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Thread – End the Reparations Nonsense
1. Reparations are back in the news again, as a Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizer the other day called looting stores in Chicago “reparations”:
1. Reparations are back in the news again, as a Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizer the other day called looting stores in Chicago “reparations”:
1A. “I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes,” Ariel Atkins said at a rally outside the South Loop police station.
Read the rest: https://nypost.com/2020/08/11/black-lives-matter-organizer-calls-chicago-looting-reparation/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
Read the rest: https://nypost.com/2020/08/11/black-lives-matter-organizer-calls-chicago-looting-reparation/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
2. Reparations are defined in an online dictionary as “the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.”
3. For years, leftwing elements of the Democrat Party have pandered to black Americans by dangling “reparations” as a payoff for historical slavery.
4. Reparations can take many forms and have been authorized by various governmental bodies over the years, as noted here:
4A. “… individual monetary payments, settlements, scholarships, waiving of fees, and systemic initiatives to offset injustices, land-based compensation related to independence, apologies and acknowledgements of the injustices …”
Read the rest: https://guides.library.umass.edu/reparations
Read the rest: https://guides.library.umass.edu/reparations
5. The push for reparations for slavery has accelerated since the Democrat presidential debates as the party has moved ever leftward to the point of having been captured by its most extreme elements who are now demanding reparations to also include “past racism.”
6. Even the supposedly “moderate” presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden has promised to support a study on reparations, as noted here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/20/joe-biden-reparations-slavery-george-floyd-protests
7. Biden is hardly the only Democrat to jump on board the reparations train:
7A. On 13 July, the “U.S. Conference of Mayors released a letter backing a Democratic plan
for a reparations commission to come up with a payment for slavery. The study suggests a payment of $151 million EACH to 41 million black people, total cost $6.2 quadrillion.”
for a reparations commission to come up with a payment for slavery. The study suggests a payment of $151 million EACH to 41 million black people, total cost $6.2 quadrillion.”
7A1. Read the rest here: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/mayors-back-reparations-could-cost-6-2-quadrillion-151m-per-descendant
7B. On 14 July, the city of Asheville, North Carolina, “City Council has apologized for the North Carolina city's historic role in slavery, discrimination and denial of basic liberties to Black residents and voted to provide reparations to them and their descendants.”
7B1. Read the rest here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/07/15/asheville-passes-reparations-black-residents-historic/5441792002/
7C. This website lists nine examples of reparations actions just in the last two years alone while also providing an exhaustive list from 1865 to the present. https://guides.library.umass.edu/reparations
7D. On 28 July, Tulane university campus activists demanded “that the school offer reparations to the descendants of slaves who worked on the plantation that became campus grounds nearly 200 years ago.” Read the rest here: https://freebeacon.com/campus/campus-activists-demand-free-tuition-reparations/?utm_source=actengage&utm_campaign=FreedomMail&utm_medium=email
7E. On 11 August, the Burlington, VT, city council voted unanimously to launch a “reparations task force.” https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/11/burlington-vt-city-council-votes-unanimously-to-launch-reparations-task-force/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_campaign=20200811
8. And there is no end in sight to the demands, as the Left’s imagination regarding reparations remains on full throttle in the Age of Black Lives Matter and the “Cancel Culture” as the claims by that BLM organizer in Chicago attest.
9. The stark reality is that reparations for slavery have been used as a political tool by the Democrat Party for decades. This is the ultimate irony because the Democrat Party was the party of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan, as noted here.
https://assets.ctfassets.net/qnesrjodfi80/6bQdKPLDjyo2s0I8c60gA2/aec7a4feb53cdd469d9c59bc3dd5cc64/swain-the_inconvenient_truth_about_the_democratic_party-transcript.pdf
https://assets.ctfassets.net/qnesrjodfi80/6bQdKPLDjyo2s0I8c60gA2/aec7a4feb53cdd469d9c59bc3dd5cc64/swain-the_inconvenient_truth_about_the_democratic_party-transcript.pdf
10. And now they are all in on disbursing other people’s money to right the historical wrongs for which they themselves were primarily (but not exclusively) guilty.
11. Of course, this is of-a-piece with Democrats promising various constituent groups something for nothing. Is that statement crass and unfeeling? Let us examine the subject; here is the first “shot across the bow” for those in favor of reparations:
11A. Slavery ended in the US in 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment; at the time, there were an estimated 4 million slaves freed.
11B. No living person has been a slave or slaveholder (with the exception of modern human traffickers servicing sexual predators) – certainly not in the sense of the slavery in 19th century America.
11C. The US was one of the first countries in the world to ban slavery, yet reparations-mongers seek to penalize innocent Americans while stigmatizing a country that actually ended slavery, which has been the scourge of mankind for thousands of years.
12. The presumption by most people – especially the reparations-mongers – is that only white people enslaved, bought, and sold black people.
13. This is the source of “white guilt” that has been pounded into the public consciousness for decades by the Democrat Party and their leftwing allies in the media and academia. It is a convenient myth used to tug on the heart-strings of decent Americans.
14. The essay, “Black Lives Matter and African Progressivism,” from the Abbeville Institute unravels that myth. Here are a few excerpts:
14A. The noted African-American anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston, recorded the testimony of Cudjo “Kossola” Lewis, near Mobile, Alabama, in her book Barracoon.
14B. [Lewis was] the last known individual to have been smuggled here in a slave ship just prior to the War Between the States.
14C. Lewis had been a member of the Takkoi nation. One morning they were attacked by the fearsome Amazon warriors of Dahomy, (African-on-African violence) who burst through the gates of the compound while the male warriors waited outside to seize those who fled.
14D. The old and infirm were beheaded (African discrimination) and their heads carried off as trophies. The rest were marched in a slave coffle to the Kingdom of Dahomey and the barracoons on the beach at Dmydah (African slavery).
14E. Zora Neale Hurston said that in spite of the fact that white people had purchased and exploited her people, the “inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was: my people had sold me and the white people had bought me.”
14F. She said it did away with the folklore (African fake history) she had been brought up on, that white people had gone to Africa, waved a red handkerchief at the Africans to lure them onto the beach and aboard of the slave ship out of curiosity, and then sailed away with them.
14G. But no, she said, her own people had “butchered and killed, exterminated whole nations and torn families apart, for a profit” (African equality) before strangers arrived, and all that Lewis had told her was verified from other historical sources, ….
14G1. … which impressed upon her the “universal nature of greed and glory.”
15. Yet, white guilt continues to be a prime leverage point for the reparations-mongers. That was how Barack Obama was sold to an unsuspecting nation: “Vote for this nice black guy, and your white guilt will be assuaged forever.
16. Never mind that he’s a Marxist hell-bent on destroying our constitutional Republic!
17. That didn’t work out at all, as he and the other Marxists who infested his administration pushed the racism and divisiveness that has led to the Black Lives Matter and “cancel culture” insanity currently gripping the country and showing no sign of being reversed.
18. The notion that all of these reparation actions are going to somehow cease at some point is just as absurd as thinking that the Democrat National Committee will one day declare that they will no longer propagandize about white guilt!
19. They will never throw away a useful political tool that has served them well over the years. The Left’s demands never cease; they just grow more grandiose and sensationalist over time.
20. Randall Robinson founded TransAfrica, a black advocacy organization, in 1977. He was a Marxist activist who has pushed for reparations for black Americans and anti-apartheid measures in South Africa for years.
21. One might refer to him as the modern “father of reparations” in America, as his advocacy has born much fruit, some of which has been described above.
22. In 1999, he estimated that total economic losses by black Americans due to past slavery, lynching, and “systemic racism” to be $1.4 trillion.
Source: Robinson, Randall (1999). "He Drove the First U.S Stake in South African Apartheid". Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Source: Robinson, Randall (1999). "He Drove the First U.S Stake in South African Apartheid". Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
23. Of course, that figure pales in comparison to the $6.2 quadrillion demanded by the US Conference on Mayors!
24. So how much is “enough”? Time for a little heresy, which is certainly what the BLM crowd and their masters in the Democrat Party would claim this statement to be:
24A. Not only has the supposed “reparations debt” been paid, but it has been over-paid over the years, and it’s time for a public acknowledgement by the Black Caucus of that fact.
25. Consider the following. Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the US, perhaps more than any president gave us the modern welfare state with his “Great Society” and “War on Poverty” nonsense:
25A. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty replaced segregation in the South with nationwide programs that were even worse for the poor, ….
25B. … as they took away incentives to work and created a permanently unemployed underclass in which an ever-larger group of people essentially became wards of the state.
Read the rest here: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/08/29/why-racial-tensions-are-so-high-in-the-least-racist-society-on-earth-n863908?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=54808cc9d6031b0b3d68c128f6b95617&recip=28423344
Read the rest here: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/08/29/why-racial-tensions-are-so-high-in-the-least-racist-society-on-earth-n863908?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&bcid=54808cc9d6031b0b3d68c128f6b95617&recip=28423344
26. Domestic welfare programs that LBJ signed into law included: Job Corps, Community Action Program (“attacking local poverty”), Volunteer In Service To America (VISTA), and programs aimed at urban renewal (public housing), public education reforms, ….
26A. … Aid to Families with Dependent Children, etc. All in all, his “War on Poverty” programs had virtually no impact on the poverty rate while ultimately costing taxpayers an estimated $23 trillion since their passage into law in the mid-1960s.
27. Here is a Heritage Foundation report that eviscerates LBJ’s – and the Democrats’ – ”War on Poverty.” https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years
28. While not specifically targeted at black Americans, these programs helped “capture” them politically for the Democrat Party.
29. All of that $23 trillion did not go solely to black Americans, of course, but pick any number between $2 trillion and $23 trillion, and that number far exceeds what Randall Robinson estimated in 1999 was lost by black Americans due to slavery and “institutional racism”!
30. But the Democrats did achieve their political objectives with the “War on Poverty,” as black Americans have been the most solidly-Democrat voting block since the 1960s.
31. As an aside, LBJ was also instrumental in fooling people at the time about the racism pervasive in the Democrat Party because he was the president who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was supported by most Republican senators and voted against by many Dem senators.
32. Contrary to Democrat myths, it wasn’t the passage of the Civil Rights Act (by Republicans) that turned Republican-voting blacks into Democrats; it was the War on Poverty programs that accomplished that political objective for the Democrat Party.
33. But the ”War on Poverty” and welfare programs are hardly the only institutionalized reparations that have been in effect since the 1960s. There are also the long-term effects from the insidious policies associated with that Marxist phrase “affirmative action.”
34. How can those costs to society be estimated?
35. Affirmative action is the practice of implementing racial preferences (quotas based on racial demographics) in lieu of merit for job promotions, college admissions, and other areas in which personnel selection decisions are made.
36. The first use of affirmative action was by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 through an executive order on federal contracting, and affirmative action has been increasingly enshrined in federal and state laws – and especially regulations written by bureaucrats – since then.
37. This website provides a good summary of the history of affirmative action policies in the US since the 1960s. https://www.aaaed.org/aaaed/History_of_Affirmative_Action.asp
38. But what does affirmative action mean on a personal level? To those on the losing end of affirmative action, the opportunity costs are significant: lost wages, promotions, training opportunities, and the attendant loss of retirement benefits by millions of people.
39. The result has been a massive wealth transfer – especially to black Americans – for almost 60 years, as well as resentment, animosity and continuing divisiveness that have been engendered among many Americans.
40. This is just as the Democrats and other Marxists want it because they exploit grievance groups and divisiveness for political gain – never to actually solve the underlying problems.
41. This is the REAL “systemic racism” that is embedded in America – all for the benefit of Democrats and their various victim groups!
42. To summarize, minority Americans have been on the receiving end of reparations for decades, having obtained far more in government program benefits and through affirmative action policies than the cumulative economic losses due to slavery and discrimination ….
42A. … that were estimated by the black activist Randall Robinson.
43. Despite the adverse long-term impact of slavery and discrimination, America has given even the poorest of black Americans individual rights and a standard of living unavailable to most poor people around the world, ….
43A. … as well as opportunities limited only by one’s potential and initiative.
44. It is time for all reparations – including all affirmative action policies – to end! It is long past time to return to public policies that support assimilation, merit, personal accountability, and equal justice for all under the law.
45. And it's time to end the hyphenated Americans baloney, as we are ALL Americans. Time to end the Left's propagation of racial divisiveness in America for all time! ///The end.
