Friday, February 21, 1997
REPARATIONS:
Blame for past wrongs should not fall on living descendantsBy
Todd Smith
J. Jioni Palmer’s reasoning for why African Americans deserve
reparations today is entirely flawed. The historical examples that
he gave are not appropriate comparisons for the situation that
African Americans face in 1997. If Palmer’s great-great-grandfather
had killed my great-great-grandfather, I wouldn’t expect an apology
or financial compensation from Palmer or any of his relatives. Why?
Because the person responsible for the killing is gone, and his
ancestors have absolutely nothing to do with it and bear no
responsibility.
The same logic goes for slavery. Today’s white people and the
U.S. government have nothing to do with the enslavement of blacks
over 130 years ago. For white people to now hand over some kind of
financial payment, or even apology, is ludicrous.
The kind of reparations that he has in mind do not have their
roots in history. The government compensated the Japanese who were
put into internment camps because the people and government who
were directly responsible for the crime compensated those who had
suffered. The same was true of the Freedman’s Bureau. Perhaps not
enough was done after the Jim Crow laws ended, but that doesn’t
mean reparations should be paid for something that happened over
130 years ago to people who weren’t even around then.
Believe it or not, the Irish were discriminated against in this
country by businesses, and the government didn’t do much to protect
their rights when they got off the boat and they saw signs saying
NINA (No Irish Need Apply) in store windows. But I am not about to
go find the ancestors of the store owners or go to the government
and ask for reparations.
Palmer says that African Americans shouldn’t have to pay income
taxes because they didn’t have a choice about whether they wanted
to be here or wanted to be citizens. Last time I checked, anyone
who has ever been born had no say in the matter of where they were
born, what citizenship they would have or what kind of income taxes
they would have to pay. Get over it! If he honestly believes that
being a U.S. citizen is such a burden and that the country is such
a rotten place to live, I think there could be a logical and legal
argument for letting people renounce their citizenship, but only if
they would be willing to relinquish all the other benefits of being
a citizen  such as student aid. I’m not suggesting that we do
that (it sounds like a bad idea), but it would make more sense than
demanding reparations.
Fighting for reparations is a losing battle. It is a time for
racial healing, not more division, Reparations would just divide
the country even further along racial lines.