Politics and Society: Slavery Reparations

rep·a·ra·tion

ˌrepəˈrāSH(ə)
noun
the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.

Apparently there is a new movement with the end goal of getting reparations paid by the U.S. government to African Americans for the slavery that ended 152 years ago. Yes this is real.
Where do I start?

It's Divisive 

Let's start with the divisive nature of this "movement". By proposing such an idea one is in fact asserting that African-Americans are in fact separate from the rest of America. This is in direct opposition to the efforts of liberal people/politics since the 1960's (the last 50-55 years) for ethnic equality based on the idea that we are all simply Americans and we are all equal. There is a hypocrisy inherent in this thinking, you cannot have it both ways.
How effective will this be? The claim is that black Americans are impoverished still because of the trauma slavery has caused them, and somehow a check from the government will help them with the feeling that they are left with because their great, great, grandma was a slave and probably the first freed generation. Well my great, great, (great) grandfather was a Union General that died from wounds he suffered fighting to win that little girl her freedom, where the fuck are my reparations?

It's Ineffective

Let's get back the the idea that a reparation check is supposed to help... in the 1960's the number of black households that had only one parent was half that of white people, around 5%. After the republicans and MLK convinced president Johnson to sign into law the measures that would put an end to the Jim Crow laws implemented in the Democratic South (I wonder how many Confederate monuments were erected by democrats prior to the 1960's?), Johnson also pushed for welfare payments to single moms stating, "If the black man is going to have a vote then we will have every N***** voting Democrat". Government workers then went into the poorer neighborhoods going door to door informing young black women that if they stayed single and had kids the government would cut them a check every month. Since then the number of single parent homes among blacks has increased from 5% to over 70%. For whites it has also gone up, from 10% to 25%. There is a direct correlation between single-parenthood and crime and poverty for a number of reasons. Still think a reparations check is going to help combat poverty and crime in black communities? In all of America? I don't. I think job opportunities will, and if we tax the rest of America for this then the job opportunities will shrink, not grow. Jobs have always retracted under increased taxes, it's simple economics. So while we can debate the ethics of reparations we should also consider the actual impact... all negative in my book.

It's Unethical and Impractical

How is that supposed to work anyway? Everyone except blacks pay a tax to the blacks(effectively)? But wait, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Russian, Vietnamese, and many other different immigrants did not own slaves and came to America afterwards... are we to tax just the white people for this? What about the Germans, Irish, and Italians that immigrated after the abolishment of slavery? What about the ones before that never owned slaves? Some of my ancestors were Irish indentured servants (slaves), and never owned slaves themselves... how do we determine, fairly who pays? Who has the guilt? Does anyone have guilt? No, no one has owned a slave in America for over 130 years, we have no guilt! We won the goddamned war! The ethical side won! Your reparations are the fact that over 360,000 Union soldiers died fighting to liberate the descendants of 500,000 Africans sold into slavery in the U.S. and 300,000 Confederate soldiers died trying to stop them.(Yes descendants, the Atlantic slave trade was ended in the 1820's, the total brought to North America by that time was around 500,000, the same amount that went to Haiti, and a fraction of the number that went to Brazil which did not abolish slavery until the 1880's. A fact about slavery that I think people in America forget is that slavery was a reality of nearly every culture and nation on the planet in the 19th century and there are still many nations in the 21st century where slavery is practiced (29 million slaves globally as of 2013). My point is not that slavery is somehow morally acceptable, my point is that since the 19th century we (the west) have figured that out and that in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries slavery was part and parcel of all nations... in was normal. Not then thought of as unethical.) The take away is that America bled liberating African slaves. There were other contentions between the North and the South but slavery was a big one.
Let's just assume that the principle of a reparation is fair, how much is fair? A family member of mine got ripped off by a friend whom embezzled over $200k, all my family member gets from this individual after convicted is a $25 check once a month... forever I guess. Which hardly seems just to me. Would $100/month be enough to make black Americans feel satisfied? I think most black Americans are as disgusted with this idea as am I and would resent such a payment. How is it not racism that we should pay one group of people money based on the color of their skin?

It's Disrespectful and Un-American 

I was incensed at the idea of America, the same America that fought the confederacy in America's bloodiest war, should pay some of its citizens for the victorious outcome of that war. What nation has ever paid itself reparations for winning a war? The Confederacy lost and became no more, so who pays? Again, you would have to view black communities as separate from the rest of America, which is unethical. I look at my black brothers and sisters as equals, as members of the same unified nation that I am a member of. If we separate out then we have different sides and then life gets real dangerous real fast. I thought only the white nationalists wanted some sort of separation? Again I was incensed when I heard about this. The absolute disrespect and ungratefulness this shows those that gave their lives in the civil war winning freedom for all. Your ancestors might have been enslaved 152 years ago, mine feakin' died to change that fact. Are we all owed reparations then? From/to ourselves? How about this; we were all born into the greatest country on Earth with the most opportunity possible for all its people. Yes all. Life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness is a right afforded to us ALL! But we must take the initiative to pursue such goals, we are not entitled to happiness. As Americans we wanted to guarantee that we all had the right of liberty to pursue our own goals, to achieve happiness and success. It is not in the DNA of the idea of America that the government tax others to give you shit. You are not entitled to shit, just a few basic inalienable rights. Don't take it for granted and don't waste this gift. No white man or government organization is going to stop you from getting an education, starting a business, or acting upon your liberties... in fact if you are a minority or a woman (any ethnicity) there are incentives for you that white men are not afforded. Don't waste it.

It's Regressive

We cannot ignore the fact that bigotry still exists in America, but the idea of ethnic supremacy is not in the mainstream of thought, it is on the fringe and not exclusive to whites. Most of America has outgrown such small thinking, all this will do is set us back not move us forward as it is bound to fuel both bigotry and victimhood creating chasms of division out of fissures of perspective.