Posted on 03/28/2002 6:00:39 PM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK
In the midst of Black History Month, in which we (rightly) celebrate the achievements of Black Americans, an issue that sadly serves to undercut the accomplishments of these citizens received renewed publicity. The call for present-day Americans to "compensate" all Blacks for what their slave ancestors suffered in the South clawed its way into the national headlines. Especially on many of our college campuses, the clamor for "reparations" reached frenzied heights.
Liberal-turned-conservative David Horowitz recently tried to inject a bit of balance into this one-sided discussion. Offering a list of "10 Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks are a Bad Idea for Blacks and Racist, Too," he attempted to publish his essay as an ad in nearly two-dozen campus newspapers. According to Horowitz, eighteen newspapers rejected the ad. Four agreed to accept it.
(Two papers refusing his request had earlier accepted ads denying the Holocaust. Apparently, a disparity exists between the perceptions of Blacks and Jews in these venues. The editors must have feared an accusation of racism far more than one of anti-Semitism.)
The journalists at the University of Wisconsin _Badger-Herald_ faced a mob of protesters after their "racist" decision to provide Horowitz a forum. The folks at UC Berkeley and UC Davis recanted their evil ways when similar howls of indignation arose over their temerity at acceding to such "bigotry" and "discriminatory statements" as presented by Horowitz.
None of these reactions are surprising, of course. Collectivism is alive-and-well primarily in our institutions of higher learning. Political correctness long ago poisoned the bloodstreams of what _should_ be bodies of free expression. Speakers such as Ward Connerly -- who supports ending racial preferences for college admissions -- are shouted down and denounced in no uncertain terms. Speech codes contradict direct declarations of support for diversity of opinion. College freshmen (excuse me; fresh_persons_) are indoctrinated in sensitivity training sessions lest they utter a sexist remark or dare to kiss a woman without her explicit (and notarized?) permission.
That students molded and shaped by a dozen years of State-inspired propaganda would support such an odd idea as reparations for a slavery abolished in this country a hundred-thirty-five years ago meshes well with their crusades against "sweatshops" and "child labor," practices that merely provide the difference between life and death for poverty-stricken foreigners. Too many of these no doubt well-intentioned activists are intellectually crippled. Unable to string two syllogisms together, they are incapable of thinking in principles. Whether floating away on drifting abstractions or shackled to the ground with unconnected concretes, they eschew integration, context, and proportion. Facts? They don't need no stinking facts. Appeals to emotion, arguments from intimidation, _ad hominem_ attacks, and a plethora of other logical fallacies drive their quests for "social justice."
In all such endeavors, they do neither themselves nor Blacks -- nor the rest of us -- any real favors. By attempting to subvert the lingering system of capitalism and liberty enabling their subversive activities, they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. In demanding reparations for present-day Blacks, pampered students and overweening Black leaders do a disservice to the millions of innocent Americans who never owned slaves, whose ancestors never owned slaves, and who have never engaged in a racist act in their lives.
The false notion of collective guilt propelling "slave reparations" is the same illicit idea that has infected our society ever since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Affirmative action programs, anti-discrimination laws directed at private citizens and business owners, minority set-asides for government jobs, and racial preferences for college admissions have treated Blacks as helpless victims unable to rise above whatever racism does permeate the souls of certain individuals.
Various Black groups and leaders have done their best to foment distrust, anger, fear, and resentment among their fellow-Blacks in order to augment their personal fortunes and cement their political power. Pitting race against race, economic class against economic class, the cynical mavens of modern-day inequality are blatant in the exploitation of both their followers and their "oppressors."
Couching every action in a refrain that grows increasingly thin, they make vague or overt charges of racism against a business, individual, or government entity. Perhaps the battle cry is against "racist" lending policies that "disadvantage" Blacks. Changes are made in banking regulations that provide loans to minority individuals who are actuarily bad credit risks. Perhaps the complaint is against "environmental injustice" when a manufacturing plant wants to locate in a predominantly Black community. After enduring regulatory torture, the business managers move elsewhere, sparing the poor Blacks not only all that nasty pollution but the jobs they desperately desire. Perhaps the charge is "racial insensitivity" on the part of a corporation. Money flows into the coffers of the righteously outraged organization even as a curious silence descends upon the formerly shrill leaders.
This shakedown is as shameful as it is tedious. Affirmative action helped middle-class Blacks while doing little for those who truly could use career assistance. Whites -- and especially white males -- faced reverse discrimination for actions no fault of their own. Welfare payments entrapped generations of Blacks into debilitating dependence, robbing them of independence, self-esteem, and inculcating a perennial sense of whining yet aggressive victimhood. Black employment soars in the inner cities in tandem with shocking rates of illegitimate pregnancies. The extortion of businesses for "donations" enriches a few select agitators while breeding a contemptuous suspicion of Black motives and character on the part of those who receive this not-so-subtle form of "protection."
Unfortunately, this trend shows no indication of subsiding. Representative John Conyers of Michigan has moved the reparations debate into the halls of Congress by attempting to establish a group to "study" the issue. Those Blacks promoting this legalized shakedown put their "losses" at over four trillion dollars...to be paid from the paychecks of John Q. Public. Indeed, the bandwagon has been joined by various nations in Africa who think they can blackmail wealthier nations into forking over $777 trillion (that's three-quarters of a _quadrillion_ dollars).
The mind boggles over such outlandish nonsense. Never mind the trillions already paid out in the past four decades in one of the biggest redistributionist schemes ever in the form of welfare payments, medical coverage, and other government largesse. Never mind the 350,000 Union soldiers who died in the Civil War, the 300,000 Confederates killed, the devastation of Southern cities and lives, and the hundreds of thousands wounded on both sides. Never mind the insidious moral and intellectual corruption endemic in constant harping on race in the name of achieving a colorblind society.
No. None of this destruction is sufficient to satisfy these "helpful" opportunists.
Blacks are hardly the only segment of this population that has suffered harm. _All_ of us have had to labor under the yoke of unjust laws and State-sanctioned actions. In the last century, for instance, our government surreptitiously stole nearly $10 trillion dollars of our wealth via the sneak-thief of inflation. In addition to that sum are the trillions seized through direct taxation and the trillions more robbed from us by stifling regulations and laws that have choked both human creativity and productivity. Also, let us not forget the tens of thousands of young men drafted to die in foreign lands in pointless wars while the old men who condemned them to death lounged in their "gentlemen's" clubs smoking cigars and savoring their drinks.
Perhaps the rest of us should claim reparations for _those_ abuses, both financial and physical. Compensation might well assuage some of the angst that plagues the more sensitive among us. But...
Darn. The government has zero money. All it has or ever will have it has taken from us, the very ones who are suffering and are deserving of restitution. While such idiocy did not stop the State from suing tobacco companies for harm to smokers while using those very smokers as the source of the funds to pay those judgments, perhaps here we should draw the line. Let's not rob ourselves to pay ourselves in a vain attempt at amends that will only weaken the country. I'd happily abandon all such claims if only I were left alone to live in freedom from this point on.
Blacks in America today are far better off than any of their distant relatives still living in Africa. By now, whatever problems and injustices they face above and beyond those endured by the average American are the result of their own decisions and actions (or lack thereof). They need to abandon the collectivist mind-set that saw ninety-percent of them in the last presidential election voting for the very party that most wants to keep them in figurative chains. They need to stop living in the past like those mentally-stunted adults who refuse to grow up until real or imagined childhood slights are corrected...somehow and by someone.
They need to get over it, already.
Only when they embrace individual responsibility and move on with their lives will they find the happiness they supposedly seek. They will never find it by isolating themselves from the American ideals of liberty and opportunity. Shaking the rest of us down for a few pieces of silver will eventually leave them as second-class citizens, increasingly irrelevant in a dynamic culture. Blacks deserve better than that.
So do all Americans.
If David Horowitz, a Jew, were to utter the word "Nigger" in public, what would be the result?
If Jesse Jackson, a person of distant, partially-African ancestry, were to utter the word "Hymie," What would be the result?
There's your answer right there.
Here, here. But as long as there's free money involved, we won't see the end of this for a long time.
This destroys the perception of others towards all Blacks who have attained success through sacrifice, brains, and hard work.
Owl _ Eagle
“Guns before butter.”
Sure, no question the blacks have had a difficult time of things (it's awfully hard to get a decent job if you are black, illiterate, substance addicted, etc., and even worse if you're a black female, single mom with multiple kids from multiple fathers), and who is responsible for this situation?...YOU...the white American, that's who!
Maintain slaves for personal servitude caused this mess...you can believe that!
Now, as a retroactive appraoch, the blacks (can't really call them Americans because of all that hyphenated stuff) plan to switch roles...that's right...they will be the slave owners...you will be enslaved to THEM and pay them dollars from your coffers!
WAIT! WAIT!
Disregard the above...that's already in pace...we call it welfare/public assistance/black heritage/black culture/Kwanzaa....all of that.
Serve you white folk right...
As for me, I'm releasing ALL of my slaves first thing in the morning!
Animal Farm. The horse helps the pigs take charge. The pigs send the horse to the glue factory.
The horse was never too bright anyway.
Too bad no one ever taught these students to think, or to read Orwell. They make good horses, though.
John 8
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
33 They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants[2] and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"
34 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Wondefully written piece. But the above has a flaw.
As Thomas Sowell has shown, affirmative action really hasn't been the catalyst for the rising American black middle-class. Most of this occurred in the late '40s through the mid '60s.
However, if you look at it through a different lens, that statement would make sense. To wit, affirmative action is now a mechanism that is used to maintain the status quo of the various classes within Black America. Oh, sure. Poor blacks are the poster children of affirmative action, but it doesn't help the poor. Without an adequate education needed to get into corporate America, affirmative action will do nothing for the poor black person. But the claims for the "need" of affirmative action presses forward, only seeking to fill the pockets of the race hustlers that truly is on the backs of the black under-class.
Middle-class black men such as myself serve no purpose to the politically black crowd. We are a living, breathing contradiction to all that the race hustlers claim. The one thing that they didn't take from me is one of the most important reasons why I am where I am today is PRIDE.
The proud black man is not only anathema to the so-called civil rights charlatans, but also a threat. If the day ever comes where we proud, accomplished black men were looked towards as examples rather than Jack$on and his ilk, the so-called civil rights movement will be dead.
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