The notion of awarding reparations to blacks as compensation for slavery has been floating around for years without anyone taking it seriously. The idea of reparations is predicated on the anti-white canard that contemporary whites are responsible for the social and economic condition of blacks. This view has been refuted by influential black thinkers such as Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Bob Woodson.
Support for reparations was boosted in 2014 by an article in The Atlantic, “The Case for Reparations'' by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates himself admitted that he didn’t expect it to come to fruition. Thanks to the racial hurricane set off by the George Floyd incident, Coates’ idea was given a shot in the arm.
Evanston, Illinois, became the first American city to fund reparations. The State of California is contemplating a cash award of $360,000 to each black resident, which would undoubtedly lead to a flood of black people from all over the country into California. Not to be outdone, an advisory committee in San Francisco has recommended $5 million payouts to black individuals, together with a guaranteed annual income of $97,000 for 250 years and personal debt forgiveness.
The US is experiencing an outbreak of anti-white racism, in which white people are demonized as oppressors of everyone else. The Left, says author Ben Shapiro, wants to portray America as “an incurable mass of bigoted whites.” This offers an opportunity for blacks to make unreasonable demands. “Whites are hungry for a way to prove that they’re innocent of racism,” says black author Shelby Steele, while black anger and militancy have become “the best means to opportunity and power for blacks.” Black rage, he says, “is a response to perceived opportunity, not to injustice.”
Asking all non-blacks to fund reparations ignores the fact that as few as five percent of today’s whites have a generational connection to slavery. “How can all Americans in the 21st century be held financially responsible for the actions of a subset of Americans hundreds of years ago?” asked Armstrong Williams in The Hill.
“The reparations argument is based on the unfounded claim that all African-American descendants of slaves suffer from the economic consequences of slavery and discrimination,” says author David Horowitz. “No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago.”
“Maybe I live in a box,” said black activist Candace Owens, “but I’ve never met a single black American who was a slave or a single white American who was a slave owner. I’ve only come across lazy people who believe that those of us who work ought to support them.”
Once the reparation floodgates are opened, there is no limit to what black activists may demand. Denver councilwoman Candi CdeBaca proposed taxing white-owned businesses and redistributing the wealth to minorities. Some blacks in California argue that $5 million per person is not enough. They want $200 million!
A black woman at Target refused to pay for her purchases, amounting to more than a thousand dollars, because she was entitled to them as reparations for what she suffered because of her skin color. Target would not accede to her demand, so she assaulted the store manager and had to be restrained by a security guard.
And what about the Irish, Jews, Hispanics, and Chinese, all of whom were subjected to severe discrimination? Should they pay reparations or receive them? If reparations represent the new face of racial politics, we ought to apply “equity” and give every aggrieved racial and ethnic group a piece of the pie.
In particular, we should consider reparations for whites paid for by blacks as compensation for decades of massive violence against the white population. Black violence has brought civil society to its knees. “Black crime and violence against whites, gays, women, seniors, young people, and lots of others are astronomically out of proportion,” said Colin Flaherty in Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry.
In 2015, according to Heather Mac Donald in The War on Cops, blacks were responsible for 62 percent of all robberies, 57 percent of murders, and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 largest US counties. Blacks in New York City committed 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crimes. “The bulk of responsibility,” said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is on blacks who “commit murder eight times more per capita than any other group in our society.”
“Episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls, or other public places,” said black economist Thomas Sowell, “have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles, and other places across the country.”
“Whites are the overwhelming target of interracial violence,” Heather Mac Donald wrote in City Journal. “Between 2012 and 2015, blacks committed 540,360 felonious assaults on whites.” Whites are suffering from black criminality and anti-white hate in the here and now, not 50-100 years ago. The economic cost to whites and white businesses from black racial violence has amounted to billions. The cost of welfare and other government programs designed to help blacks has amounted to trillions, with very little to show for it.
What makes more sense? Compensating blacks for injustices experienced by their ancestors 200 years ago or compensating whites for the pain and suffering that is being inflicted on them right now.
I am not in favor of reparations, but if we are going to move in that direction, let’s be fair and equitable and compensate everyone with a claim. A better solution might be not to move in that direction at all. Instead, we can cease government protection of particular groups altogether.
Ed Brodow is a conservative political commentator and author of ten books, including No. 1 Amazon Best Seller THE WAR ON WHITES: How Hating White People Became the New National Sport. His website is www.edbrodowpolitics.com.