Old Guy Rants
Last week, a “protester” justified the looting and destruction taking place in downtown Chicago as a form or reparations, and though it is really difficult to get reliable, consistent numbers, if appears that perhaps as many as half of Democrats support the idea of some form of reparations which is nonsense as I’ll show later.
First the polls: The Hill reported in July 2019 that 81 percent of Republicans, 36 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents opposed reparations, meaning that more than half of Democrats were at least undecided, and in August 2019, Politico reported 90 percent of Republicans were opposed while Democrats were split at about 50/50. The idea has gone far enough that some college professors have even calculated the value to be somewhere between $5.9 and $14.2 trillion based on estimations of slave hours worked.
In the July 27 issue of National Review, Dan McLaughlin cited the 1860 census, the zenith of slave owing in the U.S., showing that only 1.3 percent of Americans owned slaves, which would not come as a surprise to Americans who know our history. In 1860 the more populous northern states had long since abolished slavery and only a small portion of individuals living in slave states actually owned slaves. When you add in the massive white European immigration waves between the Civil War and 1920, that 1.3 percent is diluted beyond recognition. I am sure there is lots of room from various sources to argue the percentages of white Americans with slave owning lineage, but regardless the number will be small.
My 1973 Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines slavery as: “1: Drudgery, toil, 2: Submission to a dominating influence, 3: The state of a person who is chattel to another.” Those who are pressing for reparations do not seem to grasp the fact that forcing people who never owned slaves, whose ancestors never owned slaves into paying reparations are in fact imposing a form of slavery themselves, clearly matching the second definition.
Finally, exactly when did we start holding current citizens accountable for actions of their ancestors, and if you go down that path, how far back do you go? 50 years? 100 years? 500 years? If you really try to think through the mechanics of a look-back policy like that it gets unworkable very quickly and will always create a new set of justifiable, generational grievances.
None of this of course is intended to diminish the horror and injustice of slavery in this country or any country, but the fact is creating a new form, though less brutal form of slavery is not a solution.
Larry Wiwi, Franklin County