David Horowitz has been traveling across the United States, electronically that is, buying advertisements in college newspapers just like the Daily Lobo, but not actually in the newspaper. Horowitz's ad is designed to look like an article, titled, "Ten reasons why reparations for Slavery is a bad idea - and racist too."
I realize from the get-go that to bring this subject up is going to get somebody's undies in a bunch, but I think it's it important enough to take a look at this topic fairly and objectively, seeing as how nobody else seems to want to. The New York Times did a very antiseptic story on the ad and the controversy it is stirring but it really didn't dig into the substantive aspects of the issue.
We all love our constitutionally protected freedom of speech. Americans are obsessed that they believe that nobody can tell them to shut the fuck up. This is unfortunate, as most Americans don't have much of interest or importance to say, yours truly included. Horowitz has taken the attitude that it is better to speak out about his beliefs and stir up a hornet's nest than to allow the popular assumption that reparations are warranted go unchallenged.
Gutsy, to say the least. It takes either great courage or a special kind of stupidity to take such an unpopular position so openly and at such great expense. True Americans support his right to say what he wants, even if we disagree with it.
What we don't like is to listen to opinions we disagree with. On campuses where the ads have run, students claiming to be open-minded supporters of reparations have taken action. They have stolen all of the newspapers from the boxes on campus, labeled the papers' editors racists and engaged in other such unsavory and American practices.
Freedom of speech requires maturity on the part of the listener. This can be broken into three parts. First, hear what the speaker has to say by listening politely. Second, think about it for yourself. Determine in your own mind, applying your personal code of ethics and logic to whether the speaker's arguments made sense. Maybe, do some research - it's not just for last-minute term papers. This is the most important and most often ignored step, usually because the listener has allowed their passions to shuttle them ahead to step three.
Finally you need to form an objective opinion. Determine whether you agree and why you do. This is the essence of mature thinking.
Last but not least, we come to reparations. As a general population, we are too obsessed with being compensated for wrongs. Most of the time, the wrongs are trivial, like hot coffee burns, insults or slipping at the grocery store - anything that motorcycle attorney Ron Bell would like to talk to you about. We have become major crybabies, and we really ought to save compensation for real injuries and make the compensation fit all of the circumstances of the injury.
Slavery was a major offense, and I'll French-kiss the backside of anybody who can make a logically consistent and credible argument to the contrary.
How do you compensate an entire ethnic group for a wrong committed so long ago that has such lingering affects? Who pays the compensation? The people who benefited? The government, which declared slaves to be property and not people? If I had the answers, I'd be Solomon, busily splitting babies rather than typing.
We have to look at all of the circumstances, such as how long it's been, how people alive today have been directly affected, the degree to which the damage has been attenuated by time, whether it's just too long to do anything about ... the list is a long one but ought to be examined thoroughly.
To me the whole issue is just sad and intractable. Tons of people of all races live below the poverty line in this country, many of whom had no ancestors who were enslaved. The economic circumstances of African-Americans in the post-slavery era seems a diminished factor in light of the poverty plaguing so many others.
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Worse yet, if white, European-American types had to make reparations to every group they have ever screwed over, or even every group they have screwed in the past 300 years ... There just isn't enough compensation to go around. Perhaps reparations in the form of monuments to past deeds so as to prevent their repetition, and textbooks that reflect the truth to grade school kids would be a nice start.
Think about it. What should we do?
Questions? Comments? Outraged denunciations? Contact Brad at physhead@hotmail.com
