The answer to the question is that both are based on the same racial theories that underlay Nazi Germany and the Klan's positions that we are what our ethnicity is (as defined by them, of course). It is the opposite of MLK, Jr.s dream that we be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin.
Has anyone ever explained to you what reparations really mean? It means, in the abstract (any law would have particulars) that certain people are entitled to financial payments because of their skin color from others because of their skin color. Or maybe birth. And if we should do that once (you know that many would never be satisfied it is enough) why not every year?
We have a system of justice and law that allows for reparations every day, of course. But, not ones based on ethnicity or religion for people who were not wronged. It is one thing to ask that if X injured Y, that X (or in today's world, often the insurance company) pay for Y's injury. It is one thing to ask if X's son inherited Y's property which X stole from Y, it is returned to Y. It is quite another thing to say if people who shared a skin tone with people who had slaves 155 years or more ago, they must pay people who have a skin tone similar to some people who were slaves 155 and more years ago.
Race reparations is repulsive for many reasons. Foremost, of course, because it calls for the law to judge between us based on our ethnicity, that is, the DNA our parents gave us. Which normally is against the law, of course, for many decades now.
It is repulsive because there is no way to do it. No one is really black or white or any color they are identified as by themselves or others. Now it is considered okay to say "black" or "white," but not yellow or red, for who knows what reasons. Some would add black, but even black lives matter uses black and says it is a "black" movement (read their webpage). Whites, whom popular culture now has determined is the skin color to be demonized (just listen to Joe Biden say "white men"), seems to be okay. Obama said he was black enough (when some on his own side said he wasn't black enough) to get pulled over for no reason by a cop. But trust me, they don't take that very far. They don't mean Italians with dark-colored skin.
It is repulsive because it is anti-historical. And, if you speak to some who support the black lives matter movement, they are against the teaching of history in school or history books. Why? They have no rational reasons that I heard, but it is based on the fact that it is western civilization - that is, European-American-centric. No doubt, to some degree it is. But, I notice that I learned about slavery and many negative things about our country. Why is it important to learn? So we can get better. No teacher ever suggested to me that slavery was okay, only wrong. Here's the reason I think they want to destroy history. If we destroy history, we destroy the reasons we have certain laws, or fairness, or equal opportunity or ideas about justice. And then they can substitute their own theories, all, which, no surprise, favor them.
So, because of your skin color, you, who never owned a slave, or supported slavery, or supported Jim Crow, nor did your children, are responsible to pay those who were never slaves or suffered from Jim Crow, nor their children, but for what some people who have nothing to do with you either did to other people who have nothing to do with them. Except, if you add in skin color.
They want your money, even if your family didn't come over here until the 20th century - even the 21st. It's back to apartheid for them, and MLK, Jr. is certainly rolling in his grave.
For example, my paternal grandmother came from Russia. She was Jewish. She remembered, as an old woman, hiding under the bed with her mother as the Cossacks came through town on a pogrom. Her husband's family came from Hungary. Both got here in the early 19th century and had to start from scratch. I don't know exactly when my maternal grandparents' parents got here, as my grandparents were born in America. But, it was in the late 1800s or early 1900s, as immigrants from Eastern Europe. All Jews. It was all many decades after the Civil War and emancipation. If anything, some of them dealt with oppression themselves. Jews were not exactly a favored group. Waves of immigrants after the Civil War came over - Germans, Italians, Irish, etc. And they were also not exactly favored either, not given a starting pot of money to make it and never given reparations for unfair treatment. Nor are all blacks families pre-Civil War American or even pre-end of Jim Crow. Many have come over after.
Do those with Arab or Hispanic background pay reparations for treatment in the middle east or the Spanish Inquisitition? Don't the Jews lives matter? What is the % of African descent you have to be to receive reparations? Do the multi-millionaire Obama's get them? Obama is half-Swedish. Should he pay and receive reparations. There is no possible way, even if you bought into the premise, to do it right. Germany did pay reperations to Israel. But, it was for what happened to living people by the responsible party.
Reparations will cause more upheaval, more hatred, than most any law since the Fugitive Slave Acts.
What is social justice? It is the opposite of justice. It means, of course, that justice is based on skin color. In fact, reparations are based on social justice. Now, our own constitution allows for these things. The 14th amendment was made, in part, to allow congress to fix the unfixable, except by time and education (including history). Some of the laws passed under it or the other Civil War amendments have helped our country. In some ways, I believe some of them are unconstitutional, but, I don't deny they helped. But, what is wanted now is not help, but payback or revenge or apartheid.
Social justice apparently teaches that we shouldn't teach math because it is - get ready - racist. You think I'm kidding, look it up. Some schools in our country teach social justice with math examples. Talk about proselytizing. Some colleges teach their education students that this is how to teach math.
You think I'm kidding? Making this up? A few years ago educators in NYC went home for the summer with required reading. Not how the children can better be taught math or reading or writing better. Not how they could better themselves. But it was a book on social justice, essentially how to teach the kids that blacks are victims and whites are privileged. It was purely political. I saw the book myself in the home of an educator and it was explained to me that this is what it was.
I now, as a lawyer, every two years take an hour class on Diversity, Inclusion and Elimination of Bias. Doesn't matter what I or anyone else believes. I must be indoctrinated. It is the only political requirement. And it presumes that we don't know that you shouldn't judge people by race, or, wait a second - isn't judging by race the whole point of the movement?
And, as Trump just learned, federal workers were being forced to take classes in "critical race theory," which, includes the premise that white skin is akin to owning a piece of property, granting privileges to them "a person of color" doesn't get. This from Wikipedia:
"From the CRT perspective, the white skin that some Americans possess is akin to owning a piece of property, in that it grants privileges to the owner that a renter (in this case, a person of color) would not be afforded.[31] Cheryl I. Harris and Gloria Ladson-Billings describe this notion of whiteness as property, whereby whiteness is the ultimate property that whites alone can possess; valuable just like property. The property functions of whiteness—i.e., rights to disposition; rights to use and enjoyment, reputation, and status property; and the absolute right to exclude—make the American dream more likely and attainable for whites as citizens."
Of course, you know if Biden is elected, whatever Trump does to stop it, every federal employee will be getting their dose of indoctrination.
Social Justice means, if Trayvon Martin tries to kill George Zimmerman, and is killed instead, while he beats George's head in on the ground, George must be further traumatized with death threats and prosecuted for murder without even a grand jury because he's white (I don't know how he wasn't considered a person of color too) and Trayvon was black. Our most divisive president, far more than Trump could ever be, didn't say, Trayvon or George could be my son, even though Obama was half-European. He said Trayvon could be my son.
Social justice means that if Michael Brown tries to get an officer's gun, and then attacks him (which is what even Obama's justice department found), the officer must be demonized and his life severely impacted. You know the first social justice math example they should really use is - Social justice = no justice.
You want to know something real creepy? This social justice movement is pretty close to the one Hitler used against the Jews. I'm going to do a whole other blog on the movement's relationship to fascism, so I will stop there except for one last point -
No one with a brain denies that there is a million-year history of slavery, oppression and generally horrible behavior of every group against different groups throughout the world, as long as there were humans. No one disagrees that America's founding including a murderous and hideous oppression of blacks, Native Americans and others. No one denies that women, gays and many ethnic groups were burdened with oppression and the need to fight their way up. Many make it. I was for the Civil Rights movement of the '60s and '70s. I was young then, but I still feel that way. I'm for many of the improvements in our culture in the '50s and '70s (some afterwards), and even agree that sometimes, even often, violence against oppression was justified. John Brown who died for trying to free slaves was a historic hero to me. But, the world changed. I never tire of quoting President Obama in 2016. He said this or things like it repeatedly, while on the side of his mouth he encouraged feelings of victimization and separationism (now, more his wife's job). He said this to graduates at a historic black university:
"If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be–what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you’d be born into–you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now. If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted, and black” in America, you would choose right now."
Do you think BLM members would approve? Please.
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