Just Say No to Black Reparations
Black reparations are once again in the air, stinking up the atmosphere with more noxious fumes than all the coal generating plants in continental America combined, and without any of the energy benefits those plants provide.
Ridiculous demands by African-Americans for compensatory slavery damages are hardly news though they are getting more attention since a semi-African-American now occupies the White House and he has said he wants to share the wealth, although not his wealth.
Ethics-challenged Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has been campaigning for black reparations for decades and in 1999 the Third World-dominated United Nations weighed in on the issue by insisting that Western nations pay African nations some $777 trillion, more than the value of 10 years of the planet's total gross domestic product.
Conyers' monomania and the U.N.'s insanity only serve to accent the absurdity of taxing white Americans in 2014 for the national sin of slavery which was ended more than a century and a half ago, at a cost of 625,000 deaths.
The matter of forcing whites today to compensate blacks today was raised recently in the €Black Voices€ department of the ultra-liberal HuffingtonPost.com.
HuffPo's €Black Voices€ editor Danielle Cadet gushed that, €In his groundbreaking piece €The Case for Reparations,' Ta-Nehisi Coates presents a powerful argument deconstructing the effects of white supremacy on the lives and economic standing of black Americans [and] advocates for a systematic approach to solving the issue of inequity in America and why it is separate from the fight against poverty and other issues on the national agenda.€
Not a €groundbreakilng€ as much as a rehashing, Ta-Nehisi Coates' €The Case for Reparations€ for the most part reiterates the old, discredited complaints of Rep. Conyers - and the Reverends Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and dozens of other black agitators seeking to salve supposed racial injuries with the healing properties of Big Bucks.
Coates wrote, €The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper - America's heritage, history and standing in the world.€
Memo to Mr. Coates: The idea of black reparations is indeed frightening yet not nearly as frightening as your thinking that one segment of society, a huge segment comprising almost 80% of our total population, none of whom ever owned slaves, could be taxed tens of billions or trillions for a crime they never committed.
Such an outrageous proposition, if ever implemented, would not merely threaten our €heritage, history and standing in the world€ but would reduce the United States of America to a bankrupt, world laughing stock for capitulating to the irrational demands of an all-too-vocal, venal minority.
Left un-addressed by Coates' lengthy piece is whether any blacks today would be held financially accountable for owning black slaves, €in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves,€ according to AmericanCivilWar.com.
Coates also fails to elaborate on the indisputably tremendous advances recently made by blacks in the corporate arena, in newscasting, in politics and public affairs, in academia, in the entertainment and sports industries.
(See his mini-treatise here http://tinyurl.com/lfd5thu.)
Instead, Coates focuses on the negatives, €the black struggle,€ without offering constructive amelioration for that struggle - and without satisfactorily addressing what honest sociologists see as the fundamental causes of black problems: the disintegration of the black family structure, widespread disregard for education, rampant black crime, and black resentment toward whites as an excuse for their own failures.
Everyone from Bill Cosby to black conservatives Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Clarence Thomas, et al. have recognized those root causes of the general lack of success in America's black community.
As frequently detailed in this space, the quest for black reparations from whites who shared not an iota of responsibility for slavery or Jim Crow or any other damages actually or allegedly sustained by African-Americans should be more accurately described as a blatant quest for undeserved money and, worse, a blatant attempt to divide rather than unite America's races.
In view of the chaos reigning in much of Africa today, it's not hyperbolic to say that blacks in America should be grateful that African tribal leaders sold their forebears into slavery. Those sales enabled them to now live in a country that affords them significantly greater opportunities than they had living in the African bush country.
As an Irish-American, I'll be forever grateful that my forebears escaped British oppression and emigrated to America, even if they did face discrimination and €Irish Need Not Apply€ warnings. They overcame obstacles to success through hard work and fierce determination and without resorting to charity or to demands for reparations.
African-Americans should look into those alternatives.
Ridiculous demands by African-Americans for compensatory slavery damages are hardly news though they are getting more attention since a semi-African-American now occupies the White House and he has said he wants to share the wealth, although not his wealth.
Ethics-challenged Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has been campaigning for black reparations for decades and in 1999 the Third World-dominated United Nations weighed in on the issue by insisting that Western nations pay African nations some $777 trillion, more than the value of 10 years of the planet's total gross domestic product.
Conyers' monomania and the U.N.'s insanity only serve to accent the absurdity of taxing white Americans in 2014 for the national sin of slavery which was ended more than a century and a half ago, at a cost of 625,000 deaths.
The matter of forcing whites today to compensate blacks today was raised recently in the €Black Voices€ department of the ultra-liberal HuffingtonPost.com.
HuffPo's €Black Voices€ editor Danielle Cadet gushed that, €In his groundbreaking piece €The Case for Reparations,' Ta-Nehisi Coates presents a powerful argument deconstructing the effects of white supremacy on the lives and economic standing of black Americans [and] advocates for a systematic approach to solving the issue of inequity in America and why it is separate from the fight against poverty and other issues on the national agenda.€
Not a €groundbreakilng€ as much as a rehashing, Ta-Nehisi Coates' €The Case for Reparations€ for the most part reiterates the old, discredited complaints of Rep. Conyers - and the Reverends Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and dozens of other black agitators seeking to salve supposed racial injuries with the healing properties of Big Bucks.
Coates wrote, €The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper - America's heritage, history and standing in the world.€
Memo to Mr. Coates: The idea of black reparations is indeed frightening yet not nearly as frightening as your thinking that one segment of society, a huge segment comprising almost 80% of our total population, none of whom ever owned slaves, could be taxed tens of billions or trillions for a crime they never committed.
Such an outrageous proposition, if ever implemented, would not merely threaten our €heritage, history and standing in the world€ but would reduce the United States of America to a bankrupt, world laughing stock for capitulating to the irrational demands of an all-too-vocal, venal minority.
Left un-addressed by Coates' lengthy piece is whether any blacks today would be held financially accountable for owning black slaves, €in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves,€ according to AmericanCivilWar.com.
Coates also fails to elaborate on the indisputably tremendous advances recently made by blacks in the corporate arena, in newscasting, in politics and public affairs, in academia, in the entertainment and sports industries.
(See his mini-treatise here http://tinyurl.com/lfd5thu.)
Instead, Coates focuses on the negatives, €the black struggle,€ without offering constructive amelioration for that struggle - and without satisfactorily addressing what honest sociologists see as the fundamental causes of black problems: the disintegration of the black family structure, widespread disregard for education, rampant black crime, and black resentment toward whites as an excuse for their own failures.
Everyone from Bill Cosby to black conservatives Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Clarence Thomas, et al. have recognized those root causes of the general lack of success in America's black community.
As frequently detailed in this space, the quest for black reparations from whites who shared not an iota of responsibility for slavery or Jim Crow or any other damages actually or allegedly sustained by African-Americans should be more accurately described as a blatant quest for undeserved money and, worse, a blatant attempt to divide rather than unite America's races.
In view of the chaos reigning in much of Africa today, it's not hyperbolic to say that blacks in America should be grateful that African tribal leaders sold their forebears into slavery. Those sales enabled them to now live in a country that affords them significantly greater opportunities than they had living in the African bush country.
As an Irish-American, I'll be forever grateful that my forebears escaped British oppression and emigrated to America, even if they did face discrimination and €Irish Need Not Apply€ warnings. They overcame obstacles to success through hard work and fierce determination and without resorting to charity or to demands for reparations.
African-Americans should look into those alternatives.
Source...