The issue of reparations to Black Americans as payment for damage done as a result of years of legal slavery and subsequent discrimination is back on the table.
The House Judiciary Committee just held hearings on H.R. 40, which would establish a commission to look into ways in which African Americans could be compensated, including possible payments of trillions of dollars to individuals.
The commission would examine the role of government in supporting the institution of slavery, “discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed African slaves and their descendants” and “lingering negative effects of the institution of slavery … on living African Americans and on society.”
My ancestors were slaves. And my life as a young woman was a mess.
Was my life a mess because my ancestors were slaves? I don’t think so.
My life was a mess because I lived a wanton, irresponsible existence, defined by promiscuity, petty crimes and scamming the nation’s well-meaning but totally confused welfare system to the greatest extent of my ability.
Did I need reparations to turn things around for me? Certainly not. I needed a wake-up call, which, to my great gratitude, I got, from a few church-going black Christians who told me the way I was living was unacceptable.
I went to church, took back responsibility for my life and turned my circumstances around.
The problem with the idea of reparations is it redirects attention away from exactly where attention is needed: on individuals’ personal responsibility for their own unique lives.
And it redirects attention in such a way to encourage individuals to believe that some abstract, collective entity from the past is the cause of all their individual problems in the present.
Compensation for damages is a basic legal principle.
It’s about personal responsibility. Individual A sues individual B for damages caused. Exactly what the damages were and exactly how B injured A must be shown in a court of law.
Today, only a small fraction of our population has ancestors who were around before 1865 when slavery was legal. The idea of collective guilt, with no specific individual identified as causing the damage and no specific individual showing how he or she was damaged, doesn’t fly.
If there is any legitimate claim of collective guilt, it is the guilt of original sin, which we learn in the book of Genesis. Every man and woman is imperfect and responsible for fixing themselves — and, by doing so, helping to fix the world.
There is no word more frequently used in political discussions than “freedom.” But rarely discussed is what gives meaning to the word “freedom,” and that is understanding that individuals have free choice — the power and responsibility to choose how to live.
Only when we understand that there is good and evil, that there is sin, does free choice have meaning. It means individuals have the power and responsibility to choose how to live — that their individual choices matter.
Driving the push for reparations are policies on race that obliterate this key idea that every individual, regardless of circumstance and history, is unique and has free choice. The political idea of freedom becomes irrelevant because free choice becomes irrelevant.
So-called critical race theory says everything is about culture. Because, per their claim, the USA is about what they define as white culture, the cultural script needs to be rewritten to make things fair for those who are not white. Put politicians in charge of making things fair.
No, I am sorry; I always thought the problem with racism is it denies the uniqueness, dignity and personal responsibility of each individual.
If the ideal we seek is a free country with free citizens, then commissions such as that proposed in H.R. 40, which pretend to be about justice but are really about a left-wing agenda to put government in charge of our lives, are not the way to go.
Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the new weekly news talk show “Cure America with Star Parker.” To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Star Parker, Excellent column. You have so much common sense, the leftist communists cannot stand it.
Parker has more common sense, than THE ENTIRE DNC does.
You are extremely generous in assuming that the entire DNC has ANY sense AT ALL, common or otherwise!
All avenues for the degradation of American society are in full swing
by the democrat communists, reparations is just another tool in the
destructive war against freedom. Idiocy and greed is a tool of the left
to incite citizens against each other, I wonder if America will or can
be saved under endless assaults by the subversive left…….William
The left doesn’t care. THEY WANT reparations, regardless…
Only a Democrat Demon would attempt to raise the dead issues and the buried dead slave holders to try to tax they and their children to the 3rd and 4th generations into submission like the dead people they resurrect to steal elections. They are the party of dead ideas, dead ends, and walking brain dead. Death stalks they and whoever follow them,,,at every turn. Put a stake through their hearts and they still come at you to suck your very life blood. They are indeed the god in the mirror, and when you look at a socialist vampires in the mirror, you really see what they are,,,you see nothing. Garlic is to them, what an evil stepmother’s breath is to Pelosi
Since they LOVE using dead votes, of course they are willing to keep dead issues in the forefront.
OK figure out what each verified slave, African, Irish, or any other origin deserved when they were set free. Then calculate the Government Assistance that has been issued to their ancestors since that date. Then let us know what the final payment is, and who receives it.
NOT ONE PERSON IS ALIVE TODAY THAT WAS A SLAVE AND NOT ONE PERSON IS ALIVE WHO OWNED A SLAVE.. THIS IS INSANE AND ABSOLUTELY NOT FAIR TO ANYONE… ANYONE WHO IS FOR THIS, ARE CRAZY… NO ONE OWES ANYONE ANYTHING!!!! THE DEMOCRATS NEED TO DROP THIS INSANITY.. THEY ARE DOING NOTHING BUT CREATING MORE AND MORE RACIAL DIVISION…
GOD HELP US ALL WITH THESE ENEMIES IN OFFICE
This stupid idea is just one more way that the blacks can get more money from the working taxpaying citizens. They all keep voting for the liberal democrats because that’s who keeps giving them free things. As you said, there is nobody alive in this country today that was ever a slave, so why do they feel like we should pay them anything, just for them being black? This whole phony reparations **** will do nothing but further divide the citizens of this country. The libs keep pushing this country closer and closer to that second civil/race war that people have talked about for a number of years now. When it comes, not if it comes, it will make the one from the 1850’s look like a walk in the park.
In order to usher in the communist, the middle class must be dissolved. This is one way the communist are achieving this takeover
IRISH are white, they’d never ever be counted as slaves for reparations..
You left out the federal and state tax consequences of that newfound fortune Mr. soupy…there needs to be a tax obligation, right? I also wonder how many blacks came as immigrants and have settled in America after slavery ended, and if they intermarried with former slaves? Can that be determined? Do they get a smaller percentage of the loot or share equally? Has anyone asked any recent legal immigrants about this – what do you suppose they think of that?
WHAT tax obligations? THE left will ensure they never have to pay a dime on that money. WHITES would.
And what about all the whites who were slaves and all the black slave owners? this is totally insane… NO ONE owes anyone anything for what
happened over 150 years ago… Anyone who thinks they are, is crazy. this entire thing is NONSENSE!!!
Stop this silly nonsense. It does no one any good and cause the division that the Dem’s want.
None of my ancestors owned slaves, why should I have to give money to the great, great, great, great grandchildren?? Why should the descendants
of the Union Army solders have to pay?? Tell it what it is – an attempt to get something for nothing.
SILLY nonsense is all dems are good at doing!
The only thing bought with reparations are more democratic slaves. They already have brainwashed millions into believing they are free but in reality the only thing free is the money they are given for the price of being owned.
ANd the sad part of it all, is those few blacks who SPEAK OUT AGAINST the dem plantation, are the ones Punished for it. BY THEIR OWN.
Reparations are FINE… IF (and ONLY IF) actual previous SLAVES receive reparations from previous SLAVE OWNERS.
BUT, if you want to go down that path (of descendants of slaves “deserve” reparations), then I say fine (again)… IF (and ONLY IF) the reparations are paid by the DESCENDANTS of former slave OWNERS.
IN other words, WHITE DEMOCRATS can pay BLACK DEMOCRATS.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of “reparations”… How about Northern States getting “reparations” from Southern States (for the cost of the Civil War)? Or, more precisely: Republicans getting “reparations” from Democrats?!
Does everyone realize that slaves that were brought to the New World were actually slaves owned by other black tribes in Africa? Stronger tribes overcame smaller, weaker tribes and made slaves of them. Those stronger black tribes then sold them to the English and French to be brought to the colonies to work as slaves. If anyone owes reparations, it should be the black people in Africa who enslaved them in the first place!!!
AND in many cases, their OWN kin, sold them as slaves to MUSLIM TRADERS..
So go after islam!
It does incentivize people to act ugly to get what they want, FREE STUFF.
I started to write some statistical and historical data here but decided why bother. The people who are promoting this absurd and divisive issue could care less about American Blacks of today. All they want is their vote as always and are either insane or absolute despots.
AND the voters are just as INSANE as they are.
IMO, reparations were paid with the blood of the first white man that died during the civil war.
If living in the freest, wealthiest, and least racist country in Human history isn’t enough, we should compensate them with one-way airline tickets to the country of their choice.
Dr. Thomas Sowell reports that black families and individuals were well on their way to the middle class and full integration into society, until President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” made it possible for women to marry the government rather than their children’s father. If the problems they point to today were the consequences of slavery, the ’50s would not have been so much better than the ’60s and later. The problems they point to are the consequences of the Welfare state, not of slavery.
The reparations are only an extension of the Welfare reparations. We have been supporting many Black families for over 100 years. You know those Black families, a single mother, with 14 kids, from 12 different sperm donors. Daddy is the Federal Government who gives them our money.
I could go for the Reparations if:
1. Only former slaves get the money.
2. Only former slave owners pay.
3. Anyone who wants reparations, has to repay all the money they have gotten from the government in the past.
4. The Muslims who captured African Blacks and sold them to the slave traders will have to pay.
People don’t realize that the English slave traders didn’t go into the jungles to capture Africans. Muslims from the North of Africa hated the Blacks from the South and wanted to get their land, so their solution was to capture them and sell them into slavery. That got rid of the Blacks and made them money.
The Southern (and Northern) Democrats were all for Slavery, and the Muslims profited from their slave trade. Now it’s interesting that Blacks have embraced the Democrat Party and some have become Muslims. Muslims in the Middle East still have slaves.
By any legal reasoning, if this passes it will open the floodgates for all kinds of lawsuits. My great-great-great grandfather was defrauded of some portion of his property and freedoms, therefore, I am owed something in reparations…even if I am white, brown, black, purple, or invisible.
When I was stationed in Thailand we were told that if our taxicab driver killed someone’s chicken with reckless driving, that I (the passenger) was responsible for the cost of all of the eggs that chicken would have laid in its lifetime and all of the potential baby chickens that it would have reared. This is just as ridiculous.
When I was over there, they basically told us that if the cab got into an accident, jump out and run like hell…
IF you are white, you won’t ever matter.
Not about slavery at all, just about pandering to blacks to get their vote.
To me, since the days after the 60’s, THAT IS ALL THE DEMS HAVE DONE.. Pandered to blacks, to get their vote.. then dump all on them once they’ve Gotten their vote.
Fantastic!