Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
As anyone who has read a sentence or two of my writing has probably already concluded, I don’t have much use for government at any level. In fact, the less local the government is, the less respect and use for it I have. Basically, I’d rather deal with a local smoky than a sheriff deputy, state trooper or, heaven forfend a federale. So, one can imagine my near mirthless bemusement at a United Nations study being widely reported on this morning that suggests that the “U.S. owes black people reparations for a history of ‘racial tension’” to quote the headline of the Washington Post version of the story.
The study, conducted by something called The United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (not making that up), concluded: “In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.”
Given that it’s a UN report, it’s non-binding and will likely be mostly ignored by Washington, according to the Post story and past history; so, that’s a good thing. The working group apparently drew its recommendations from a fact-finding mission to the United States, which yielded these conclusions.
“Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another, continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of African Americans today. The dangerous ideology of white supremacy inhibits social cohesion amongst the US population,” reads a portion of the working group’s statement as quoted in the Post.
I sure would love to know exactly what this “ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another,” looks like in the USA as it relates, ostensibly, to whites dominating blacks in a country with a two-term black president. We still have affirmative action laws in place around the nation; the only ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another is this political correctness nonsense run amok.
Yes, the ideology of white supremacy, or any other sort of racial supremacy, is dangerous – and blessedly rare. Those possessed of it tend not to wield much political power outside of their trailer parks, also blessedly so. That a small percentage of politically impotent (they’re voting for Trump for chrissakes) Americans has somehow mistaken themselves as the master race isn’t really the thing that’s inhibiting social cohesion among the US population; that distinction falls to the government and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, and now, actually, to the United Nations itself.
Continuing to reinforce this pervasive culture of perennial victimhood is what prevents social cohesion. Continuing to stay the course on a fundamentally broken criminal justice system prevents social cohesion. Maintaining the welfare state inhibits social cohesion. Encouraging people to feel victimized about things that happened to their ancestors inhibits social cohesion.
“In its report, it specifically dwells on the extrajudicial murders that were a product of an era of white supremacy: Lynching was a form of racial terrorism that has contributed to a legacy of racial inequality that the United States must address. Thousands of people of African descent were killed in violent public acts of racial control and domination and the perpetrators were never held accountable.”
Yes, true, more than half a century ago now. When can we let shit go? Ever? Of course, it gets better.
The UN was so kind as to suggest a way for all present-day Americans to atone for sins committed by others before most of them were born; those include: “a formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities … psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation,” or so the Post quoted the report.
Pretty sure there’s been an apology issued for the abuses of the Jim Crow era and on back to the antebellum south. We have Medicaid and Obamacare, Section 8, food stamps and affirmative action. I’d say we’re good on health initiatives and educational opportunities.
“Psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation;” all stuff other people, people who’ve never owned a slave or lynched a black person, will have to pay for. The very idea that “justice” can be had by violently taking away the property of innocent people turns the entire concept of justice on its head. I guess that’s why the Left felt it necessary to coin the term “social justice,” as something distinct from actual real justice.
The best thing the government can do for black people is the same best thing it can do for all people: go away. As I’ve said repeatedly, ending the drug war will dramatically reduce the number of incidents of cops shooting black people; and may just cut down on the gang warfare that most often accounts for the death of a young black male in present-day America, never mind fifty years ago because it was fifty damn years ago. Getting rid of the welfare state that incentivizes decisions that objectively lead to poverty – like having lots of kids young and outside of marriage – would be the biggest boon imaginable to the black community. Continuing to treat all of them as innocent victims, blameless for their own actions and helpless in their own circumstances while telling them that the increasingly distant past still shackles them to this day can only and always foster a very unproductive mindset. And the fact is, if we chose to, all of us could convince ourselves we’re a victim of some sort of systemic historic racial wrongdoing by simply looking at our own ancestry.
I, for example am mostly English; good old Celtic stock from Yorkshire. My peeps were just doing their thing when, bam, in 1066 the damn Normans came up from France and took over. Of course, way before that, 55 BCE, the bloody Romans conquered my ancestors. Then, the Vikings invaded my people a bunch of times, even capturing my ancestors’ hometown in 867. Granted, slavery was a terrible evil and the Jim Crow era a national disgrace; but both paled in terms of savagery to dark ages / medieval warfare. Am I owed reparations then from Denmark, France and Italy? No? Why not? Because I’ve suffered no harm myself from things that happened before I was born to people I’ve never met.
Taking away the property I earned and giving it to someone else to repay damages they never suffered and that I am not responsible for makes no more sense than me demanding a table at Noma in Copenhagen as reparation for what the Vikings did to my people. Which, I’ll selfishly admit is kind of a bummer since that would probably be the only way I’d ever get to dine there. Oh well, life isn’t fair; never has been, in fact. Likely won’t ever be. Get used to it.
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