartbreakingly present in the instruction the mother has to give her son regarding police interactions, in the student who isn't even aware that her chances for success are less than those of her more affluent peers. But for so many other Americans, these lives are viewed over one electronic device or another and become reality for what amounts to a few moments in the world of media.
U.S. Rep. John Conyers has in every session of Congress since 1989 filed a bill that would begin a discussion on reparations, but it never passes. This discussion must take place. We must understand why black lives matter, and why in 2015 it's necessary for so many beautiful Americans to be walking through city streets to remind us of that.
What form reparations might take is unknown, but we know that all the policies imbued with racism mentioned above need repair. That might be the place to start.
President Obama said from the White House on Tuesday, "If our society really wanted to solve the problem, we could; it's just that it would require everybody saying, 'This is important; this is significant.' And, that we don't just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns, and we don't just pay attention when a young man gets shot or has his spine snapped, but we're paying attention all the time because we consider those kids our kids."
Let’s remind Congress that “This is important; this is significant,” and remind ourselves of it, while we’re at it.
That sounds about right to me.
Good thing our Republican champions will put an end to it.
(okay- I admit being sarcastic about the second part)
Class Action!
Whew! For a second there, I thought you'd lost it, FRiend.
Fine, bring it on, White people will just get all the money back anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg6J1Skptbs
I sure miss riding. I am getting ready to sell my 2002 Road King Classic. I am changing over to a Porsche Boxster GTS. I sure won’t be the same as a bike, but it will go crazy fast, loud and be in the wind. ;>)
After reading this article, I’m starting to agree with the author in that we need to pay reparations. We’ve been quite greedy.
As a token of my goodwill, I will propose that tax dollars should be spent immediately that will result in the construction of 200 new 1,500 sqft homes in the Cape Cod area. I’d prefer that these homes are built quite close to the residence of the author as he’s certainly enlightened. I never thought in a million years I’d be for reparations.
Anyway, after these homes are built, we can give each home to each of the individuals that were arrested in Baltimore, but couldn’t be held due to lack of paperwork. I’m quite sure the author would agree that this is a suitable solution.
If this is a success, we can continue to build similar homes in other Massachucettes seaside towns and transport these victims there. I’m quite certain these people know exactly how to show these individuals a more enlightened way of life.
President James Monroe already did that.
He gave them their own country , Liberia.
He gave them tickets to go back home and he positioned America to prop Liberia up for years upon years..... to this day!
Ben afflacks family owned slaves, he should pay.
What happens AFTER they spend all the money and STILL need help? BACK ON WELFARE?
Will the families of the people who OD on drugs they bought with the ‘slave money’ be able to sue?
will ORCA winfrey get any money?
Will ALL BLACK people get money or JUST the ones who are ACTUALLY descendants of REAL SLAVES?
How much do we pay the Indians for ‘stealing’ their land?
"FReeper, please....
Got it.
Sounds fair.
Fanning the flames...
GTH, editors @ CCV
Every human is "denied the staples of daily life" from the point their mother stops instinctively responding to their cries.
My mother informs me that I used to whine, whimper and bawl for her to cater to my every whim. But eventually I figured out that if I wanted to satisfy my desires on my own schedule, I had to DO IT MYSELF. That's how I learned to take individual initiative and personal responsibility.
Some people apparently didn't get weaned properly.
Part of reparations would be that blacks would be exempt from taxes.
40 acres and a mule, we paid it at the time.
Yet again, further evidence we shoulda picked our own damn cotton.
I think it’s time to start talking about deporting Democrats.
Here is my view:
Allow inner-city entrepreneurs to hire people on welfare and pay them only a couple dollars per hour, so the $$$ amount that they pay is only the difference to bring them up to the minimum wage, or slightly higher, and allow the workers to keep their welfare checks and medicaid. This provides some motivated welfare recipients an opportunity to learn how to work and make more than their welfare hand-outs. The entrepreneur gets a chance to start a business with little-or-no investment - eventually wean both off their subsidy.
Make that $20 trillion since 1965 and a civil war a century earlier.
Whatever “reparations” bill these clowns think is due long been paid.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.