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Why Reparations Talk Is Harmful
National Review ^ | September 20, 2019 | Mona Charen

Posted on 09/20/2019 5:55:19 AM PDT by karpov

Three Democratic candidates for president — Julián Castro, Cory Booker, and Marianne Williamson — have declared support for the idea of slavery reparations. A number of others have said they’d vote for a bill sponsored by Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D., Texas) to create a “commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.” Still other candidates have been vague (Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke), while Elizabeth Warren has called for a “national, full-blown conversation about reparations in this country.” Oh, a conversation.

A Washington Post piece examining the tensions between black Americans on the question offers a glimpse of why this idea is terrible. It’s a profile of William A. “Sandy” Darity, a professor of economics at Duke, and leader of the “Planning Committee for Reparations,” a group of academics who are attempting to create a program to implement reparations. They envision a plan that would offer cash payments to all African Americans who can 1) prove that they are descended from someone enslaved in the United States and 2) have identified as black in public documents for at least ten years.

This, as you can imagine, has engendered some raised eyebrows. “It’s extremely difficult to separate classes of black people,” objects Nkechi Taifa, a D.C. “activist” (per the Post) who supports the idea of reparations for all black people. “The idea that unless you can actually trace your family directly to a slave that you haven’t been subject to the legacy of slavery is a bunch of hogwash.”

There it is, the ticking time bomb of intra-group resentment that reparations talk ignites. About 10 percent of black Americans today are foreign-born. The number of blacks who are children and grandchildren of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean is even larger

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: monacharen; reparations
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To: karpov

My great great grandfather and great uncle were killed. My great grandfather lost a leg in the Civil War. They fought for the Union.

If reparations are given out, our family wants 3 shares.


21 posted on 09/20/2019 6:36:01 AM PDT by wintertime (I shun government K-12 teachers.)
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To: karpov

If you’re only half black, do you just get half the reparations amount?

How about if you’re just 10% black?


22 posted on 09/20/2019 6:49:08 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire)
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To: GOPJ
I don't know who decided that 50% of the people in TV commercials have to be black, but it does seem that the black people who appear in the commercials are disproportionately lighter-skinned black people.

Malcolm X (via Alex Haley) talked about black families favoring those of their kids who had lighter complexions (if they were of mixed ancestry like he was)--that would be pre-WWII times.

23 posted on 09/20/2019 7:01:12 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: karpov
The idea that unless you can actually trace your family directly to a slave that you haven’t been subject to the legacy of slavery

I don't care if they have been 'subject to the legacy of slavery' or not. There is not a people or nation on this earth that hasn't been to subject to or perpetuated slavery or all kinds of different 'evils'. Blacks should worry about their own atrocious histories not to mention their current day pathologies.

24 posted on 09/20/2019 7:08:29 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
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To: karpov

Racial mau-mauing is what Democrats need to do to keep blacks on their plantation.

They lose them and they’re no longer politically competitive. Stoking racial polarization helps them.

I will never pay the race merchants and race hustlers a dime for things I’m not responsible for and which I didn’t commit:


25 posted on 09/20/2019 7:11:26 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Verginius Rufus
I have no problem with black people with naturally lighter skin... THAT'S NOT what I'm talking about.

Black people don't object to white people who have naturally darker skin or are deeply tanned. YOU know that...

Why should they? What they object to is 'black-face'...

Black people object to the Justin Trudeau and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam types who darken their skin artificially to create 'black-face'... when they do that it's offensive.

I object to black people artificially doing 'white face' when they lighten their skin artificially and don wigs or other imitations of OUR hair. It's equally racially offensive. I

26 posted on 09/20/2019 7:16:51 AM PDT by GOPJ ( Daniel Okrent HELP - lowlife editors at the New York Times need YOU... they've lost their way.)
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To: karpov; All

“Kidnapping and enslaving people is evil. But the people so victimized are long gone... “


Yes, slavery was evil. It should have never been allowed in the Colonies, an extremely bad mistake.

INAL, but I’m pretty sure that the statute of limitation expired well over 100 years ago for any claims of harm. The push for “reparations” today is nothing more than a cynical attempt to foment racial tension for left-wing political gain.


27 posted on 09/20/2019 7:27:10 AM PDT by Synthesist
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To: karpov

“The idea that unless you can actually trace your family directly to a slave that you haven’t been subject to the legacy of slavery is a bunch of hogwash.”

They are just say that because they know a good chunk of them don’t even know who there fathers and/or their mothers are. Hard to do a family tree if you have no starting point.


28 posted on 09/20/2019 7:32:33 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: wastoute

“..Elizabeth Warren has called for a “national, full-blown conversation..”

Converse with yourself Warren...it bores the hell out of me.


29 posted on 09/20/2019 7:37:27 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Verginius Rufus
Malcolm X (via Alex Haley) talked about black families favoring those of their kids who had lighter complexions (if they were of mixed ancestry like he was)--that would be pre-WWII times.

It's not just black families - it's common in the middle-east as well... in fact it's almost a universal feeling among 'people of color' that lighter is better. Malcolm X fought the idea - and so did other 'grown ups' in this culture and others - culminating with with the 'black is beautiful' movement.

30 posted on 09/20/2019 7:42:23 AM PDT by GOPJ ( Daniel Okrent HELP - lowlife editors at the New York Times need YOU... they've lost their way.)
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To: karpov

Cory Booger also came out with a plan to pay reparations to people who were busted for pot possession.


31 posted on 09/20/2019 9:48:47 AM PDT by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.")
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To: CodeToad

That 24% had no problem because that was the custom where they were taken from. Once they were free they could apply the African custom of owning slaves to themselves.


32 posted on 09/20/2019 2:48:47 PM PDT by RJS1950 (The democrats are the "enemies foreign and domestic" cited in the federal oath)
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To: GOPJ
I'm sick of black people doing 'white face' AND doing "white people's hair"... it 'triggers' me... Even on MSNBC black women lighten their skin and wear wigs that imitate 'white people's hair'. Talk about appropriation - they've made an art form out of it. It's triggering. Triggering to us to see black people appropriating our hair... our face... and our mannerisms. Where's the outrage?
33 posted on 09/21/2019 10:13:13 AM PDT by GOPJ ( Daniel Okrent HELP - lowlife editors at the New York Times need YOU... they've lost their way.)
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To: GOPJ

I was going through a government survey about race discrimination for my work with the ANG. One question that skewed all the other ones on what they mean by discrimination was if there was white supremacist problems at work.

No word on Islamic or black nationalists which are a far far bigger problem

Who the hell approves this kind of survey is what I want to know. There is a socialist camp in the deep state.


34 posted on 09/21/2019 12:49:17 PM PDT by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: karpov

The vagueness of the whole debate is perfect for Democrat demagogues, they can stir up resentment and demands, without either thinking through the real consequences and damage reparations will certainly do, all the time knowing that they never actually have to do anything.

This affair is just another component of the political fraud that drives today’s Democrat Party and the Left in general. It represents and illustrates the very nature of “The Party of Fraud”. This and every other dishonest scam these fools burden us all with should be dismissed and derided as idiocy.


35 posted on 09/21/2019 1:35:53 PM PDT by Richard Axtell (I am at a loss, how much lower will they go before all hell breaks loose?)
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To: JudgemAll

Commie-Americans work as a team. That’s why you see this kind of coordinated crap...


36 posted on 09/22/2019 10:53:04 AM PDT by GOPJ ( Daniel Okrent HELP - lowlife editors at the New York Times need YOU... they've lost their way.)
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To: I want the USA back

Assuredly, the notion of collective guilt is alien to logic and good sense.

It’s not surprising that libs embrace such guilt (but only for whites) and oppose individual responsibility.


37 posted on 09/22/2019 1:16:35 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: rbg81

There will be a civil war if that happens. It’s plain and simple. It’s not right, not moral, not acceptable and certainly not legal to force people to pay for the sins of others.


38 posted on 09/23/2019 6:46:48 AM PDT by spacewarp (FreeRepublic, Rush's show prep since foundation.)
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To: karpov

“The idea that unless you can actually trace your family directly to a slave that you haven’t been subject to the legacy of slavery is a bunch of hogwash.”

Hey! Does that mean I qualify!??


39 posted on 09/24/2019 5:26:24 AM PDT by JPJones (More Tariffs, less income tax.)
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