Why I will not censor pledgee comments
The We Won't Pay project is slowly getting media attention, and looking
at this coverage brings up an important question. One article in the
Philadelphia City Paper quotes pledge
Preston Bryant:
Web sites like Wewontpay.com offer even less encouraging signs about some
people's openness to debate on the issue. Of about 100 visitors offering
comment on the matter at the site, a gentleman from Udall, Kan., summed up
his feelings thus: "Hell no I won't pay. If they want land, they can have
some land in Africa and we won't even charge them for it. Or even better we
can all pitch in and buy them a ONE WAY ticket to their homeland!"
Ignoring the additional problem that the people list on the pledge page are not just "offering comment,"
but in fact taking a potentially dangerous public stand about their own
course of action should reparations payments ever begin, there is the issue
of what to do about the fact that of the quotes listed there, the ones that
will most likely get more distance are the more "provocative"
ones. Preston's sentiments are somewhat tame compared with a few others
listed there. Some would argue that allowing these comments to stand would
damage the movement.
It's understandable that people would feel this way, given the above
dynamic, and I say this with no disrespect to any of the more spirited
members of We Won't Pay. Yet at the same time, it's exactly because the
people who have joined together in this pledge are so spirited that I feel
it's wrong to not give them a voice in this, however they think is
appropriate to use it.
One of the reasons that censorship is typically a bad idea is that it
pretends that if you don't hear any person saying something, then no person
must be thinking it, the intellectual equivalent to putting a towel over your
head and concluding that now you must be safe from monsters. If I let
people sign up on this site but didn't post comments, that would not stop
those feelings from existing and being a part of their decision to not pay.
Ignorance is not bliss, and not knowing the reasons behind others'
decisions only servers to widen the gap of understanding between you and
them.
All well and good, perhaps, but we don't want racists on board here, do
we? That's an interesting question, with two answers. The first is that
part of why I put this project together is that I saw that people were
threatening to take this action anyway, to not pay reparations, and my
thought was that if there are so many people who are truly going to do this,
it's better to do this as a unit if at all possible. So in reality, whether
or not I let "racists" in, these people would be partaking of the
same action anyway.
A more important answer though is another question, which is to ask
exactly what a "racist" is. We can come up with many off-the-cuff
definitions, but it doesn't take long to show that they are almost
universally inconsistent, especially when you take into account that we
don't even have a clear definition of the word "race." As a
result, we have an entire spectrum of ideas and statements, and which of
them are deemed "racist" becomes more a function of prevailing
social climates than of any scientific yardstick.
Charles Barron stated that we wanted to slap a white person for his
mental health, and then couldn't understand what the problem with this was.
Dorothy Tillman stated that she only wanted to be served by her people.
"Black power" is a powerful social statement, while "White
power" is an expression of hatred. The list goes on, and examples are
well-known to anyone who studies such issues.
When these statements are brought up, then critics will say that what
blacks have suffered make these expressions understandable, saying that if
we were wronged, we'd have the same reaction.
If that's true, then that is all the justification needed.
The people who have pledged on this site were all born long after the
end of slavery, and some (such as myself) were born after the end of the
civil rights struggles of the 60's. We're living in a time where we're
each already paying for a pantheon of governmental spending decisions that
we don't believe in. As far as many of us are concerned, we are already
being wronged as we speak, and agree with that or not, every single one of
us who has pledged to We Won't Pay believes we would be grievously
wronged by any attempts at slavery reparation payments.
The sentiments expressed on the pledge page reflect
this anger. They also reflect frustration, concern, sad amusement,
bitterness, and even a little hope that we can find a way through this (I
attempt to make that as much of a theme as possible in my own writings). But regardless of what adjective
you wish to use to describe them, the bottom line is that these emotions
did not simply come out of thin air. They were largely created and
certainly exacerbated by the reparations debate and the logic behind it;
logic that is responsible for not only this issue but other problems that
we are now all facing. That is the disease here, and I am not going to
respond to it by censoring the symptoms.
Besides, who am I to say that my way of looking at this is the only one?
Since I started this project I don't feel bad about giving my own views
prominence. At the same time, I have seen plenty of movements that only
wanted people's names, but not their minds. The point of this project is
that these are normal people who are doing something quite abnormal: taking
a stand that is both socially and, if reparations were to ever occur,
legally dangerous. It is that committment that I hope will get the point
through to reparations proponents that this is just a bad idea, and that
commitment is only meaningful if it's made clear that it comes from more
than just a name, but a unique individual with a unique perspective.
So no, the comments of each of the pledgees will remain on site
unchanged beyond basic editorial corrections (spelling, mostly, and
everyone misspells somewhat when they type, so please don't be pathetic
and try to pin anything onto that). They are the true feelings of the
people who are taking a stand, and as Thomas Jefferson once said,
"There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to
the whole world."
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