Sins Of The Fore-Fore-Forefathers
By Mitch Berg
SCENE: Mitch BERG is waiting in line to get into a Saints game. As he scans the program, Avery LIBRELLE rides up on a segway.
LIBRELLE: Merg!
BERG: Er…(looks around, sees no escape) hey, Avery.
LIBRELLE: White people owe black people reparations!
BERG: Huh. So you mean that people who’ve never been enslaved are owed money by people who never owed slaves.
LIBRELLE: History has meaning!
BERG: And the actions of one’s ancestors matter, right?
LIBRELLE: Absolutely!
BERG: Huh. So – being as I am descended from people that abolished slavery 700 years before the US, or Britain for that matter, am I owed a big thank you?
LIBRELLE: (stares briefly, guns the segway)
And SCENE
June 20th, 2019 at 11:07 am
Out of curiosity, how often does it occur that you look around, find an avenue of escape and thus avoid confrontation with Avery?
June 20th, 2019 at 11:17 am
Nobody’s getting any reparations until we descendants of Irish slaves are satisfied.
Paying off my mortgage would go a long way to healing the wounds I carry with me, so coff it up, crackas.
June 20th, 2019 at 11:21 am
Per whisler’s comment, didn’t our gracious host learn in carry permit training how to avoid trouble? :^)
To the issue at hand, the counter-point is that we see some of the results of slavery and Jim Crow even today, so why not fix it? And to that, I think we need some good things to say, starting with “giving people easy money rarely helps them”, continuing to “so we’re going to atone for creating one disadvantaged class by creating another, much larger one?”, contemplating whether penalizing the descendants of non-slaveowners for the crimes of slaveowners would worsen our racial issues, and the like.
Lots of reasons not to do reparations if we will only think things through and act on them.
June 20th, 2019 at 11:28 am
In Canada they call the Indians “First Nations.” Ranking the races by ordinal numbers is obviously problematic. So, instead, if the government insists on awarding its citizens political rights based on the notion of race, they should name the races after a color, not a number. So the indians would be called “red natons,” and people of European ancestry would be called the “white nation.” There would be black and brown nations as well.
Since the whole system falls apart if people marry outside of their race, intermarriage should be illegal. Otherwise how will race relations progress?
June 20th, 2019 at 11:28 am
“Reparations” is more than giving money. White people also owe Black people a place to live, healthy and nutritious food to eat, proper medical care, respect for their musical tradition, meaningful work to perform . . . .
So basically, plantations.
June 20th, 2019 at 11:34 am
Can’t recall what talk radio I heard it on, but the comment was “I support reparations for anyone that has been a slave in America. All they should have to do is go to the White House to get their check” Now, you have to have been a slave. In America, while it was legal. And, alive. I can get behind that much more than handing out free money all over the place.
June 20th, 2019 at 11:35 am
Just the opposite, MP, cross-racial child bearing should be mandatory, and change with each additional child, carefully overseen by bureaucrats.
Right now, Asians tend to be smarter and West Africans tend to be faster, which is obviously unfair to everyone. Forced cross-breeding will level the playing field for their descendants. When everyone in the world is a Heinz 57 dog, then nobody will have a better or worse pedigree so there’s be no basis for discrimination or reparations. Even better, when everyone has the same genes and the same abilities, everyone will be an Olympic Gold Medal Winner.
What better way to achieve Universal Equality? I’m surprised nobody has thought of this idea already.
June 20th, 2019 at 11:37 am
from the Diamond and Silk FB page:
“Before Democrats can have the conversation about reparations, they must first acknowledge that they are the party of Slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK. The only switch that happened was Black people switching to Democrats based on Tales of Broken Promises,, A Bill of Lies & Handouts…Why do Democrats need to fund a Bill to study themselves for being slave drivers & the mastermind behind Jim Crow? Looks like they’ve found another way to scam tax payers & exploit the pain of black people.
Why do a Study, when all they have to do is look in the mirror.”
June 20th, 2019 at 11:47 am
Money don’t get ev’rything, it’s true, but what it don’t get I can’t use.
I need money.
That’s what I want.
(That’s what I want. That’s what I want.)
That’s what I want, that ‘s what I want.
Someone should tell ol’ Ta-Nehisi that Barrett Strong got there sixty years ago.
June 20th, 2019 at 12:22 pm
If there are American citizens who are the descendants of the African slavers who sold the Europeans the slaves in the first place, are they also on the hook to pony up the dough?
The problem with reparations, and the my-people-were-oppressed mentality is this: If you dig far back enough in anyone’s ancestry, chances are good that you will find them descended from both the oppressed and the oppressors.
Silver lining: If the Democrats are fully committed to this idea, and doing right (which, come on, we know they aren’t), I’m going to cancel my Ancestry.com membership and let the government fund all my future genealogical research.
June 20th, 2019 at 12:42 pm
So basically, plantations
As if the one the Democrats have been running for 40 years isn’t good enough.
June 20th, 2019 at 12:47 pm
Do-Gooder logic has always escaped me as to how DACA and illegal alien kids can’t be held responsible for the actions of their parents but somehow I am to be held culpable because someone who shared my skin pigment may have owned slaves 150 years ago.
June 20th, 2019 at 1:21 pm
There will be no tax on white people that goes to Black people (or the descendants of slaves). It woudn’t pass constitutional muster. In the real world, the form it would take is greater federal dollars going to “communities of color,” greater welfare benefits for people stuck in intergenerational poverty, and, worst of all, a revival of bussing and federal laws designed to forcibly integrate communities. In other words, things the Black Caucus wants, not things the average Black person wants.
June 20th, 2019 at 3:12 pm
It’s interesting how the wonderful promises of socialism always sound like plantations. Or jail.
June 20th, 2019 at 8:34 pm
It’s time to move on. At this point, this is nothing more than a victimization ploy that the left can virtue signal over. It’s another way for Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If I was a Republican strategist I would try keep this kind of talk going until the 2020 election. It’s a great way for them to sweep and reelect Trump (for life).
June 21st, 2019 at 2:55 am
If “reparations” are allowed for the descendants of slaves, why are they not allowed for women? Or homosexuals? Or hillbillies?
June 21st, 2019 at 7:01 am
So if you are half black and half white, can you just pay yourself and be done with it?
June 23rd, 2019 at 7:54 pm
Looks like I spoke too soon: https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/23/elizabeth-warren-reparations-same-sex-couples/
June 23rd, 2019 at 7:57 pm
“reparations” is coming to mean what I thought it would come to mean: not cash in the pocket of the offended group from the pockets of hetero white males, but money in the pockets of preferred Democrat constituencies out of the pockets of all taxpayers. Money to reduce class sizes in inner city schools, for example. There must be opportunities for graft a-plenty to suit the needs of Democrat pols.