The left loves to promote “reparations”. But only as far as history and truth do not contradict their simplistic narratives of the past.
British royal expert Hilary Fordwich pulled the rug from under the presenter. CNN’s Don Lemon this Tuesday (20), when he asked whether the British monarchy should pay reparations for colonialism and slavery.
Lemon told Fordwich: “Some people are asking for reparations for colonialism. They’re imagining a hundred billion dollars here, twenty-four billion there, five hundred million over there…”
Skipping the clickbait
, you won’t believe what happened next.
First, Fordwich recognized that there are people asking for reparations, but then he turned the reverse discussion. He said that the British monarchy would be the wrong target for seeking reparations.
Instead, reparations proponents should first look to “the beginning of the supply chain” — that is, to the African kingdoms that enslaved Africans and sold them — rather than the British, who were a key force in the global elimination of slavery.
“Which was the first nation in the world to abolish slavery?” was Fordwich’s rhetorical question. Then she herself replied: it was the British nation.
“In Great Britain, slavery was abolished. Two thousand navy men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because African kings were catching their own people in the snare,” she said. “They left them in cages, waiting on the beaches.”
She gave this amazing finale:
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I think you’re totally right. If reparations are to be paid, we need to go to the very beginning of that supply chain and say: who was catching their own people in the snare and caging them in? For sure, that’s where these people would need to start.
Worth watching to the clipping just to see Lemon’s face and his reaction to being challenged by an “honest” discussion of slavery and history .
Discussions about reparations are timely, given the release of “The Woman King”, a Hollywood production that tells the story of a group of 19th century African warriors from the kingdom of Dahomey. The film portrays the protagonists as panafricanist proto-liberators who fight imperialism and slavery, but the truth is quite the opposite.
Dahomey, located in what is now Benin, and other African kingdoms were often enthusiasts of slavery. The port city of Anomabo, for example, which is now in Ghana, became a powerful hub of the slave trade. Its considerable wealth, built largely on the transatlantic slave trade, was depleted as the British Empire and other Western powers not only turned to the practice of slavery but used force to end it. [Quanto à importância do Reino do Daomé para a cultura brasileira, veja-se este artigo. (N. t.)]
The practice of slavery, global and almost universal, which has gripped civilization throughout its history, has come to an end in most because of the rise of Western power. Should Ghana and Benin pay reparations now?
These thorny questions are somehow left out of the debate over historical culpability. But suddenly they are important, as the issue has been taken seriously by leftists who design public policy.
A recent Vox article exposed the way reparations are being discussed by local governments and institutions to capitalize on the “great awokening” that began in earnest in 20. [“Awokening”: trocadilho com “woke” (lacrador) e “awakening” (despertar). Algo como “o despertar para a lacração”. (N. t.)]
Apparently it has become a serious proposition in some locales. I quote Vox:
“Defenders continue to demand reparations from the federal government. governments and municipal institutions are not waiting to lend a hand in reparative justice.
After the social justice uprisings of 2020, cities like Asheville, North Carolina Providence, Rhode Island, and Burlington, Vermont, have created reparations commissions and task forces. Voters in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Detroit have approved commissions that will study reparations through ballot measures. “[Trata-se de medidas que constarão na extensa cédula de votação que os cidadãos dos EUA recebem na hora da eleição. (N. t.)]
California launched a Reparation Task Force on 2022 that was created to “(1) study and develop redress proposals for African Americans; (2) recommend appropriate ways to educate the Californian public about the task force’s findings; and (3) recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the The Task Force’s findings.”
Their most recent findings suggested that racial disparities in society are based on institutional racism and white supremacy. Their recommendations as remedies range from depolicing predominantly black neighborhoods to direct payments to black families in the state.
Many of these suggestions would likely create more inequality and misery for black Californians, but the underlying premise is, in essence, that governments must pay and continue to pay until equity improves.
But is this really fair or beneficial?
The question of whether entire groups of people deserve “reparations” is already philosophically risky. It certainly makes sense that someone who has been enslaved or lost their property as a result of slavery should be compensated directly. But what about family members four, five, or six generations later?
Deciphering the specific story to find out who was actually a victim can also be problematic. Take, for example, recent stories of alleged mass graves of indigenous children near a Catholic school in Canada. The story triggered vandalism and attacks on churches in Canada.
However, upon investigation, it turned out that the story was not true, or, in the at the very least, no evidence was found.
Will reparations be based on genetic testing? Specifically, a one drop rule with the implications that one drop of DNA from an officially oppressed group will bring in a non-government stipend. only for you, but also for your posterity? [No caso do Brasil, a história se complica mais ainda, haja vista o fato de que negros e mulatos também foram donos de escravos. (N. t.)]
This appears to be the case for some of the federal and local initiatives.
For example: in 20, Oakland, California launched a universal basic income program [sic] that would only give money to “blacks, indigenous people and other people of color.”
In January of 2021, the state of Vermont announced that an early round of Covid vaccines would be available to “all Black, Indigenous and other residents of color who are permanent residents of Vermont aged and older.”
The Biden administration in April announced several “Equity Action Plans” that added racial awareness programs to the federal bureaucracy.
[sic] Such initiatives may be a violation of civil law laws and the 14 th Amendment, but this has not stopped some local, state, and federal government agencies from trying . The new, searing position is that favoritism and segregation, racial and legal, are good things, and advocates are only too happy to bend or trample on laws that get in the way.
Legal or not, remediation plans are deeply flawed and often create new injustices in their implementation. In the end, they are based on the premise that the only way to move forward in society is to claim victimhood and extort others.
“This leads the US down a path to ruin in many ways,” wrote JL Reiter in John Hulsman’s Substack. “Reparations are incalculable, as none of the necessary variables exist; impractical, as they cannot be carried out without serious economic damage; and anti-political, as they will derail the US from continued progress toward racial equality while exacerbating interracial unrest. .”
For sure.
Most of Americans outside our elite institutions probably already recognize this and oppose legal racial preferences and affirmative action. Opinion polls on reparations also show that large majorities are against them.
Yet the top-down lacradora revolution to be continued. That’s why we need to take reparation proposals seriously, and literally. And reject them.
©2022 The Daily Signal. Published with permission. Original in English.2022
