The stupidest government idea ever: They're proposing that the Census ask people under an honor system to identify their ancestors’ slave status.

American Thinker ^ | 04/07/2023 | Kathleen Brush

[SeekAndFind]

The government is presently considering modifying the Census to identify recipients for reparations. If the idea is operationalized, a possible future headline will be “2030 Census Shows America Has a Black Majority.” That would confirm that this was the U.S. government’s most brain-dead idea ever. However, with a couple of tweaks, it could be a brilliant idea.

The government’s idea (at page A6) is to ask all who check the “black” race box on the Census if they are descended from American slaves. The Census is not validated, and there’s nothing in the plan to change that. Anyone can check the boxes for “black” race and slave descendant—and now he or she has been identified as a candidate for free “reparations” money should it be paid.

It’s pretty clear that, in America, identity trumps biology, and people can change their identity on any given day, like the day the Census is completed. It’s not like this doesn’t happen all the time. The multiracial population jumped from 9 million in 2010 to 33.8 million in 2020. The number of people who identify as American Indian or Native Alaskan jumped 75% between 2010 and 2020, and in the same period, the number of Latinos identifying as white fell from 26.7 million to 12.6 million. Meanwhile, the white-identifying population fell by 31 million. With all the white supremacy and white racism blarney, who could blame anyone for not wanting to identify as white?

If some are enticed by the possibility of free money but are reluctant to identify as both black and descended from slaves because they don’t look or feel black, they should consider that, under long-standing American policy, they still could be black.

[Manuel OKelley]

My family has been in this country over 400 years by way of Virginia and spread south and west

Many owned slaves and considering the circumstances I’m sure come of my ancestors were slaves and Indians

Dad used always say the families who’d been in the country that long had all kinds in the woodpile (using different words)

[Bobalu]

I self-identify as a reparations recipient...

[ApplegateRanch]

That would be me:
Anglo Saxon esnes under the Normans
Huguenots, under French Catholic rule, before fleeing to the Americas.
And, closer to home times, G-Grandfather, in a sense: fled Bavaria to The Netherlands, before emigrating to the USA: virtual slave, as an unwillingly indentured apprentice stonemason.

My wife is Irish & Welsh descent: enough said there.

[Chgogal]

My family never owned slaves but Obama’s family did. ; )

[alexander_busek]

RE: I think everyone should check the “black” box.

Isn’t it a felony to lie on a census form?

PROVE that I'm lying when I say that I have "Black" (and most likely "Slave") blood!

The only way to institute and maintain any such system based on "blood" is to adopt and legislate Nuremburg-style race laws, defining "Halbjude," "Vierteljude," etc.

It is blatantly impracticable to institute standards (incl. those with legal force) that can't be enforced because to do so would require codifying concepts and enacting measures that are inimical to our Constitutional rights.

Regards,

[newzjunkey]

Can’t ask about citizenship because that’s racist /s

[TheWriterTX]

LOL!

Bonjour, mon ami! Je suis francais, aussi (petite).

Irish, German, French, and Scandinavian.

My children inherited Italian, Polish, Irish, and English from my husband.

True American melting pot kids.

[Iron Munro]

Somewhere back in time through the convoluted threads of our ancestral histories almost everyone has a distant forebear who was enslaved.

And what about blacks who enslaved other blacks in the antebellum south?

[linMcHlp]

Bill Warner, Ph.D.
History of Islamic jihad conquest over the ages, in a brief video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo

[greatvikingone]

Oliver Cromwell sent incredible numbers of Irish to “the New World” as slaves. A majority ended up in the Caribbean because the offspring of an Irish-African union was considered impressively beautiful, but today’s US was not without its fair share of red headed slaves.

[greatvikingone]

Better documented (see Exodus) than most - and it’s in the DNA (unless you are Sephardic…)

[Mozzafiato]

California is surprisingly 98% Black after the next Census data is released

[Mozzafiato]

California is surprisingly 98% Black after the next Census data is released

[Mark17]

I think everyone should check the “black” box. If 90% of Americans are black, what happens to reparations?

Good question. Maybe the reparations will disappear. 👍

[Cronos]

Jews also enslaved others. Sub saharan Africans also enslaved other humans etc etc.

Each of us have at least one nasty ancestor

[nonliberal]

Why yes. Yes they were. Gibsmedat.

[Machavelli]

Wat about the Chinese that were essentially slaves building the rail roads?

[mad_as_he$$]

And just about everyone’s ancestors have been oppressed as a slave in human history.

[BlueLancer]

I found out at age 50, after my father was long gone, that I am at least 1/8th French.
From my father’s side.

Someone at least owes me an apology!

Or, at least, a new rifle (to replace the one dropped so long ago ...)

[BlueLancer]

If you go back far enough everyone has an ancestor that was a slave.

Well, considering the root word for "slave" is "Slav", you're most certainly right ...

Anyone with Central or Eastern European heritage, please stand up and form a line for your reparations ...