Maggie's Farm

Of course, "white privilege" is starting to be supplanted with "white fragility" or some such. Either way, it's really dopey.

Related to "white privilege" is the issue of reparations for slaves. I'm not sure I'm against it if it is done properly. Here are a few proposals.

1. The people responsible for slavery - or at least the continuation of it - should pay the reparations. There were lots of white people who wanted nothing to do with slavery but there was a group that went so far as to go to war to preserve slavery. That group is called Democrats.

Since those who went to war to preserve slavery are no longer with us, we'll have to be content with a representative sample. So I'd be happy for Democrats to pay reparations to those descended from slaves.

2. Or we may want to be more direct. There are still politicians who supported Jim Crow laws. There are lots of white people who wanted nothing to do with Jim Crow so those politicians who are still around who supported Jim Crow laws, did not support civil rights legislation can pay reparations to blacks.

3. Or the most direct route is for all those who owned slaves and fought to preserve slavery can pay reparations directly to those who were enslaved.

Here's an interesting fact. Did you know that when slavery was outlawed in England, the government paid the slave owners for the loss of their property they could no longer legally own (sort of like gun buy backs)?

I agree with you. My post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I think the reparations idea is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as the idea that blacks are suffering from past slavery. Many of the data they site as evidence for the continued effects of slavery were getting better until the "War on Poverty" started.

I think the whole idea is to get whitey and buy votes. The details of such a thing are unworkable. As a case in point, when the Department of Agriculture agreed to pay black farmers for past discrimination, a "black farmer" ended up being any black who planted a plant. Reparations would be an even bigger boondoggle by a couple of orders of magnitude. Separating prospective recipients of reparations from blacks who have no connection to slavery would be worse than a nightmare. Separating whites who owned slaves from those who have no connection to slavery let alone those with a connection to those who have a connection to fighting to end slavery. I don't see a practical way to carry out payments of reparations and comport with any form of justice.

I also do not think that even if you could get past the previous paragraph and locate actual descendants of slaves and actual descendants of slave owners (and maybe supporters of slavery), there is no sane judicial tenant where the son or daughter should pay for the sins for his father. So the only real solution would be for actual slave owners to pay reparations to actual slaves - none of which are living so the whole idea is a moot point.

Of course because there is no way to find who should "legitimately" pay and who should "legitimately" receive, the proponents of reparations will end up being a tax on "white privilege".

Whew (I finally get to the point of my post!)! The point of my post is to look at it from an angle that you can be sure will not be discussed if the reparations issue ever gets that far, and even though the logic is admittedly strained a bit, I think it makes valid points that will not likely be made. The people promoting this loopy idea are members of the only group who is directly responsible for the situation they say needs to be rectified. That being the case, they should pay to rectify it. The Democrat party has never apologized for slavery and in fact, to this day the Democrat Party brags:


Any organization that is this brazenly dishonest deserves to pay for that dishonesty.