Democrats recently announced a commission to study the feasibility of giving reparations to every black American as a way to soften racial tension, or something. Though one of Bidenâs senior advisers declared that black America isnât going wait for a committee or study. âWe donât want to wait. Weâre going to start acting now,â said senior adviser Cedric Richmond. Not only would black Americans receive direct financial handouts for being black, the proposition is to also make it so that âhomes are not valued less than homes in different communities just because of the neighborhood itâs in.â
This apparently involves some type of government manipulation to ensure that homes in crime-ridden and gang-infested areas are forced to go on the market at the same price as houses in the Hamptons. But in what world would somebody pay the same price? When Richmond was asked how exactly that could be done, of course he couldnât come up with an answer. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who advanced the reparations bill currently making its way through Congress, said that giving black people free cash is âa way to bring the country together,â despite only 29 percent of Americans supporting it, including only 1 in 3 Democrat voters.Â
Here are nine reasons why slavery reparations today is stupid:
1. There is no one group responsible for slavery
The slave trade was for a thousand years already established in Africa, Asia and the Middle East before Europeans showed up. Muslim slave traders took twenty times the amount of African slaves. Slavery was part of every civilization on the planet, it has been part of the economic structure in every single countryâs history, every race have either taken slaves or have been enslaved - including whites. The earliest recorded slaves were Europeans enslaved in North Africa. Itâs America who has the shortest and smallest history of slavery compared to any other part of the world, yet America is cast as solely responsible. There were 10.7 million African slaves during the Atlantic slave trade, but only 3-4 percent of those, or about 380,000, were taken to North America. Almost all slaves were taken to South America and the Caribbean, not the U.S. Plus, by 1830 there were almost 4000 black slave owners in the U.S, owning 13 thousand slaves. Who exactly today are we holding responsible for slavery?
2. America was not built on slavery
America did not get rich from slaves, the North had a thriving industrial economy, they produced 94 percent of the countryâs iron, 97 percent of is coal, built majority of the railroads, did 75 percent of the countryâs farming, produced 60 percent of its livestock, produced 17 times more cotton and woolen textiles than the South, and all in all they held 75 percent of the nationâs total wealth - all without slaves. Sure, most of the Southâs economy was built on slaves picking cotton as the South had little manufacturing capability, but remember the Southâs economy crashed to zero after the civil war and it was rebuilt without slaves, so itâs absurd to suggest America was built on slavery. Also, whatâs with this â400 years of slaveryâ thing? If we use 1619 as the beginning and the 1865 13th Amendment as its end, thatâs 246 years, not 400.
3. There is no one group that has benefited exclusively
The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only white Americans have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for white Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well. Black buying power is $1.4 trillion, that is so much combined spending power that it would make black America one of the largest economies in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product. Black Americans earning $75,000 or more per year are growing faster in size and influence than whites in all income groups above $60,000. The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Also, unless you donât have a phone, Nike sneakers, clothes, chocolate or anything battery operated, you are benefiting from slavery and itâs about time you start paying up reparations, hypocrite.
4. America today is a multi-ethnic nation and most Americans have no connection to slavery
We already know there was only a tiny fraction of white slave owners in America, so expecting 250 million white Americans today to pay for a crime that they or their ancestors played no part in, is beyond dumb. Many whites are recent immigrants. The two great waves of American immigration happened after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Russian refuseniks, Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Greeks, Polish, Hungarians to pay reparations to black Americans? Are we supposed to track the ancestry of everyone until we find the few who had slaveholder ancestors hundreds of years ago, and then tax them for reparations? To cover the trillions of dollars in cash reparations, it means all Americans would be forced to pay for something they didnât do, which doesnât sound âequitableâ or like justice to me.
5. Previous precedents used to justify reparations do not apply
Reparations were meant as payments to immediate family or direct victims of injury caused by injustice. This bill being pushed through Congress would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be their skin color. Reparations has never been about giving free stuff to random people who share the same skin color as those wronged centuries ago and neither should it ever be. Itâs an attempt to ripoff the system and they know it.
6. America didnât start slavery, it ended it
Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until the English and Americans created one. If not for these anti-slavery attitudes and military power of the English and Americans, and if not for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, slave trades around the world would not have been brought to an end. For all Americaâs faults, our country was the first to end slavery, long before any other part of the world. Itâs over now, we are no longer slaves, we arenât slave masters, we arenât oppressed and we arenât oppressors.
7. The argument is based on the unfounded claim that all black Americans suffer from the economic consequences of slavery
No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that has long ended. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. Look at the earliest Asians to immigrate to America. The âcooliesâ were imported by the power brokers to work on major infrastructure projects and they were treated no better than African slaves, but there is no lingering legacy of the coolie system because their decedents have worked hard to put that era behind them. Asian Americans are now the most educated and highest earning people in the country. If only white people can be successful in America, then why are minorities such as Filipino, Taiwanese and Indian Americans doing far better on average than white Americans? Everyone has history of slavery and injustice, why should black Americans be the only ones refusing to better ourselves? What Asian Americans have proven is that privilege in America is based not on race but on merit. People of any race can succeed in America if they take education seriously, develop a positive work ethic, obey the rules and maintain strong relationships and families.
8. One more attempt to keep black Americans dependent on government
The renewed sense of grievance and victimhood which is what the claim for reparations inevitably creates is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to black youth and communities. To focus your entire mindset and narrative on the past instead of the future will only continue to kill any progress that no amount of cash handouts can fix. Spending all your efforts demanding others to pay you for doing nothing and to give you things for doing nothing, instead of wanting to pay for it yourself or earn it yourself is a tragic mindset to live in. What happens after you spend the cash? The country is now bankrupt and nothing has changed. I support programs and efforts dedicated to improving black lives, families and education, but if weâre going to spend money, it has to be used to create more permanent and constructive changes, not shameful, short-term appeasements.Â
9. Reparations to black Americans have already been paid
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in payments have been made to black Americans in the form of excessive welfare benefits and affirmative action programs in both employment and education, all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between black and white Americans. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law in order to accommodate racial preferences for black Americans is not enough to achieve a âhealing,â what ever will? The answer is nothing will ever be good enough because if it ever were, then the excuses would have to stop. In return, accountability will take its place, which even just mentioning the word makes reparation-pushers wince.
Itâs healthy to be aware of past wrongdoings, mourn and condemn past atrocities, but that must apply to all of us, not just those of a certain race we can blame all our problems on. If weâre going to cast blame and justify hatred on white people today for the slavery and atrocities committed throughout American history, then we are no less innocent for the slavery and atrocities committed throughout African history. We can either keep throwing stones from within glass houses or we can let go of the divisive and separatist policies and sentiments and continue building the most free, fair and successful futures for all Americans. We should never ignore or forget our history, we just need to learn from it, never repeat it and stop taking advantage of it to get free stuff today.Â
