Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 4:28am

Reparations and Race Hatred

Many Democrats have traditionally used race hatred as a mechanism to gin up votes.  Now we see the factor of reparations for slavery being used as a weapon in the Democrat primaries:

Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro is skeptical about how fellow candidate Bernie Sanders has responded to proposed reparations for descendants of slaves.

The former Housing and Urban Development secretary and San Antonio mayor has joined several of his fellow 2020 Democratic contenders in calling for reparations for the descendants of slaves — whether in the form of tax credits, subsidized education costs or something else entirely. Sanders opposed the idea of reparations in his failed 2016 presidential run, and he has maintained that stance in his latest presidential campaign.

“What [Sanders] said on ‘The View,’ I think, the other day was that he didn’t think the best way to address this was for the United States to write a check,” Castro said on CNN’S “State of the Union” on Sunday morning. “To my mind, that may or may not be the best way to address it.”

Castro has said that, if elected, he would create a commission or task force to look into all possible ways to provide reparations and determine the best course of action.

Go here to read the rest.  It is always amusing to see Democrats eat their own, but there is little amusement in the idea of reparations.  I can think of no single idea more likely to inflame race hatred in this country.  Slavery ended in this country 159 years ago.  The idea that descendants of slaves are owed payment by people who never enslaved anyone, and, in the vast majority, whose ancestors either did not own slaves, or whose ancestors were not in the country at the time, is risible.  This perverts any notion of justice, and is simply a part of a racial spoils system, so long a part of the American scene.  This is also deeply cynical.  The politicians proposing it know that there is no way in the world that any Congress would pass it, or the Courts would sustain it.  If these two impossibilities came to pass, the jails could not hold all the Americans who would refuse to pay their taxes due to it.  These are games being played on the Left in order to gain votes in a crowded Democrat field for President.  However, don’t be surprised if the Democrat Convention next year endorses at least a Federal study of reparations, ensuring that this very bad idea becomes a campaign issue next year.   How far this pernicious rubbish is from the view of Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist champion of liberty, we can see in this excerpt from a speech he gave on the eve of Congress passing the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery:

 

In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us… I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! … And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone, — your interference is doing him positive injury.

January 26, 1865-Frederick Douglass

 

 

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Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 4:49am

“He’s a waaaaay-sist! An Uncle Tom!”
This is how the crackpot modern Left would view Douglass.

Mary De Voe
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 5:08am

“Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro is skeptical about how fellow candidate Bernie Sanders has responded to proposed reparations for descendants of slaves.”
The descendants of slaves have benefitted through the same progress made because of their ancestors even as much as every other person. Acknowledging the contribution of slaves to the American nation is all that is necessary.
Some descendants of slaves are claiming victim status while enjoying the very “Blessings of Liberty” for which all men of good will have suffered and died.
Acknowledging the sacrifices of all men of good will is all that is necessary. Keeping their legacy of freedom, truth and Justice is our legacy to our constitutional Posterity, all future generations.

Mary De Voe
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 5:14am

“Castro has said that, if elected, he would create a commission or task force to look into all possible ways to provide reparations and determine the best course of action.”
What better way to keep the descendants of slaves on the “plantation”…the progressive, socialist plantation. “One for you, ten for me.”

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 8:41am

The discussion of reparations is like almost everything else in progworld, two vectors worth of status games and one of diversion. The actual problems the black population faces consist of things progtrash are dead set against repairing (misallocation of effort in the educational sector), things they’re uninterested in repairing if not dead set against it (street crime in the slums and points adjacent), indifferent to repairing (the effect of property taxes on the built environment in slums), unable to influence in any obvious way (the breakdown of durable family relations in black populations – a general problem much more severe in that subculture), and unable and uninterested to influence in any way (the ugly and meretricious quality of much of popular culture in black populations – though that’s hardly something exclusive to black populations).

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 8:43am

See Prof. Amy Wax on this idea. It’s a reasonable wager it will not have the desired effects. Net result may be escalating demands on the one hand and escalating resistance on the other.

David
David
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 9:00am

@Art Deco, well said.
The aim of leftists is not so solve the actual problems, but to keep power through voting populations. Once enslaved physically, leftists now move to enslave psychologically..
This is especially evil in regard to race relations, because of the hatred and envy that leftist willingly choose to inspire.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 9:35am

“… because of the hatred and envy that leftist willingly choose to inspire.”

And it is plain to see this hatred on the faces of the young blacks. Most of the portrayals I see in the news media shows very angry, hateful black faces. The left and this includes Jackson, Sharpton et al., has promoted hate for the whites, keeping the young blacks angry at their perceived ‘modern’ slavery, and forever dredging up the past history of our nation in order TO keep the young hating and angry at the whites. Black leaders will much to answer for someday.

Cynthia
Cynthia
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 10:23am

As usual Thomas Sowell states facts not emotion to make his points. Frederick Douglas had good advice; too bad the Democratic Party didn’t take it to heart.
In Reconstruction there was not a program of 40 acres and a mule as promised. Although some landowners before the Civil War educated then manumitted their slaves and gave them some acreage. Even after war some gave away land to their former slaves. Punitive taxes and burned courthouse records may have encouraged that.

Isn’t generational welfare reparations in a way? How has that worked out?

Mary De Voe
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 11:33am

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country” JFK…to Make America Great again.

CAM
CAM
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 1:43pm

I can only speak to the part of Virginia I presently live in. Regarding the large African-American population: There is a solid middle class who own businesses or large and small farms or are in the professions. Most churches were founded before the Civil War. Unfortunately there is also a youngish underclass. The illegitimacy rate is high…revolving boyfriends so many times children are related only through their mother. Drug use is higher for blacks. However the area is a peninsula so drugs are not hard to come by for anyone of any age, for any race or ethnicity who so inclined to use.
Thank you, Don McClarey, for providing the link. The settlements strictly for ex-slaves as defined by Gen Sherman’s field order have been incorporated into the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
http://www.gullahgeecheecorridor.org

DJH
DJH
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 1:48pm

“The politicians proposing it know that there is no way in the world that any Congress would pass it, or the Courts would sustain it. If these two impossibilities came to pass, the jails could not hold all the Americans who would refuse to pay their taxes due to it.”
.
I wish I had confidence in the above statement, especially the part about Congress not passing it. Alas, I do not. I am sure the Justices who decided Roe v Wade back in 1973 did not foresee the slaughter that has come to pass–that we might be arguing about performing abortions during the actual delivery of a baby and infanticide. All the folks who overturned the Sodomy laws probably never thought that gay marriage would be a thing. Or that a man (boy) would decide one day he was a women (girl) and birth certificates could be altered. Or that we as a people would mostly stand by silently as this madness goes on because, quite honestly, I think we are all well conditioned to obey quietly.
.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, March 11, AD 2019 2:09pm

There is a solid middle class who own businesses or large and small farms or are in the professions. Most churches were founded before the Civil War. Unfortunately there is also a youngish underclass. The illegitimacy rate is high…

The illegitimacy rate is high in all segments of the population. It’s high in other occidental countries as well. Most blacks, like most Americans, are wage-earners.

ken
ken
Tuesday, March 12, AD 2019 7:20am

IF this went into effect then I would recommend reparations for all non-black Union soldiers who lost life and limb to free the slaves.

Guy McClung
Admin
Thursday, March 14, AD 2019 8:04am

Castro has only that “I-just-consumed-a-whole-fresh- cow-pie” grin going for him and his name. Now that he has been mayor of SA, and no totalitarian democrat needs a token smiler, he has nowhere to go. No way is he VP material. Think not? watch his attempts at public debate some years back-not only is he not the sharpest tool in the shed, he couldn’t figure out how to turn the knob to open the shed door. Elevator not going to his top floor? He is not even on the elevator, not even in the buidling. So, hey, toss out a throw away, knowing there will never – never – be a reparations program in the USA-why? there are way way way too many who dont vote democrat who would get reparations. My children have the blood of a freed slave, made it to Texas in the 1820s, somehow got away from a plantation in South Carolina. Some of them vote GOP and are prolife. Imagine the Party Of Death legislation that would prevent them from getting their fair share of the reparations. But rejoice! Barry Soetoro gets zilch zero nada nil – no USA slave blood in him. Guy McClung, Texas

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