(Hopefully) Final words from We Won't Pay
The future is always unknown, and so I cannot guarantee that five
minutes after I post this piece that a news item won't appear that won't
cause us to have to re-open. However as it stands, this looks to likely be
the final words for this site.
This site was opened in the summer of 2001. Because of what happened
shortly therafter it's a little difficult to remember some days what the
world was like right before. One thing that few well remember, then, is
that in those days the issue of reparations for slavery was quickly
becoming more than just an exercise spoken of in academic circles.
Proponents were gaining ground and becoming more emboldened, and mentions
in the media were becoming more commonplace.
It was in response to this that this site was born. I saw a horrible
vision of what would happen if this were to come to pass, and could not
look myself in the mirror if I wasn't able to say that I did what I could
to not be a party to it in any way. If it was going to happen then it was
going to happen, but I needed to at least say that I did what I could.
Now it might be hard to believe that it was ever that serious. A
thunderous shift in the global political landscape will do that, but the
arguments have for the most part just been outright rejected, and in more
than just the public eye: unsuccessful lawsuits have blunted the movement's
momentum.
So in that sense, you can say that we "won". There is little chance
anymore, it seems, that this and the societal meltdown that would follow it
immediately would come to pass. Part of the reason then for this site to
go into hibernation is that there is, and does not seem there will be for
anytime near to come, any need to put any energy into it. It's not being
shutdown, but no further work seems to be required. And I'll be honest
that I do take a small bit of pride in the thought that this site had
something small yet real to do with it.
But there is another reason for shutting down. While this site did hold
the line well enough that it seems reparations may never happen in our
lifetime, thus succeeding in one of its goals, I can say that it failed in
another; arguably, the one that was the basis of the former.
The point of this site was to stop reparations freight train enough to
get people to find another way. Basically, the point was to get away from
using the hammer of the state to solve this problem and to get people to
talk to one another instead. While I can't say for certain that this
didn't happen, as many of the site pledgees have
their email address listed, from everything I can tell, this not only
didn't happen but drove these two sides further apart. The vitriol in many
of the pledgee's comments was matched equally by those I received by email.
Was this partly my fault? I'm not sure, though perhaps. I wanted to
get some type of forum or mailing list running where people could talk
directly. Then again, would it have necessarily helped? Most of us I
think are familiar with the internet flame war, and how the impersonal
nature of typing responses back and forth often do more to fuel the fire
than to douse it.
Also, was it necessarily up to me do facilitate this? I'm not saying
that it wouldn't have been a good idea for me to try, but if it was a good
idea, why couldn't anyone do so? One of the hair-pulling myths that seemed
to surround this site is that I was created it out of some position of
authority. Many of the people who wrote in seemed to think that I was
given some privelege from some on-high and corrupted authority to run this
web site. They would complain about not giving the "other side" a place to
speak, and one person wrote saying (paraphrased) "I think there should be
an opposition site!". Well? if you think that, what's stopping you? I am
not any authority on anything. I am just some guy. I did this because it
seemed right, not because I was granted some special power that was
restricted to others.
This of course goes back to the whole reason for me opposing reparations
in the first place. A quote I heard recently stated "When victimization is
your empowerment, recovery becomes the enemy." I tried repeatedly to state
that there is absolutely nothing that reparations will give anyone that
they cannot get ten times better, faster and more effectively with their
own laboring hands. I tried to bust the myth that prosperity is something
that anyone has to petition others to give to them. Of course there is in
justice in the world, and there will always be hard responses necessary to
it. But what is not necessary is to think that you are in some locked room
that someone else is the only one with the key to.
Running this web site, then, only inadvertently reinforced these myths.
It helped reinforce in the minds of reparations proponents the lie that I
actually have any power over them. So when they saw this site, they saw
something being done to them, as opposed to something being done for me.
So I'd have to say that that's why instead of creating a facility to
talk, I'm instead telling you to do it yourself; and I say that to both
sides. I'm not your mediator. I have no power to restrict your ability to
connect to each other and try to work this out; I can help, but if my help
is only going to make you think that you need it, then I'd honestly rather
not. The lack of direct communication I think is what the entire problem
boils down to.
And on that note, let me state that I feel this equally about both sides.
Yes, I'm now talking to the pledgees of this site. This doesn't apply to
everyone, so take this individually how you think is best. However it is
true that one of the reason I'm ending active participation in this site is
because of some of the feelings expressed on the pledge page. Yes, I
remain right with you on the adamancy to not submit to this demand.
However, moral adamancy does not have to come with hatred. It doesn't even
have to come with a lack of understanding.
Here is what you need to remember: our world is still very, very
imperfect. I'm not going to parrot a lot of the "everybody is racist"
arguments; I've long ago rejected those. However, there is injustice
everywhere, and more importantly, most of it I would say is extremely
subtle, and noticed by few people of any political or ideological stripe.
But they are real, and as long as they exist, problems are going to arise
that people are going to find answers for. Those answers will usually not
strike the root, and so most of them will generate problems of their own.
Reparations I'd say is one of the worst such ones.
But that is no reason to lose your humanity. No matter how angry you
are and how terrible an idea this is, and no matter what kind of reaction
the other person gives you for taking this stand, that person is still your
brother. When you fall so far into your mission that you forget this
single most important of facts, you've missed the point of having your
mission in the first place. Some people thought I should have censored
these pledge comments, and I refused to. Whatever people felt I wanted
the world to see it as much as the speaker was willing to show it. But
once those feelings are known the time then comes to do something about it.
Saying this may lose me pledgees, but I don't care. I have always been
willing to keep anyone on who feels differently, and that doesn't change
now. But seeing what kind of chain reaction this site helped accelerate, I
can't say now that I'm entirely happy to have been a part of it, so anyone
who cannot abide it is free to
contact me asking me to remove your
name, and I promise you there will be no hard feelings from your request.
I think it's the saddest irony that Martin Luther King Jr. himself
repeatedly spoke of the necessity of loving one another, and now he's close
to being the one person I can quote in this regard and equally anger both
sides.
Yet that was the ideal that founded this site, and it remains to this
day. If I have to lose the audience of anyone from either side who came to
this site expecting to hear messages to the contrary, then so be it. We
Won't Pay was not created to start a war, but to avert one. To be honest,
while it won't be reparations that start it, it appears that war is just
about upon us anyway. But like I said, I can say that at least in this
area I did the best I knew how to, and can only hope from there that
posterity judges me kindly for it.
A final postscript: some people did write in over the years asking some
good serious questions, and due to being overwhelmed I never got back to
them. If you really do want to take this discussion seriously and approach
this with the ideal of getting the problem completed so we can move on from
this stale conflict, I'm right
here. I encourage you, for that matter, to take a look at my other projects and web sites, as
you might just get your answers from something there.
A final thank you again to everyone who took part in this project.
Peace be to you all.
-Robert Chesnavich
robert@chesnavich.com
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