Is There a Case for Reparations?

Does America owe its black citizens restitution due to historical wrongs?

No. The answer is no. The article could reasonably just end there because it isn’t clear that any further explanation is needed. It is common sense and seems blatantly obvious. But we are well aware that common sense is no longer common in our society and culture, so let’s discuss it for a moment anyway.

Over the weekend, I felt an inexplicable desire to expose myself to the experience of immense agony and suffering, so I sat down and read The New York Times. I came across an article entitled “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Last Sunday Sermon Was on the Perils of Not Being Woke,” written by Esau McCaulley. In this article, McCaulley suggests that the legacy of Dr. King should not be judging each other by the content of our character instead of the color of our skin but economic restitution for racial grievances and a general sense of race consciousness. Really?

It continually amazes me how the race grift continues to find an audience. As time marches on and we find ourselves further and further removed from the injustices of the past, the absurdity of nurturing such a victim mentality grows. Nearly 160 years after the end of the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery and we still have new generations of grievance-mongers surfacing, setting up their security pins and activating their race cards while they wield the brazen victim identities passed down to them by their parents and grandparents, cosplaying in the costumes of the enslaved and oppressed, announcing that they, too, are owed something. They, too, must be given something that they did not earn to pay for something they did not experience, paid by people who had nothing to do with any of it. This, we are told, is justice.

These toxic ideas of collective victimhood and collective guilt continue to permeate the woke left and serve as a driving force of the ideology as it attempts to infiltrate every aspect of our culture. They are wholly dependent on people buying into the concept of collective identities. Without it, the entire house of cards falls apart. If the son cannot be held guilty of his father’s sins, then there can be no real cause left to fight for once the father is gone. If the guilt of oppression cannot be extended perpetually through generations and across family trees onto those who merely share a similar skin color to the original perpetrator or extended onto impersonal, invisible systems, there is nothing and no one left to accuse. If a sense of victimization and marginalization cannot be applied broadly as an artifact of history without regard for any direct evidence whatsoever, there can be no real identity left to claim. If your entire sense of self and purpose is wrapped up in this twisted sense of social justice, particularly in the realm of race, and if any of these foolish pillars fall, how can you continue to exist? Not only do you have absolutely no claim for any form of reparations or any claim to any real grievance whatsoever, but you no longer have any identity at all. It is no wonder people continue to support such nonsense. To paraphrase Ken Minogue, if their entire identity is wholly wrapped up in dragonslaying, then when there are no dragons left to slay, they have no other recourse but to fabricate them. Everything about them depends on the existence of dragons and their quest to destroy them. It doesn’t matter if the dragons quack or bark or if they even claim to be terrified villagers, the dragons must be slain! And make no mistake, there are many influential people in the media, in entertainment, in sports, in government, etc. who are acutely aware of this and exploit it for their own personal gain (see Jemele Hill).

But beyond the problematic incentives and motives, consider the mere implications of the ideology. It demands that race consciousness be substantially elevated, which is a fancy way of saying seeing and thinking about race all the time. That means that race becomes central to your identity and also central to how you view and interact with the world. Secondly, it demands that collective guilt and collective victimhood be applied to entire groups of people based on skin color. Thirdly, it demands action in the form of a Marxist-type solution, seeing the racial proletariat engage in revolution against the racial bourgeoisie, toppling the existing structures of society and rebuilding them in their own image to form a brand new utopia where the proles (i.e. the morally righteous) hold the power. What sort of person do you think such an ideology might create? It isn’t difficult to imagine. We have already seen what happens throughout history when such flawed thinking takes hold. We saw it in Rwanda. We saw it in Cambodia. We saw it in China. We saw it in Germany. It is laughable to think that the people who adhere to such nonsense simultaneously claim to be the noble freedom fighters valiantly riding into battle against the horrors of racism. They are arsonists claiming to be firemen.

You cannot possibly support the idea of reparations unless you are also willing to champion the idea of collective racial guilt and collective racial victimhood. In other words, you cannot possibly demand reparations unless you are also a racist. It is inconceivable to believe that a black person, such as myself, who has never experienced slavery and who has never been oppressed, is somehow owed restitution for these injustices unless you also believe in seeing and treating people as racial collectives instead of as individuals (the definition of racism). You must believe that black people should be rewarded simply for being black and white people must be punished simply for being white. It is the only logical conclusion if you seek to take from someone who has done nothing wrong in order to give to someone who has no claim on the sole basis of skin color. You must, at your core, believe in the utility of racism (it’s just ok when you do it).

This isn’t even mentioning the impracticality of administering reparations to people who were not directly involved. Who qualifies? Do we go back to the one-drop rule? What of the people who have both slaves and slaveowners in their family trees? What of the black people descended from free blacks or those whose ancestors immigrated to America after slavery was already abolished? What about the Rachel Dolezal’s of the world who simply identify as black? Are we going to do genetic testing? Skin color restrictions? Group people based on how well they know Lift Every Voice and Sing? How do we decide? Who gets to decide?

This way of thinking and viewing the world is the exact polar opposite of Dr. King’s legacy and of any movement that seeks racial harmony within a culture. While Dr. King was certainly a flawed human being and should not be held up on a pedestal as an infallible god, the legacy he leaves behind is one that should be wholly embraced - not wokeness and self-serving grievance politics, but a quest toward racial harmony, toward brotherhood and sisterhood, toward a country that remembers its ideals of freedom and justice and equality (the true meaning of those words), that links arms together and stands as Americans, as one people, as one nation, under God, and indivisible.

“Either we learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.” That’s the message we need to remember this Martin Luther King Day.

---

Pre-order Raising Victims: The Pernicious Rise of Critical Race Theory
Release Date: February 7th, 2023

---