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The Hackneyed Demand for Reparations Lives On
The Democrats are at it again. It’s election campaign time, and Kamala Harris, for one, is demanding reparations, 150 years after the Civil War, for black Americans who probably know as little about that war as most other Americans:
I think there has to be some form of reparations. We can discuss what that is, but look, we’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery. We’re looking at almost a hundred years of Jim Crow. We’re looking at legalized segregation and, in fact, segregation on so many levels that exists today, based on race. And there has not been any kind of intervention done understanding the harm and the damage that occurred to correct course, and so we are seeing the effects of all of those years play out still today.
No, Senator Harris, let’s not discuss it. Instead, let’s talk about why it is an insulting and ridiculous idea. You say interventions have not been done? Well, there is the disaster of the Great Society which helped no one. And I guess living in the land of liberty is no help at all.
I will not be revisiting all the reasons that paying reparations is nearly impossible and unreasonable to do; if you want an explanation of those reasons, you can go here . Instead, I’d like to use Senator Harris’ comment as a preface to the insightful piece written by Burgess Owens for the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Owens was the great-great-grandchild of a man named Silas Burgess who came to America on a slave ship, escaped a plantation through the Underground Railroad, and eventually became a successful entrepreneur and a pillar of his community. Based on this history of his great-great-grandfather and his own experience, Mr. Owens explains why the reparations movement is a bad idea:
At the core of the reparation movement is a divisive and demeaning view of both races. It grants to the white race a wicked superiority, treating them as an oppressive people too powerful for black Americans to overcome. It brands blacks as hapless victims devoid of the ability, which every other culture possesses, to assimilate and progress. Neither label is earned.
The reparations movement conveniently forgets the 150 years of legal, social and economic progress attained by millions of American minorities. It also minimizes the sacrifice that hundreds of thousands of white Americans and a Republican president made laying down their lives to eradicate slavery.
Mr. Owens also states that the act of perpetuating the myth that one race is superior to another is “evil racism.”
The Great Society programs were started at the very time when black Americans were making great inroads into the middle class. These government programs led to the break up of the black American family, left male children without fathers, mothers on welfare, and resulted in the prevalence of single parenthood in our black communities.
Mr. Owens points to the current iteration of the need for reparations: socialism is surely the cure, according to the Left. Fortunately, Mr. Owens knows through his own experience that socialism will not help anyone, including blacks. It will only create more divisiveness, perpetuate the lie that blacks cannot help themselves, and that only white society can help them. It’s important to note that Mr. Owens was a Super Bowl champion with the Oakland Raiders. He is the author of Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps.
I’d like to end with one comment that Mr. Owens makes toward the end of his piece, that speaks to blacks and whites alike:
Character cannot be bought and will never allow itself to be diminished by bribery.
You can take that one to the bank.
Published in Culture
I’m a cynic and this is not my field, so take what I say with the proverbial grain of salt. That said, everything I saw was an attempt to reduce the perceived importance of standard IQ tests. I’ve heard of “emotional intelligence”, but tell me how to measure it, and more important from an employer’s view, how it indicates problem solving ability. The tests I took to get into college probably measured current achievements more than potential. The claim I remember is that IQ is more a measure of potential to learn than a measure of what has been learned.
In comment 57 what I was thinking about was how much easier it might be to convince a homogeneous society to carry the burden of “one-in-ten”. In a society that worships diversity, how do you convince the largely white majority to carry the burden for those not only different, but when it’s more like four-in-ten, and when the four-in-ten also blame the white majority for their condition?
No. There is only one reliable method of measuring intelligence.
3d6
ROFL!
This is the thing; IQ, as I understand it, demonstrates that races are unequal or, not to put too fine a point on it – that there are greater and lesser races (absent other measures, and we are currently absent other measures).
Facts can’t be racist, they are either true or they aren’t.
But it seems that they can be incredibly destructive, or perhaps ‘creative’.
‘Lesser races’ makes a fine cornerstone for building, in no particular order; expulsion, slavery, apartheid, genocide, involuntary sterilization – solutions, Final or otherwise.
IQ is radioactive. It is one third of a syllogism that ends in atrocity. It is a downed powerline spitting sparks, desperate to complete a circuit.
So we isolate it, keep it ‘academic’ – it’s probably the only rational thing to do. But that’s easy for me to say, because it’s no threat to me.
You convince high-IQ people of all colors to care for the fellow man and stop thinking in racial categories. 6 out of 10 black people may have to support 1 out of 10 white people. What does color matter if I.Q. is the most important characteristic? I know that race exists as a biological reality but that sometimes different races are treated unfairly but real privilege comes from being gifted with prodigious talent. Focusing on the idea that you are randomly gifted with abilities that your fellow man doesn’t have and that such gifts make you obligated to your fellow man makes so more sense than the stupid obsession with identity politics.
It’s only “radioactive” if we treat people as tribes or groups. It’s a merely curious fact if we think of ourselves as individuals. Some are smart, some are dumb, some are black, some are white. In a population of 6 billion, there is no shortage of intelligent blacks and stupid people of all “races.”
We can’t make stupid people smart. But we can stop the idiotic practice of thinking of ourselves as part of a group rather than individuals. We will likely never get there for all people, but we can change the dominant mind set. Then the silly issue of racial disparity won’t matter because we won’t identify by race, but by our individuality.
This is perhaps the comment that I have most vociferously disagreed with on Ricochet.
The idea that people with different levels of I.Q. have different levels of goodness is absurd and wicked. I have a very high verbal I.Q. and a medium mathematical I.Q. how many slaves do I deserve to own? If some of my slaves have a super-low I.Q. do I get to kill them? Does Thomas Sowell get to enslave me because his I.Q. would blow mine out of the water?
Obviously these questions are absurd. I am a human being so I don’t have the right to enslave anybody and nobody else has the right to enslave me. We both deserve to be free and try to muddle on as best as we can.
There are also no lesser races as you put it. I do think the evidence suggest that some races have a harder go of it than others because of I.Q. But the fundamental unit of man is the individual and the individual has innate rights regardless of his or her capacities. Furthermore, slavery is a dumb thing to do to people because it is economically inefficient and more importantly, it is fundamentally unfair. I do believe that on average, African races have a lower I.Q. than European races but they are both equally human and that fundamental moral reality is the most important thing.
P.S. Confucian-Asians usually have an I.Q. of 105 and Ashkenazi Jews tend to have I.Q. of a 115 or something very high like that. By the standards of I.Q., non-Jewish whites would usually be a mid-level race.
For my part, I don’t disagree with anything you said, indeed the facts you list are known to me via Sowell’s writing.
I wrote nothing about goodness, and defined terms quite specifically. What exactly do you think I was saying? Or advocating?
This is what you said that I disagree with.
As I have previously stated. Higher I.Q. races may have a collective advantage over lower I.Q. races but the whole idea of higher and lesser races seems to me a terrible idea.
The short and sarcastic response is: “Good luck with that.”
The longer response is that while I agree with what you said, I also acknowledge that animals and humans seem to be genetically coded for group conflict. Humans have a combination of 747 brains and weak instincts, but those instincts exist. They can be overcome with effort, but to my eyes, most humans won’t make that effort. As my ROTC instructor said, “People align themselves according to race and religion.”
Randy Webster’s right. I was thinking of the Jim Crow laws. Miffed White Male said we used to give African Americans the things you had mentioned without them asking (“black-only dorms and other facilities”), and I was wondering if he was referring to the Jim Crow laws that used to be in effect in the South.
But class matters so much more than that. I have more in common with a middle class Nigerian dude from Britain than I do with a meth-addicted hillbilly whose granddaddy came from the same town as my grandaddy did.
Also, I have more in common with someone closer to my I.Q. than I have in common with someone who has a much higher or much lower I.Q. This whole obsessions with color makes no sense.
Yes indeed. Now go and explain all that to the low IQ people. We’ll wait.
Excellent point.
Are you sure? I’ve heard people claim that the US Constitution means nothing to them because there were no people of their color or sex involved in its writing. These people were roughly of my “class” if class is defined by income level and educational level, but I had nothing in common with them at all.
Sorry. What is this?
D&D reference.
Too bad I’m not off for Shabbat more often! Awesome conversation in my absence. I guess I’m struggling with the IQ information. There seems to be agreement that it is true–the differences between races. At the same time, it seems like many other factors will also determine if someone is suited for a job. And that truth transcends races. I’ve met some of the worst people in the workplace who are brilliant but inept in so many areas.
As best I can recall, when you’re establishing your character, you roll 3 six-sided dice for his attributes. Intelligence is one of the attributes you roll for; hence, 3d6.
H.m.m.m… I’m glad I asked? ;-)
I think there’s a remedial nerd primer available on one of the subgroups.
No need. There’s always a nerd or two to explain it, readily.
As others have noted, you are recalling the ideas of those attempting to hide the significance of IQ. Those other manifestations of intelligence have all been shown to tightly correlate with IQ. The Bell Curve spends some time on the details of why the theories of multiple intelligence have failed.
The Bell Curve is a still-relevant tour-de-force. You (everyone) really should read it.