That's it. A study. No money, outside of what's already been legislated, should be spent.
It got nowhere. It hasn't yet made it to the floor. Buried in committee means buried. It means someone inside that committee must dig it back up.
Nobody has. Why? Way too hot a topic. Let Ta-Nehisi Coates call it, though he supports the idea of it and has written extensively on it, to describe the objections. In his best-selling book We Were Eight Years in Power, actually a collection of essays, he says "the popular mocking of reparations" calls the idea "a hare-brained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists."
Thinking about it, though, does not reduce its legitimacy. Coates calls it
....the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering
alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his
life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckon
us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is--
the work of fallible humans.
Won't reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already
divided. The wealth gap [to which he alludes as being the major
measurement of the collective and individual damage] merely
puts a number on something we feel but cannot pay--that
American prosperity was ill gotten and selective in its distribu-
tion. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with
old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche
and the banishment of white guilt.
What I'm talking about is more than a recompense for past in-
justices--more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluct-
ant bribe. What I'm talking about is a national reckoning that
would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the
end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the
facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yel-
ling "patriotism" while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations
would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a
reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with
the facts of our history.
But would that payoff--because that's what it would be--result in spiritual renewal? Does the settlement of past grievances create the reform necessary to prevent their repetition? Do the parties think differently of each other after the settlement?
To answer those questions, let me ask this one: When a worker utilizes a grievance to challenge her employer, does the winning of that grievance mean that the employer acknowledges her civil and human rights--thus rendering her equal--or is the employer forced to observe her rights under the contract?
Are the two the same? No, they aren't. You win the grievance, but I don't have to like you or be with you or invite you to sit with me at dinner. I can still separate myself and enjoy the separation. My spirit isn't renewed: In fact, it might double-down against you.
Colin Kaepernick settled out of court with the NFL, which, it was learned, blackballed him from employment because of his visual protest during pre-game national anthems--a protest vilified and intentionally mis-characterized in very effective fashion (one must admit, though it doesn't say much good about us) by 45. The NFL threw, probably, millions of dollars at him. But he can't discuss it anymore.
They restored his damages, but they also bought his silence. They shut him up. Nobody has to hire him, either, though he probably still has the skills necessary (he took a team to the Super Bowl) to help at least a few of the league's 32 teams, perhaps as a backup quarterback--or, in fact, something else, since quarterbacks are good athletes and some have been converted into other positions.
Would you, as an NFL owner, bring him back at age 31, past his prime? Would you demand that he not kneel during the national anthem? Would you intentionally bring a controversial person back into the locker room, knowing that the support for him isn't universal?
Nope. He caught us, you'd say, and he's rich. Enough now. We're done talking about it. After all, he took the money. Let's move on. When's the draft?
Let me pose another question: How many articles have been written about Colin Kaepernick since the deal has been struck? Journalists can certainly discuss it endlessly: They've been held to no gag rule. But I haven't seen a single one. What are the chances that this will be revitalized in the near future? What do you think? Uh-uh. We've all moved on.
So: Would reparations based on damages caused by slavery cause a larger discussion? Or would the payoff end the discussion? I think the latter. We paid you. Now go away.
We'd agree to the reparations money, fine. But no one would not have to agree to accept blacks in any other way than under the Constitution, as far as it can be enforced in their favor--which has never been, and never will be, the same in every corner of the land.
What else would go away? Let's see: How about Black Lives Matter? Yeah, they do, some would say. We just settled on how much.
How about affirmative action? Uh-uh. All done. We paid you. We've made up for it because you wanted us to. All part of the damages. And, oh, yeah--we're sorry. Feel better?
Can such things be utilized as bargaining chips? Yes, if they're that important.
Who would do that? Who else? 45. He could call a meeting of significant black leaders: NAACP, National Urban League, Congressional Black Caucus, etc.--tweeting his fingers off with anticipation: Free at last! Free at last!
He could put it on the table like this: You want those Confederate flags and monuments to go away? Okay, fine. We'll put each of them that's left into museums, and prohibit their public displays forever. That might violate the displayers' freedom of speech and property rights, though. To avoid losing in court, we'll make you lose some of your speech freedoms thusly:
- Affirmative action is denied, forever. No university or employer needs to allow for differences in race or skin color or gender or gender identity or sexual orientation when hiring or accepting anybody.
- Accordingly, anyone spotted with a Black Lives Matter t-shirt or banner or other public display will, like the Confederate flag owners, be made subject to arrest and escalating fines.
- Your official position, when we take it to Congress, is 100% support, thus putting Nancy Pelosi on the hot seat far more than any national emergency would.
Deal? Or a trap?
Would he do that? Of course he would. He would spin and tweet it as putting him in the position of the Great Healer of America. And refusing him, of course, would allow him to insult, belittle and mock those with whom the bargaining began, while proving to his base that, in fact, he really is interested in racial justice for everyone. He would have every right to say: Well, I tried. Guess it isn't that important to them after all.
He could frame the whole matter as transactional and prove once again that everything in life can be bargained away. Everyone has their price, it just has to be found.
Consider, too, that slavery itself was nothing more than a transaction, made with the chiefs of the African tribes from which the people were kidnapped and subjected to life-long, forced servitude. Would the offer to replace that transaction with another one make it an effective payback? Or would it, once again, reduce the importance of the individuals directly or indirectly affected by the atrocities/
Absurd? No more so than the thought of reparations in the first place. And absurdity is the watchword of this monster. Remember: He does anything he wants and says anything he wants to get his way. Anything.
He could get the jump on all the Democratic candidates before they began a debate on the issue. He would steal one of their biggest moral positions right out from under them.
And he can't lose. Remember who we did not mention, too: The children of immigrants sent back across the border, thousands of whom are somewhere we can't see right now. We've been assured that they're okay. Count on this: They aren't. They're without their parents. Start there.
To separate those two issues is to give 45 exactly what he wants: opportunities to divide the opposition. The Democratic presidential candidates should think twice about this, because in terms of meeting the needs of the various groups that normally vote with them, they become inclined to jump on bandwagons to be sure to avoid finger-pointing.
Add this all up. Would we emerge as a cleansed, far more united nation? It doesn't look like it. Are monuments being torn down? Yes, here and there. Are school names being changed from those of Confederate leaders? Yes, here and there.
Would a reparations settlement cause more conversation on race and our mottled history, with which Coates wishes us to reconcile? Sure, for a few weeks, here and there. But then, like the Kaepernick deal, once settled, it would dissipate, become reduced, and lose its meaning and status amidst all other public affairs issues.
Down a hole it would go, emerging, like Punxsutawney Phil, once a year during Black History Month (notice it's the same month). That, like the above deal, sells everybody short.
We need to do this the hard way. When the country achieves its inevitable demographic destiny--when it becomes less than half-white, despite desperate efforts to hold that back--we will have the reckoning we need. In the meantime: to minorities, a recommendation: Cut no deals. Don't lose the power you've already gained.
Be well. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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