It's a touchy subject.
Especially so since approximately 360,000 men paid the fullest price to end slavery.
In my mind the former slaves owe them for the gift of freedom. From what I read, it was appreciated by everyone who'd actually been a slave.
Are there any still alive?
What we are talking about when we are talking about slave reparations are really Jim Crow reparations!
The injustice of slavery was made good by the sacrifices of the Civil War. Paid in full.
Jim Crow started after the war. Those laws are why we have a 14th and 15th amendments.
What you need to ask yourself is, what party passed all those laws and have they made amends? Have they even apologized? Didn't they honor an unrepentant Klansman when he died AFTER DECADES OF BEING IN OFFICE?
Or did they blame someone else?
This is why I am angry about the idea. It wasn't me who harmed the descendants of slaves. I did not vote for or support the people who did and do. But it will sure as hell be me who's going to be paying for it, isn't it? I don't like blame shifting. I don't like the innocent being punished. I don't believe that punishing me for the sins of my ancestors is just, for the same reason that enslaving someone because their ancestors were slaves is unjust.
I also don't like the precedent. If this flies, how long before we have woman's reparations? Gay reparations? Irish reparations? Indian? Jewish? Mormon? The guilty got away and imposing an injustice on the innocent is nothing more than a new injustice. Two wrongs do not make a right.
EDIT:
I am a firm believer in the premise that if you are going to punish me for something I have not done; I have nothing to lose by doing the thing I have been punished for. I have to wonder how many racists are so because they'd been treated so. The phenomenon is real, I've known several people who didn't care about homosexuals until they'd been punished for "gay bashing"; they sure as hell care now, and not in a pro-gay way.
If you are out to punish someone for injustice, make certain you get the guilty. Punishing the innocent just gets you resentment and breeds more of what you are trying to stop.
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Another thing to keep in mind is the Americans whose ancestors came here after 1865! AFAIK my father's whole family didn't see these shores until about the 1870s. And my GF's the daughter of immigrants. Why should she or I be expected to go all weepy about slavery?
ReplyDeleteThe basic problem is the evil concept of “inherited guilt”. If we could just get people to see how wrong that is, we wouldn't have to put up with insanity like slavery reparations.
ReplyDeleteMaybe personalizing the absurdity would help. I recommend answering slavery reparation demands with counter-demands for Unit 731 reparations. You're not Japanese? So what? I never owned a slave.
Since my father's side moved here from England in 1873 and my mother's side was two steps ahead of Mussolini I don't have any white guilt.
ReplyDeleteI was once accused by a fellow Marine, he black and I white, of being a racist because in a downtime moment I asked him if he had a menthol cigarette. Now at the time I was a smoker, Marlboro Menthols, and I was out of cancer installments. Most of the 'dark green' Marines smoked Newports so I was hoping to get a fix. He proceeded to tell me that his ancestors died under the hands of mine. I leaned closer and said, "I had no idea your relations where from Kerry! Another Irish lad, put 'er there!" which confused him a bit I think. Don't make any assumptions about me and I'll do the same for you.
ReplyDeleteThat said, my relations with the vast majority of blacks in America have been disappointing. They have invariably thrown the race card down again and again, much to MY confusion and dismay. I have had the same problem with some Jewish friends and acquaintances. It is a trap some fall into wherein they become professional victims based on a broad and undefined sense of their culture. It's sad.