Tillman isn't helping debate over slave reparations "I want 40 acres and a Lexus."

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | December 8, 2003 | Laura Washington

[Chi-townChief]

While the debate over slave reparations has merit, it will never be taken seriously with advocates like Dorothy Tillman at the helm.

As is her wont, Tillman's antics undermine her own causes. Take her reaction to the admission by the international investment firm Lehman Brothers. The firm announced last month that the three brothers who founded the firm's predecessor purchased a slave named Martha in the 1850s. Lehman 'fessed up, thanks to an ordinance, championed by Tillman, that mandates all city contractors attest to whether they ever participated in America's slave trade.

Of the 2,000 companies that have filed affidavits, Lehman Brothers is the first to disclose a slavery connection. Lehman, which co-manages a $145 million O'Hare Airport bond issue, said historical records do not indicate that the brothers owned any other slaves or used them in their business.

Tillman and other reparations activists rightly argue that America was built on the backs of black slaves. The landmark ordinance has opened up a vital debate over whether today's society should be accountable for slavery, and its meaning in the context of American history.

From my perch, that's a good start.

Enter Tillman, the 3rd Ward alderman who, in a tumultuous two decades in the Chicago City Council, has become best known for pronouncements as colorful as her copious collection of hats.

Once again, ''The Hat'' did not disappoint. She attacked Carole Brown, an African-American senior vice president at Lehman, for saying that ''the Lehman Brothers in the 1850s is not the company that it is today.''

''She should have kept her mouth shut and said, 'I'm not going to speak against my people,'" she told Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman.

''Who is she to say that things have changed?'' Tillman ranted. ''Things have not changed. The economy for blacks in this country is just as bad as it was under Jim Crow.''

Tillman is demanding that Brown either apologize to the black community for her grave insult or resign from her position as chairwoman of the CTA board. ''If she's that insensitive as an African-American woman not to understand the effects and residues of slavery, she certainly can't represent us on the CTA board.'' In other words, Brown is a lackey for whitey.

Brown has wisely stayed mum. The Harvard-educated executive is by all accounts a sharp and savvy professional. While I have never met her, anyone on the receiving end of Tillman's vacuous rhetoric can't be all bad.

A good thing about the reparations discussion is that it forces us to confront our legacy of slavery, America's dirtiest laundry.

But Tillman is not interested in productive debate, only in grandstanding and name calling. It's always been her way or no way. You are either with her or a traitor to the race.

And it's intellectually dishonest to say that the economic realities for black folks haven't improved since the 1850s. The scars of slavery persist today, but the fact that a Carole Brown exists says volumes about how far we have come.

Tillman is not alone. During the debate over the reparations law, 34th Ward Ald. Carrie Austin voiced her support by declaring, ''I want 40 acres and a Lexus. You can keep the mule.''

These kinds of remarks make African Americans look like a bunch of operators trying to hustle our way into making an easy buck out of a national tragedy.

Perhaps Tillman could instead turn her short attention span to the needs of her own ward, one of the poorest in the city.

The racial wounds of slavery are real. But as long as the reparations debate is framed around pointless posturing and pandering, they will never be redressed.

Guaranteed. Or I'll eat Tillman's hat.

[bird4four4]

My ancestors came to America in 1909. Am I responsible for slavery and need to pay reparations now?

[Blood of Tyrants]

"By accepting this "retribution" payment of 40 acres of land in Africa and a Lexus automobile, I forever renounce my U.S. citizenship and all claims on the people of that country and will exit the country within 30 days, never to return."

Signed, ________________

[bird4four4]

America's dirtiest laundry

It's OK, we whashed it, and it's all white now.

[stainlessbanner]

Unbelievable.

[mhking]

Dorothy Tillman was stupid when I lived up there, and I see she's just as stupid today.

Just damn.

Black conservative ping

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[Cincinatus]

While the debate over slave reparations has merit

The very first phrase of this piece is ludicrously wrong and it goes downhil from there.

[cyborg]

No. You're about as responsible for slavery and reparations as I am. I pay enough taxes.

[subterfuge]

"In other words, Brown is a lackey for whitey"

Notice the author doesn't state that 'In other words, TILLMAN BELIEVES Brown is a lackey for whitey.'

These are author LAURA WASHINGTON'S words. Its a not-so-valed tip-off that she believes everything Tillman is saying, just not her means for getting it.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Do descendants of black slave owners owe other blacks?

What if one of your ancestors was a black slave owner and another a slave, do you pay yourself?

Does Halle Berry (one white parent, one black) owe or pay?

If I can prove that my ancestors were too poor to own slaves, do I have to pay, too?

If I, as a white man, can prove that I have a black ancestor who was a slave, can I get reparations, too?

[Rebelbase]

My thought too. I'm thankful my son reads this stuff with an open mind and can differentiate the fact from the propaganda.

[workerbee]

if it weren't for MY ancestors, she would STILL be picking cotton.

And if not for other ancestors, it could be worse still. She could be on the wrong end of a machete blade in some godforsaken unending tribal conflict.

[ClearCase_guy]

My ancestors came to America in 1909. Am I responsible for slavery and need to pay reparations now?

Yes. In fact you bear a heavier responsibility than most, because ... because ... Oh, you just do, that's all!!

[Southack]

Actually, Tillman is a "useful" idiot.

Consider, as Laz did, that our government owns one third of all land in America. That land is not on the Market. That land isn't helping our economy.

So turning over 40 acres of government land as "reparations" or welfare or land grants or whatever...would soon inject a fair amount of wealth back into our system (after all, some of that land *would* be sold back on the Market).

In the meantime, such reparations would turn Democratic Blacks decisively against our enviro-radicals who want our government to buy up all private land. The Enviro-nuts don't want *any* land to be privately owned, and they want to fight any sale of public government land to the private Market.

Yet how could such PC radicals be against 40 acres of "reparations?"

Now admittedly, this is a pretty cynical way of thinking, but you've got to admit, the enviro-radicals would play their part in fighting such reparations (and that would have larger political consequences).

Sometimes, such as in judo and politics, you can score an advantage by using your own opponents moves against them.

Moving government land back into the private market would do that very thing, were we ever to become so cold-hearted and cynical.

Republicans freed slaves. It isn't out of the question that they could next free our land.

[Vision]

From my perch, that's a good start.

That's a hell of a perch you got there

[Lazamataz]

Ha!

Any more ideas like that I come up with, I'm sending to you. You publicize well. :o)

[ArrogantBustard]

While the debate over slave reparations has merit

Sez you!!!

''She should have kept her mouth shut and said, 'I'm not going to speak against my people,'"

Last time I checked, we were all human. This skin-colour based race thing is silly.

If this "slave reparations" crowd had any guts, they'd show up on individual door-steps demanding their fair share, instead of shilling for the government to do the dirty work for them. Of course, they might find that most Americans don't react favourably to shakedown artists, confidence men, and armed robbers.

[ridesthemiles]

How is she going to work 40 acres with a Lexus?

WORK is a word she is unfamilar with....:)

[OESY]

A significant number of caucasion (ie. whitey) people immigrated to the USA after the civil war.

While we're at it, let's not forget those who came to America before 1860, who rejected slavery and fought the Civil War to abolish it. There were 646,392 casulaties on the Union side alone, including 140,414 battle deaths. They made the ultimate sacrifice so slaves could go free at a time when slavery was still practiced worldwide, as it still is in Sudan and elsewhere today -- not that certain Democrat leaders ever talk about solving today's problem.

Thus reparations is an absurd idea that started with law suits over slave labor during WWII, and has led to other absurdities as illustrated by the following recent story:

LESSONS OF 'THE SIMPLE LIFE'
New York Post ^ | December 5, 2003 | MARK GOLDBLATT

Posted on 12/05/2003 8:33:42 AM EST by OESY

FOX'S new reality series, "The Simple Life," premiered Tuesday. The show follows the misadventures of socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie as they "rough it" for a month on an Arkansas farm - plucking chickens, killing bugs and (gasp!) sharing a single bathroom with their hosts, the Leding Family. The show is intended to highlight, in a less than subtle way, the rural decency of the Ledings by contrasting them with the absurdly pampered big city blonds.

But the show also highlights another absurdity. Nicole Ritchie is the daughter of singer Lionel Ritchie - so, even though she grew up in a world of Gucci bags and Manolo Blahnik spike heels, designer perfumes and stretch limos, she counts as African-American for the purposes of affirmative action.

So if she and Justin Leding, the hardworking teenage son of the farm family, ever compete for admission to college, Nicole will be granted special consideration because of the otherwise insurmountable hardships visited upon her ancestors.

Who said America is no longer the land of opportunity?

[Roughneck]

>>Tillman and other reparations activists rightly argue that America was built on the backs of black slaves<<<

They wrongly argue this. The whites that forged this country worked hard indeed, overcoming religious persecution and serfdom (indentured servitude) within the varying countries they escaped from.

While black slaves DID help the later cotton-growers, and other farmers, blacks were NOT EVER the only ones doing back-breaking work for this country, nor did blacks lay the ground-work of this country.

Blacks are free here, if they dont like it, I vote a ticket back to Africa and a donkey to ride when they get there.

[Gunslingr3]

"By accepting this "retribution" payment of 40 acres of land in Africa and a Lexus automobile, I forever renounce my U.S. citizenship and all claims on the people of that country and will exit the country within 30 days, never to return."

Signed, ________________

Mississippi Fun Bucks?