I Didn’t Earn Slavery Reparations, and I Don’t Want Them
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
My ancestor Silas Burgess came to America in chains. But even he was able to live the American Dream.
My great-great-grandfather Silas Burgess came to America shackled in the belly of a slave ship. He was sold on an auction block in Charleston, S.C., to the Burgess Plantation. Orphaned by age 8, he was fortunately surrounded by elder slaves who, though physically chained, mentally envisioned themselves as free men. They escaped, taking young Silas with them, making their way to West Texas via the southern route of the Underground Railroad. Silas became a risk-taking entrepreneur and the owner of 102 acres of farmland, which he cultivated and paid off within two years. I proudly carry the name of my first American ancestor—who, like millions of others drawn or brought to our country, struggled past overwhelming obstacles to live the American Dream.
Silas founded the first black church and first black elementary school in his town. He was a proud Republican, a devout Christian, the patriarch of a large family, and a pillar of his community. He was proud and industrious and taught his children to be the same.
Now, because of him, a bunch of Democratic presidential hopefuls want to give me money. Never mind that like Silas, I am an entrepreneur who has lived the American dream—having received a world-class education, built businesses, raised a remarkable family and, unlike most white Americans, earned a Super Bowl ring. Because of work I’ve never done, stripes I’ve never had, under a whip I’ll never know, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren and others want to give me free stuff. Never mind that it will be taken from others, who also dreamed, worked and sacrificed to earn it.
I wonder what great-great-grandpa Silas would think.
At the core of the reparation movement is a divisive and demeaning view of both races. It grants to the white race a wicked superiority, treating them as an oppressive people too powerful for black Americans to overcome. It brands blacks as hapless victims devoid of the ability, which every other culture possesses, to assimilate and progress. Neither label is earned.
Socialist historians have for generations hidden the contributions and success of the black community in America. This has cost us our pride in our past, taken our appreciation for the present, and left us with a lack of vision for our future. The message from our past great black generations is simple: Character cannot be bought and will never allow itself to be diminished by bribery.
Mr. Owens was a Super Bowl champion with the Oakland Raiders. He is the author of “Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-didnt-earn-slavery-reparations-and-i-dont-want-them-11558732429
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The idea of reparations demeans America’s founding ideals
It is my notion that the idea of reparations at this late date is merely the latest political card being played ( sorry for the cynicism ). If the government really wished to do something, they could truly level the playing field for everyone, black, white brown or purple with pink polka dots.
Rather than allowing Congress to decide what those things may be, allow the disenfranchised to tell them what they are, I would imagine they know best.
The 'notion of reparations' is nothing new.
Gen. Sherman order reparations to begin even before the end of the Civil War.
Andrew Johnson revoked his orders and fired the Gen. Saxton who refused to comply. Congress had to step in so that at least some of the land grants were honored. BTW, Johnson was impeached but was acquitted by the Senate by one vote. Johnson basically killed Reconstruction.
I'd venture to say that THAT is what will be expected of the Commission created in the "Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act" which 8 Presidential candidates sponsor.
The article makes clear that the author hasn't actually READ the bill. Of course it's so much easier to misrepresent it's purpose than to actually address it's content.
Other than:
do you have anything of value to contribute that specifically addresses what Burgess Owens states in his article?
For the first NINETY of those 150 years there was very little progress. So he is factually out to lunch. The man has a right to his opinion but I see little objective worth in it. Monetary reparations will never become a reality in the US anyway.
Articles like this are just an excuse to bitch about the Democrats and minorities.
Although I cannot speak for him, I believe that Mr. Owens would appreciate your reluctant acceptance of his First Amendment rights.
Several 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates disagree with you.
So you are saying that Mr. Owens, a black man, is bitching about his own race. Your comments clearly show that you misunderstood the premise of his article.
"The 1964 Civil Rights Act struck down the South's segregation laws, outlawed employment discrimination and forbade discrimination in federal programs. For black Americans living in the South, the voting rights law finally secured the right to the ballot. And President Johnson initiated a sweeping new government policy called affirmative action. Its purpose was to overcome at least some of the accumulated human damage caused by 350 years of slavery and Jim Crow, and to ensure further progress toward equality."
African-American veterans received significantly less help from the G.I. Bill than their white counterparts. "Written under Southern auspices," he reports, "the law was deliberately designed to accommodate Jim Crow." He cites one 1940's study that concluded it was "as though the G.I. Bill had been earmarked 'For White Veterans Only.' " Southern Congressional leaders made certain that the programs were directed not by Washington but by local white officials, businessmen, bankers and college administrators who would honor past practices. As a result, thousands of black veterans in the South -- and the North as well -- were denied housing and business loans, as well as admission to whites-only colleges and universities. They were also excluded from job-training programs for careers in promising new fields like radio and electrical work, commercial photography and mechanics. Instead, most African-Americans were channeled toward traditional, low-paying "black jobs" and small black colleges, which were pitifully underfinanced and ill equipped to meet the needs of a surging enrollment of returning soldiers.
The statistics on disparate treatment are staggering. By October 1946, 6,500 former soldiers had been placed in nonfarm jobs by the employment service in Mississippi; 86 percent of the skilled and semiskilled jobs were filled by whites, 92 percent of the unskilled ones by blacks. In New York and northern New Jersey, " fewer than 100 of the 67,000 mortgages insured by the G.I. Bill supported home purchases by nonwhites ." Discrimination continued as well in elite Northern colleges. The University of Pennsylvania, along with Columbia the least discriminatory of the Ivy League colleges, enrolled only 46 black students in its student body of 9,000 in 1946. The traditional black colleges did not have places for an estimated 70,000 black veterans in 1947. At the same time, white universities were doubling their enrollments and prospering with the infusion of public and private funds, and of students with their G.I. benefits."
“We knew that racial wealth gaps were extreme, but now also show that there is a large racial gap in the transmission of wealth across generations,” Pfeffer said. “Today’s racial wealth gaps reflect two processes: One historical—this country’s long legacy of actively excluding African-Americans from asset ownership beginning with slavery, and the second contemporary—there are still processes that continue to hinder asset accumulation among nonwhite families, even those that come from wealthier families.”
This racial inequality in wealth transmission also plays out in the rates of homeownership. About half the African-American grandparents in the study were homeowners in the 1960s, compared to 82 percent of white grandparents. But two generations later, rates of homeownership were higher for white grandchildren of those who did not own homes than for African-Americans whose grandparents owned homes.
The sample used in the study included wealth reports from 4,608 individuals ages 25-64 in 2013, and the wealth reports of their parents, ages 25-64 in 1984. To assess grandparental wealth, the authors relied on grandparents’ self-reports in 1984 as well as their housing wealth in 1968."
Discrimination reaches far across generations, and just because many claim we're all "equal" now that we've passed laws preventing segregation and utilized some black affirmative action after centuries of white affirmative action, it has in now way "leveled the playing field". If you believe any black American born today has all the same chances and opportunities as the average white American born today, then you're intentionally closing your eyes and ears to the facts.