Conservative NY Times OpEd - “The Case For Reparations”

[True Religion BuddhaMan]

I’ve been traveling around the country for the past few years studying America’s divides — urban/rural, red/blue, rich/poor. There’s been a haunting sensation the whole time that is hard to define. It is that the racial divide doesn’t feel like the other divides. There is a dimension of depth to it that the other divides don’t have. It is more central to the American experience.

One way to capture it is to say that the other divides are born out of separation and inequality, but the racial divide is born out of sin. We don’t talk about sin much in the public square any more. But I don’t think one can grasp the full amplitude of racial injustice without invoking the darkest impulses of human nature.

So let’s look at a sentence that was uttered at a time when the concept of sin was more prominent in the culture. The sentence is from Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address. Lincoln had just declared that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. He was fondly hoping and fervently praying that the scourge of war would pass away. But then he added this thought:

“Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”

There are a few thoughts packed into that sentence. First, there is a natural moral order to the universe. There is a way things are supposed to be — more important than economic wealth or even a person’s life.

Second, moral actions are connected to each other. If somebody tears at the moral order by drawing blood through the lash of slavery, then that wrong will have to be paid for by the blood of the sword. History has meaning. It’s not just random events.

Third, sin is anything that assaults the moral order. Slavery doesn’t merely cause pain and suffering to the slave. It is a corruption that infects the whole society. It is a collective debt that will have to be paid.
[continue]

If conservatives truly want to “make America great”, America has to repent

 

[True Religion BuddhaMan]

Look at our POC allies

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Look at our POC allies

In

 

[Ziggiy]

Apologies for being skeptical but i’m thinking all this focus on reparations is nothing more than one huge smokescreen that i feel will fukk us (Black People) over when the smoke clears.


Ain’t NOTHING we’ve received in this country that hasn’t been barbed with some form of poison

 

[TRY GOD]

BRUH! I HHHHHHHHHHHHAAATE DAVID BROOKS!

He was the first person AGAINST COATES ARTICLE.

Buuuuuuut.......

Second, moral actions are connected to each other. If somebody tears at the moral order by drawing blood through the lash of slavery, then that wrong will have to be paid for by the blood of the sword. History has meaning. It’s not just random events.

Third, sin is anything that assaults the moral order. Slavery doesn’t merely cause pain and suffering to the slave. It is a corruption that infects the whole society. It is a collective debt that will have to be paid.

Fourth, sin travels down society through the centuries. Lincoln was saying that sometimes the costs of repairing sin have to borne generations after the sin was first committed.

From these thoughts we can appreciate the truth that while there have been many types of discrimination in our history, the African-American (and the Native American) experiences are unique and different. Theirs are not immigrant experiences but involve a moral injury that simply isn’t there for other groups.

Slavery and the continuing pattern of discrimination aren’t only an attempt to steal labor; they are an attempt to cover over a person’s soul, a whole people’s soul.

That injury shows up today as geographic segregation, the gigantic wealth gap, the lack of a financial safety net, but also the lack of the psychological and moral safety net that comes when society has a history of affirming: You belong. You are us. You are equal.

Nearly five years ago I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations,” with mild disagreement. All sorts of practical objections leapt to mind. What about the recent African immigrants? What about the poor whites who have nothing of what you would call privilege? Do we pay Oprah and LeBron?

But I have had so many experiences over the past year — sitting, for example, with an elderly black woman in South Carolina shaking in rage because the kids in her neighborhood face greater challenges than she did growing up in 1953 — that suggest we are at another moment of make-or-break racial reckoning.

Coates’s essay seems right now, especially this part: “And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations — by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences — is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. … What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices — more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.”

We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative and the narratives are generally resentment narratives. The African-American experience is somehow at the core of this fragmentation — the original sin that hardens the heart, separates Americans from one another and serves as model and fuel for other injustices.

The need now is to consolidate all the different narratives and make them reconciliation and possibility narratives, in which all feel known. That requires direct action, a concrete gesture of respect that makes possible the beginning of a new chapter in our common life. Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story.

I told yall before, from my certified political science perspective, the worse thing that could happen to democrats, is for conservatives to champion reparations.

Anne Coulter is a political troll, but she is the symbolical flare to Conservative Republicans to keep an eye out for what is Happening with them negros distinguishing them selves as True Americans, separating from the people of color banner.

Then ADOS started sinking candidates ships, and getting the country to talk about reparations, something every one would have LAUGHED AT 2 years ago, but not ADOS, cause we sat it out, and it showed.

Enter David Brooks. He is not just some conservative, he is a head THINK TANK LEADER, AND CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST. He is one of the main people who feed talking points to people like fox news.

Conservatives are positioning themselves to take advantage of the ADOS movement. Not for the benefit of ADOS but to SINK THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR GOOD. We are talking about the breaking up of the Two party system.

As I said before, at worst Republicans don't have to do anything, and still win because democrats are defeating themselves. But it looks like Republicans are out for blood.


BACK TO ADOS, AND WHAT WE SHOULD DO. Let the fight, because WE WANT TANGIBLES. This is why we talk about reparations, we know we ain't getting it immediately, its the tool to knock the fukking door down. Now we here. And we will see who will emerge from this fight bringing us some recompense

 

[yyy]

The reality is that free thinkers and independent minds who analyze the racial climate in America know that Reparations is 100% justified. There is no logical argument that can be made that it is not justified. The reason why it won't be done, is because it benefits only Black people, and every other group will get angry.

 

[futureDevelopment]

It's all about getting trump elected -- and not having to give up those tax cuts to pay for Medicare for All (which most americans want).

But keep betting on that "40 acres and a mule" fellas.

 

[TRY GOD]

Apologies for being skeptical but i’m thinking all this focus on reparations is nothing more than one huge smokescreen that i feel will fukk us (Black People) over when the smoke clears.


Ain’t NOTHING we’ve received in this country that hasn’t been barbed with some form of poison

Reparations is a smoke screen, but you got the players wrong for whose tool it is. Thats ADOS smokescreen to get a conversation started about america giving back what they owe to us, and now america sees WE WILL REVOLT SIMPLY BY NOT BEING A PART OF THE AMERICAN PROCESS, which would ultimately be the fracturing of this government as a whole. 37+ million ADOS in america, and only "300" leading the charge. They don't what the rest of ADOS getting on board, so they wanna position themselves now to put out the fire.

We got them talking, now they about to put in some action, cause they don't want those problems.

Now we got LEADERS OF CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS GOING AGAINST WHAT PREVIOUSLY SAID ONLY 3 YEARS AGO, THAT ADOS DESERVE RECOMPENSE.

They don't have to do anything, but they know we ain't playing, and if it means the end of the democratic party, they are willing to throw us a bone.

 

[TRY GOD]

It's all about getting trump elected -- and not having to give up those tax cuts to pay for Medicare for All (which most americans want).

But keep betting on that "40 acres and a mule" fellas.

:awdahell:This post is fukking stupid. This is a leader of a conservative think tank giving out the orders to other conservatives to get ahead of this message.

Republicans don't have to do shyt but let ADOS and democrats argue amongst themselves, yet here they are extending an olive branch.

Are you even a political scientists? I guarantee that you're not:hhhnah:

 

[karim]

Watch these conservatives jump off that reparations train as soon as it served its purpose

 

[I Really Mean It]

The reality is that free thinkers and independent minds who analyze the racial climate in America know that Reparations is 100% justified. There is no logical argument that can be made that it is not justified. The reason why it won't be done, is because it benefits only Black people, and every other group will get angry.

Reparations will be done. It's not longer a matter of if, but when.

 

[saturn7]

Look at our POC allies

Tariq was quick on his neck.

"As a Black American, I have never put Asians in internment camps. But my tax dollars were used to give reparations to Japanese Americans. So the same should be given to Black Americans"

The nerve of these fukking New Americans.

"Mr. Brooks, I was born in China. Why should I be held accountable for paying reparations for historical crimes that happened in America a century ago, in which I have no moral, ethic, legal, or criminal complicity or involvement whatsoever?"

Fukk outta here. You benefit from a Country whose wealth was built of the labor of my enslaved ancestors. The Ivy League school this a$$hole probably went to was built by slaves or funded by slave owners.

 

[futureDevelopment]

:awdahell:This post is fukking stupid. This is a leader of a conservative think tank giving out the orders to other conservatives to get ahead of this message.

Republicans don't have to do shyt but let ADOS and democrats argue amongst themselves, yet here they are extending an olive branch.

Are you even the political scientists? I guarantee that you're not:hhhnah:

You can't see you're being used. If this was 2008, or 2004, or 2000 or even 2016, that's one thing.

But with the electorate so divided and everyone knowing that trump is extremely vulnerable, they'll do anything to split the democratic vote, including getting you thinking about "40 acres and a mule" again ... then leaving you hanging, blaming you for trump and calling you "low IQ".

Trump 2.0 will probably genocide you.

 

[TRY GOD]

You can't see you're being used.

STOP RIGHT HERE.

:awdahell:WE HAVE BEEN GETTING USED FOR 400 YEARS.

Maybe now we will have something to show for it. This one-sided use is over with. Now we're going to use each other

 

[TL15]

Apologies for being skeptical but i’m thinking all this focus on reparations is nothing more than one huge smokescreen that i feel will fukk us (Black People) over when the smoke clears.


Ain’t NOTHING we’ve received in this country that hasn’t been barbed with some form of poison

It might be a tactic to fracture the democratic vote

It might be a catch-22 where they dole out some financial compensation (or worse, some BS fund that none of us ever have access to ) just so they can dangle the “get over slavery” narrative over us forever