Reparations Are Overdue!

By Don Valentine

California is moving forward with a small cadre of cites and universities to make amends for the atrocity of US slavery. The canard against Reparations is succinctly stated by Dr. Thomas Sowell. Dr. Sowell is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University.

Caveat: While he is an acclaimed economist, many Black commentators describe him as the modern day version of “Uncle Tom!” To paraphrase his trite analysis: Slavery is not my fault and it was long, long time ago.  He is quoted by the Sun/Opinion, “You are never going to convince people whose ancestors arrived in America after the Civil War that they owe anybody anything for what happened in the antebellum South. You are never going to convince people outside the South that they owe something for what happened in the South. And you are never going to convince the descendants of the majority of white Southerners, whose ancestors were too poor to buy slaves if they wanted to, that they owe anybody anything.”

California, by contrast, is setting out to be the vanguard for Black Reparations. MSNBC commented, “It’ll be like a pebble starting an avalanche.  Remember when Texas came up with a novel way to evade the Supreme Court, enacting a strict abortion restriction and inspiring other states to craft similar laws without having to fund legal research and Court challenges? Expect the same with California’s reparations effort. Whatever the State decides will most likely be copied by subsequent States when the dominos fall and the idea of reparations for their African American residents can no longer be avoided.”

To date, some encouraging efforts are being witnessed. Oregon has bill up for reparation consideration; Evanston, Illinois, last year, became the first U.S. city to make reparations available; Providence, Rhode Island, announced a city commission in February; and Boston is considering a commission. Georgetown University created a reparations fund for the descendants of 272 slaves whom the university sold in 1838 to save it from banker.