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Reparations Buffoons On the Washington Mall
TownHall.com ^ | 8/19/02 | David Horowitz

Posted on 08/18/2002 10:21:35 PM PDT by kattracks

In 1943, A Phillip Randolph organized a civil rights march on Washington to demand full citizenship for black Americans. At the time, the descendants of slaves were disenfranchised and legally segregated in the South and legally discriminated against everywhere else. Twenty years later Martin Luther King Jr. led a triumphant reprise of Randolph’s protest and delivered what has become second only to the Gettysburg Address as the most famous speech in American history. Within two years of King’s march, the Congress passed laws by eighty and ninety percent majorities of both political parties that guaranteed full citizenship rights and political equality to blacks. King himself won a place in the pantheon of American heroes, displacing Washington and Lincoln to become the only American honored with a national holiday in his name – a powerful symbol of the guilt Americans felt for the crimes of slavery and segregation, and a living reminder of the lengths to which Americans have gone and are prepared to go to right the wrongs of their country’s racial past.

But since King’s day of glory, the Washington mall has become the platform for a series of increasingly embarrassing displays of racial histrionics and anti-American bathos in the name of the civil rights cause. In 1991 America’s most prominent black racist and spiritual guru of a crackpot religious cult led an improbable “Million Man March” to the hallowed site. On the mall where King gave his “I Have A Dream” speech, Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a disquisition on the numerology of the integer “19” and denounced “white supremacy,” which he identified as the most pressing problem in America and the world. This was a throwback to the era of racial charlatans like Marcus Garvey and Farrakhan’s own mentor, the improbable prophet of Mohammed, Wallace Fard.

Two years ago, the reverend Al Shartpon claimed the same podium for what he called his “Redeem the Dream” march, an appalling effusion of race-baiting diatribes. Malik Zulu Shabazz, the “Minister of Defense” of the New Black Panthers called for a race war. Farrakhan was absent but sent his “Queen” to represent him at an event. Participants included members of the congressional black caucus and HUD secretary Andrew Cuomo, along with sometime felon and current boxing promoter Don King, who provided the only levity of the day.

This year witnessed a full-blown return to the buffoonery of pasts remote in time and not so remote. One speaker referred to the event as a revival of the Sixties, chanting “Black Power! Black Power! Black Power!” But the presiding spirit of the day was not Stokely Carmichael or Martin Luther King. It was Marcus Garvey, famous for launching a “Back to Africa” movement and then bilking those who bought tickets on his “Black Star Line” in the hope of going “home.” The afternoon included many paeans to Garvey along with a genuine Garvey impersonator in Admiral Nelson hat and ostrich plumes. The only rival to this marvel was a white-robed gentleman calling himself the “Prince of Israel,” who began by garbling a Hebrew prayer and then delivered a sermon on the evils of the Constitution and the racist American Way.

Malik Zulu Shabazz came for a return appearance, stepping to the microphone, tarted up in Salvation Army drag, which is apparently the uniform of the New Black Panthers, to deliver the following message: “The President wants to talk about a terrorist named bin Laden. I don’t want to talk about bin Laden. I want to talk about a terrorist called Christopher Columbus. I want to talk about a terrorist called George Washington. I want to talk about a terrorist called Rudy Giuliani. The real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America.” New York City Councilman Charles Barron followed with a confession that he was so mad he wanted to go up a white person -- “any white person” -- and “slap them,” while explaining “it’s a black thing.” Barron was determined to show that he had more than mild mayhem on his mind as he repeatedly injected the word “fire” into his sentences and warned, “If they don’t pay us reparations now, we’re talking about scorched earth.”

The theme of the march was “We are owed,” and the afternoon provided many imaginative variations on this idea. One black rapper chanted, “Show me the money, or I’ll show you my Glock,” while another sang “Reparations, reparations … I want my house on the hill and my Coupe De Ville.” When the theme of the speakers wasn’t demands or threats it was an almost religious invocation of identity, and not the American one at all. A professor named Camille Yarborough, draped in a dashiki summed up these sentiments in a bongo-accompanied anthem with the refrain, “We are the people of Africa, we are the family of Africa.”

While the platform mainly belonged to the fringe, Congressman John Conyers also spoke, taking time to gratefully acknowledge the presence of “Minister Farrakhan,” and to demand “Reparations now!” Conyers is the author of the House reparations bill HR 40, which is the legal charter of the movement. If the Democrats win the House in November, Conyers will be the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and his reparations bill will come to the congressional floor. That is definitely something to think about.

In the end, the best thing that can be said of the “Millions for Reparations” march was that it was a complete flop. At several points in the day, organizers of the march came to the microphone to urge the crowd to move to the center of the mall so that its pitiful numbers would look larger. If there were 1,000 people in attendance, I would be impressed. Viola Plummer could not stifle her despair: “When I look out, it is an empty field,” she said, then put on a brave front to call for a reparations demonstration at the UN in September 2003.

This march displayed the authentic roots of the reparations cause -- the fringes of the kooky left. This is a fact of which even Conyers took note while asserting that it was also a movement whose time had now come. Conyers’ position as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee means that his claim must be taken seriously. His claim reflects the fact that while the Washington march exposed the shabby, not to say deranged origins of the movement, its future lies elsewhere.

The real fire power behind reparations comes not from Sixties leftovers and the politically disturbed, but from the black civil rights establishment and the African American elites it represents. The spiritual godfathers of the current reparations claim are Harvard luminaries Randall Robinson and Law Professor Charles Ogletree, whose writings and legal suits have energized the movement and made it a serious one. Ogletree’s lawsuits will be unveiled in September, and that will be a moment to assess where it might end up.

On the other hand, Ogletree’s Harvard troops share two common and essential themes with the rag tag army of misfits who gathered on the Capitol lawn on August 17 and claimed Martin Luther King’s day as their own. The first of these is the anti-American animus that inspires both movements. This is evident in Ogletree’s article “The Case for Reparations,” which appeared in a special section provided by America’s largest newpaper, USA Today, on the weekend of the march. Ogletree’s case begins with the following fallacious and misleading claims:

“Beginning in the early 1600s, millions of Africans were brought to this country against their will, auctioned off like cattle, kept in bondage and forced to perform hard labor under the most wicked of institutions. As many aas 25 million lives were lost. This atrocity was compounded by the US government’s resistance to issue even a formal apology in the 139 years since slavery was abolished.”

The United States – “this country” – was not even in existence until 150 years after the first slaves arrived in 1619 – a fact that Ogletree is well aware of and like every other reparations spokesman has decided to ignore. The figure of 246 years of slavery – used by the movement – refers to the years from 1619 (the arrival of the first slave ship in Jamestown) to 1865, the end of the civil war and the general emancipation of the slaves. But for more than 150 of those years there was no United States. A correct figure for the existence of slavery in “this country” would be more like 89 years.

This is not a small issue for Ogletree’s argument since his intention is to make the “government” liable and not individual tax-paying Americans (although this is obviously an impossible distinction to make). If the government of the United States did not exist until 1776 or 1787, how can it be sued for what happened before?

This elision is in itself a statement, one that goes to the anti-American heart of the reparations movement. For Ogletree and his supporters, the American revolution was an insignificant event; the Declaration of Independence merely hypocritical; the 80 years of struggle by Americans who were not slaves to abolish slavery count as nothing; the 600,000 lives and enormous national treasure the nation lost in a Civil War to free the slaves were actually not about slavery at all, and therefore not to be part of any reckoning in payment of the “debt.”

And one could continue with the litany of acts undertaken by Americans and their government over the next hundred years, which have had world ramifications for minorities and oppressed people everywhere, including the civil rights battles to end segregation and discrimination, the trillions of dollars devoted to economic programs and affirmative action plans designed to uplift the poor generally and blacks in particular. These are all dismissed as nothing.

The same is true of Ogletree’s claim that there has never been an official American apology for slavery as though official America never noticed that an injustice had been done. Forget Thomas Jefferson’s foreboding that he “trembled for my country, knowing that God is just” (a sentiment carved in stone on the Jefferson memorial). Recall only Lincoln’s second inaugural, hailed generally as the greatest speech in the English language in which he said that slavery was an offense to God, that the Civil War was God’s retribution on America for slavery, and that every drop of blood shed by the lash would be repaid by a drop of blood shed by the sword.

Robinson’s and Ogletree’s studied disdain for these facts reflect a seething hatred for the American narrative and the American achievement which is just beneath the surface of the reparations movement itself. This sentiment is as contemptible as it is dangerous – especially at a time when the nation is under attack.

The second theme common to all reparations proponents is the idea encapsulated in the slogan of the Washington opera bouffe, which is that “We Are Owed.” Everything wrong with the civil rights movement for the last twenty years is summed up in this whine. Beginning with Tawana Brawley and working inexorably towards OJ Simpson and Rodney King, the principal subjects of civil rights campaigns in the last two decades have been disparate sentences for drug crimes, perceived injustice in the treatment of criminals by local police, and unsubstantiated claims about the disparate impacts of social policies among racial groups (so-called “institutional racism”).

Reparations for slavery and its alleged legacies are just the latest unsubstantiated claims of civil rights establishment: “The legacy of slavery is seen today in well-documented racial disparities in access to education, health care, housing, employment and insurance, and in the form of racial profiling, the high rate of single parent homes and the disproportionate number of black inmates.” [Ogletree]

But this argument is spun entirely out of a thin air called “disparities.” It is true that 70% of black children are born out of wedlock, for example, and this does constitute a “racial disparity” since the figure for whites is about 30%. But in 1965 nearly 70% of all black children had two parents, and that was 100 years after slavery’s end. In other words, while this may be a racial disparity it would take an entirely different argument to establish that it is connected to slavery or segregation or discrimination. Lack of a father in the home, however, is a powerful indicator of poverty and crime. The commission of crimes, moreover, is rather integrally related to “racial profiling …and the disproportionate number of black inmates.” Ogletree’s racial indictment of America is a house of cards built with a stacked deck.

Rodney King – the most celebrated civil rights “victim” of the last quarter century was in point of fact a convicted felon resisting arrest. The President of the United States and the U.S. Justice Department took up King’s grievance despite his record, despite his race (more probably because of it) and despite the exoneration of the officers involved in the incident by a jury of their peers. The police were tried a second time – a procedure directly against the American legal grain – and Rodney King emerged triumphant. He received his “justice.”

Since then has squandered all three million dollars he was awarded in reparations. He has shown himself through multiple subsequent arrests to be a habitual criminal and a willfully unproductive member of society. What did his reparations do for him and what does his subsequent history tell us about the incident itself? Was he beaten because he was black or – as the officers contended -- because he was a felon resisting arrest and they were angry because of the 100-mile-an-hour, life-endangering chase he had led them on? Was his treatment a legacy of slavery or a by-product of the mean environment in which battles with urban predators take place? These are the crucial questions that neither Ogletree nor any other reparations advocate is prepared to answer.

When Martin Luther King gave his speech in Washington, he was disenfranchised; he could not eat at lunch counters reserved for whites or sit in buses when whites were standing; or use facilities other than those designated for colored only. What exactly are Charles Ogletree and Randall Robinson, two men of Harvard, two counselors to presidents, and both the recipients of six-figure incomes owed by America? What are they owed by the ordinary Americans who must pay the taxes for reparations and who in their vast majority had ancestors who either had nothing to do with slavery, or gave their lives to end it? Or dedicated themselves to fighting segregation and discrimination?

Thanks in part to the efforts of the majority of Americans who were not slaves and who are not black, blacks in America today are the richest and freest blacks on God’s green earth. Richer and freer than black citizens of any black nation in the world. Seventy-five percent of black Americans live above the poverty line and 50% are solidly in the middle class. In other words the greatest ambition of the civil rights movement has been achieved. The doors of opportunity have been opened and the rules have been made as neutral as they humanly can be to ensure that the competition is fair.

Is there a level playing field? There is no level playing field for anyone. Short of a totalitarian state that controls the families that individuals are born into there can be none. A free society is inevitably a society of great inequalities, because individuals themselves are greatly unequal. This is a fact that is obvious – or should be -- to everyone from the age of five and up.

America did not create black slavery, but ended it. The civil war was won. America has outlawed segregation and discrimination. The civil rights cause was victorious. It’s time for everyone including Randall Robinson and Charles Ogletree to get used to it, and to move on to more productive debates.

Read his biography

©2002 FrontPageMag.com



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
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1 posted on 08/18/2002 10:21:35 PM PDT by kattracks
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To: kattracks
David's right. Why are we still debating ancient history? To borrow a favorite expression of the Left, "Its time to move on!"
2 posted on 08/18/2002 10:40:40 PM PDT by goldstategop
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To: kattracks
Can't we all just get along? Just surrender a small percentage of your hard-earned income to a bunch of swindlers. No big deal for you, but they will be happy!
3 posted on 08/18/2002 11:03:01 PM PDT by eclectic
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To: kattracks
Great column by Horowitz. He has had his finger on the pulse of this garbage for some time now. Thanks for posting the column.
4 posted on 08/18/2002 11:05:32 PM PDT by BUSHdude2000
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To: kattracks
Blacks need a goal to work for, like "being more wealthy than whites." That will take a couple of generations at least, and be very satisfying if they can achieve it.
5 posted on 08/18/2002 11:27:27 PM PDT by Tax Government
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To: Tax Government
Bill Cosby is already there, he's a millionaire...and he is still a whiner...including Danny Glover....go figure. I believe in what black talk show host Ken Hamblin says.....some blacks are pissed at the world because they are born black and not white and there isn't a darn thing white people can say or do to make them feel better.
6 posted on 08/18/2002 11:36:39 PM PDT by chasio649
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To: BUSHdude2000
Great article. The only thing David left out is the blaring fact that African tribal chiefs sold their own people to the European slave traders long before they started selling slaves to America.
7 posted on 08/19/2002 12:47:01 AM PDT by Elkiejg
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To: kattracks
I love Horowitz, and this is a good example why.
8 posted on 08/19/2002 1:01:01 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
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To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
If we were to pay reparations, would their later generations demand more since the government did not train their parents how to manage the money?

I see no end to this scam.
9 posted on 08/19/2002 1:30:41 AM PDT by gortklattu
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To: Elkiejg
I'd also say that when the slaves started arriving here in 1619 - there was no America until 1776.
10 posted on 08/19/2002 2:13:33 AM PDT by BUSHdude2000
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To: kattracks
A great post.

Now if it could only be run on the front page of every major newspaper.........

11 posted on 08/19/2002 3:11:01 AM PDT by G.Mason
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To: rdb3; Khepera; elwoodp; MAKnight; condolinda; mafree; Trueblackman; FRlurker; Teacher317; ...
Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

12 posted on 08/19/2002 4:09:39 AM PDT by mhking
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To: kattracks
A superb piece. Bumpin' large.
13 posted on 08/19/2002 4:19:00 AM PDT by RightOnline
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To: gortklattu
Of course they would demand more. This is how those with a sense of entitlement work. Once you give in to a blackmailer, there is no end.
14 posted on 08/19/2002 4:21:57 AM PDT by Dante3
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To: chasio649
Ken Hamblin says.....some blacks are pissed at the world because they are born black and not white and there isn't a darn thing white people can say or do to make them feel better.

And what does it say about America when Halle Berry (three quarters white) goes out of her way to embrace her black heritage because it enhances her career?

15 posted on 08/19/2002 5:17:44 AM PDT by eddie willers
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To: mhking; All
>>>“Beginning in the early 1600s, millions of Africans were brought to this country against their will, auctioned off like cattle, kept in bondage and forced to perform hard labor under the most wicked of institutions. As many aas 25 million lives were lost.<<<

Anyone know how accurate these figures are (setting aside the fact there was no USA until 1776)???

Assuming 1 in 5 died in transit (which I guess is what he is referring to) or even 1 in 4, that would make it a hundred million...I don't think that many whites immigrated here in that time frame.

16 posted on 08/19/2002 5:48:24 AM PDT by fone
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To: kattracks
America did not create black slavery, but ended it. The civil war was won. America has outlawed segregation and discrimination. The civil rights cause was victorious. It’s time for everyone including Randall Robinson and Charles Ogletree to get used to it, and to move on to more productive debates.

Americans died in the hundreds of thousands to end slavery, and reparations have already been received in the form of a massive welfare system and racially preferential treatment in the form of affirmative action.

Any further considerations due to the descendents of slaves should come in the form of an offer to return them to their previous circumstances, before they were brought to America. In other words, a one-way ticket back to the "Old Country".

This should be completely voluntary of course, but in the future it should be expected that those remaining would start to appreciate how much better off they are than the blacks living in Africa today, and that American blacks who have profited from America's largesse take it upon themselves to help their own less fortunate.

17 posted on 08/19/2002 6:26:50 AM PDT by Kenton
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To: fone
Numbers don't matter, silly. When you are debating with somebody who will say with a straight face that sharks still congregate in the waters plied by the slave ships after 200 years because they have an instinctive memory of all the slaves thrown from those ships, you should realize that it is not a rational debate.
18 posted on 08/19/2002 6:43:49 AM PDT by gridlock
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To: BUSHdude2000
I'd also say that when the slaves started arriving here in 1619 - there was no America until 1776.

Actually, between 50 to 75% of the English, Irish and Scots who came to the Americas between 1500 and 1750 came as indentured servants, which is a form of slavery. People seem to forget that slavery was a world-wide institution at the time, not an American invention limited to Africans.

The mass importation of Africans didn't occur until Eli Whiney invented the cotten gin and made production of cotten more cost effective and less labor intensive, by eliminating the need to pick the seeds from the cotten bolls by hand, which was too time consuming. The ability to more easily and cheaply produce cotten created a market for mass labor to pick the cotten, and the grand plantations with all the African slaves were the result.

OK, so hindsight is 20-20. But I'll bet if they'd realized what a mess they were creating for their descendents, they would have picked their own damn cotten!

The English, Irish and Scots who were descended from bonded servants would have gotten over it and built this country, and the Africans would still be fighting tribal wars and selling off their captives to Arab slave traders.

19 posted on 08/19/2002 6:49:23 AM PDT by Kenton
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To: gridlock
>>>that sharks still congregate in the waters plied by the slave ships after 200 years because they have an instinctive memory of all the slaves thrown from those ships<<<

you're making that up, right?

20 posted on 08/19/2002 6:51:11 AM PDT by fone
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