Im not a Democrat or a Republican. I agree with both parties about some things and I think both parties have their heads lodged firmly up their asses on other issues. Which is especially unfortunate for Republicans given that they have those pesky tusks to deal with.
Reparations? No. The people that caused the damage and the people that were directly impacted by the institution of slavery in America are long dead. Who’s going to pay the money? Who will it be paid to?
Nobody in my family ever had any money. If I’d lived back in those days, I’d probably have been a sharecropper living two doors down from the rest of the slaves.
However, no one can legitimately deny that black people were consistently denied access to resources that were available to white people, from the inception of slavery in America until long after the Civil Rights movement in the 60’s. On average, white people in America have more money, power and success by any measure than black people.
In my time I have had jobs where I know for a fact a black person would never be hired at that company.
However, in this era in America, I feel we have reached a point where a properly motivated individual of any race or social status or financial status can fanatically pursue their dreams and force them into reality. By and large we are past the point where overt racism has an egregious effect on any individual of any group when that individual is doing all they can to succeed.
So do we have a responsibility to address this situation? I say yes. There is already a system in place to address this. It’s called Affirmative Action. Sometimes this means that a more qualified white male with no disabilities gets passed over for a job that goes to a less qualified black woman in a wheelchair. I feel bad for the white dude. I really do. But the level and degree of injustice presented in an effort to correct a gargantuan travesty is minor in comparison.
Inconvenience to an individual, even when it may be objectively unfair when you only consider the individual situation, is an acceptable price to pay in order to allocate societal resources to correct an historical horror.
But does that mean I think we need some kind of tax rebate where only black people get enough money back to buy a new tv or whatever? Nah, that’s not doing anything for anybody and there’s no money for it.
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