Reparations, History, What If's and Reality

Let’s take a moment for a quick-fire repartee as it pertains to reparations, after all it is a contentious and hot topic.  Without doubt slavery, and the systematic subjugation of African Americans was vile. Its legacy is wicked. Its surviving traces are evil. It is not a sin that is unique in the world, but it is an evil that is unique in the context of America. Its consequences remain largely with us, as anyone with eyes to see can discern for themselves.

Unlike the Japanese American WWII internment case, American reparations program would necessarily be vague, there being few if any specific legal relationships by which eligibility and liability could be established. Is there a Confederate treasury to seize or present antebellum plantations to appropriate? The few corporate relationships that existed then and now are few and far removed from vassalage. Additionally, by and large the people represented by that government overwhelmingly oppose reparations, in part because many of them believe that their government justified itself at Gettysburg and paid its debt. Think about this. As of today, “2023, millennials are the largest living adult age group in America,” born in 1981 or tater, the 72+ million American millennials would have to go back at least five, six, even seven generations to find a slave or slave owner in their lineage, if there were any at all.

But it is more complicated than that. White Americans are the most strongly opposed to reparations, and not without reason. It is not obvious that an American whose forbearers or ancestors arrived here from Ireland, or Poland, or Italy or Sicily (as my ancestors did in the early 1900’s) ... after the Civil War has sins of the father to bear and atone for on this score.  And, without diminishing the wickedness of slavery, Americans of Jewish, Catholic, Southern and Eastern European... and other historically disparaged ancestries can point to discrimination and exclusion, too. To ask white Americans with no personal connection to slavery to accept guilt for it by virtue of their being white is to ask them to accept an idea that is fundamentally alien to our political culture.

How about some historical context? Do we not stand on the shoulders of historical American Revolutionary war patriots? Indeed, we stand on the shoulders of people like John Adams, Sam Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Nathen Hale, Crispus Attucks… who encountered and triumphed over what was then the largest empire in history. They said no, we will not stand for this. Thus, victory became America’s reality... Fast forward 72 years, America is embroiled in a Civil War to end slavery... Fast forward another 158 years following the end of slavery. social justice warriors (SJW), race hustlers and leftist politicos panning for future votes demanding descendants of slaves receive reparations for past wrongs. Are past wrongs deserving of compensation? If so, are we looking through dark lenses as to who deserves reparations? I suggest, if reparations become the new social norm, we need to re-examine the target recipients.

Why not expand the Reparation groupings. Why are there no ‘Reparations’ for White ancestral descendants of Civil War Union Soldiers who fought to free Black slaves from bondage? Why not reparations for survivors of uniformed serve members who perished in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam... regardless of color? Same goes for law enforcement officers, fire fighters and EMT’s killed in the line of duty. 

Should people so far removed from slavery be held accountable for the damage? I am of the opinion that no one currently living is responsible for righting the wrongs committed by long dead slave owners. I’ve said my piece, what say you, be it pro or con or ambivalent?