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December 18, 2004

As of December 18th 2004, WeWontPay.com is going into semi-hibernation. What this means is that the site will remain up, but outside of adding anyone else who wishes to pledge, this site will likely not get updated.

The primary reason for this is that the issue of slavery reparations appears to be at a lull. Victory can still not be declared, as those pushing for reparations continue to push. But it appears that at least for right now, the public isn't buying it. There is very little public support for just about any form of slavery reparations, and as such, the only news items to come out these days tend to be about one of the usual proponents saying the usual things. And the annual MillionsForReparations march is less successful every year.

This site will continue to remain active. For those who wish to write in, I ask that you go through the essays page first, as many of the common objections raised are answered there. I am not able to spend much time discussing the issue right now, so if you wish to I ask that you make sure you first understand my point of view on this matter.

To those who have pledged this site, your pledges are still active. If you have since changed email addresses make sure to email me to let me know. As comatose as the issue seems right now politics has a way of doing the unexpected.

And to everyone, a reminder that this site is not going away. Reparations for slavery remains a bad of an idea as it has been since this site was started, and gets worse every day as we get further and further removed from the time that spawned it. This site will remain up as long as the threat remains. But at least for the moment, the threat has been subdued.

April 28, 2004

Even an NAACP poll says no: A poll done on the NAACP web site finds an strong majority opposed to the litany of lawsuits against any company that once upon a time blinked in the direction of slavery. The comments are also enlightening. Shantel Sanderson put it well:

"Nobody else in America remembers or cares about something that happened more than 140 years ago in our past - it's ancient history! Smart Americans worry about what's going on today!"

I hereby nominate Shantel Sanderson to found the official Smart Americans Club.

April 13, 2004

They won't give up, Part 3: One lawsuit failed, and so another one has been started. A lawsuit has been filed against Lloyd's of London on the claim that they insured ships used in the slave trade.

The usual claims apply. Some of them reach the point of absurdity:

"Why is it too far fetched to say blacks should be entitled to compensation for damages and genocide committed against them, when every other group in the world that has been victimised in this way has been?"

I don't think that even the most learned historians could possibly list the names of "every other group in the world that has been victimised".

Deadria Farmer-Paellman, back for a second round after losing her first attempt, talked about her identity crisis:

"Today I suffer from the injury of not knowing who I am, having no nationality or ethnic group as a result of acts committed by these parties," she said.

This is disingenuous, as it is clear who she is. She is a victim, an identity she has chosen to live her life with. No country she could ever find out her ancestors are from will trump this. It is a true shame to see people who cannot define themselves except in relation to the dead that they know nothing about. If I'm going to define myself by my relationships with others, it's going to first and foremost be by the ones I have with the living.

But then, I'm a kook.

They won't give up, Part 2: Charles Barron, someone who I am comfortable at this point calling the most racist public official currently in office, has commented on the recent burial grounds found in NYC...from nearly 400 years ago:

"Our youth must understand that reparations is not a handout, nor is it affirmative action, neither is it welfare. It is a debt owed. It was our people who were sold on the stock market as human stock."

Once again, the nebulous phrase "our people" comes up again. I retain my challenge to anyone to define precisely who "our people" refers to.

Additionally, I would like to challenge anyone who looks at the burial grounds as cause for reparations to do the following: find any one human living today, and prove, through the histories of those between them and anyone buried at this ground, that their poverty from living today is a direct result of what happened nearly 400 years ago, with there being no chance whatsoever anywhere along the line for any one of those individuals involved in said lineage to shake off the past and improve their lives.

I'd say "I'm curious as to what you'll come up with", but that wouldn't be true: virtually none of these challenges that I've posted here, despite the hundreds of thousands of hits this site has received, have ever been answered.

They won't give up, Part 1: In every venue of public policy debate in America, the issue of slavery reparations has been dismissed. It has been thrown out of courts, taken off the agenda list for all but a select few cities, and most importantly, has failed to resonate with the public. After peaking in attention in mid-2001, the slavery reparations movement is at the lowest point of interest it has been possibly since the 1980's.

But true to the rest of their philosophy, advocates are continuing to push.

An attempt to get the issue shoved onto the agenda in Houston moved turned into a literal shoving match, as one advocate had to be escorted out by police.

A statement from the mayor said it best:

The city, he said, must focus on issues that will immediately affect people's lives, including "getting traffic moving and improving neighborhoods."

Fixing actual problems in our present-day world. What a concept, eh?

January 26, 2004

Case dismissed: The reparations lawsuit brought against Aetna and 18 other companies has been dismissed. That was the best remaining avenue for reparations advocates. With it closed, and with no serious legisilation on the topic pending anyway, the proponents of forever reliving the past have had the door shut on them.

This doesn't mean they're going to stop trying, though one could hope that with the public simply not buying this that maybe some of them would start looking inwards and seeing that they're philosophy is hollow. We are living in the now. The world simply doesn't have time for people who wish to spend the rest of their lives obsessing over issues that are, in the most literal sense, dead.

November 16, 2003

Debate reignites: After several months of quietude, the issue of slavery reparations is slowly making a comeback. The recent burial of the remains of slaves in New York provides part of the impetus for this. And the words of those present provide us with a reminder of why this web site is necessary:

"We are angry and we will be angry today, tomorrow and tomorrow. We will never cease to demand that this country 'fess up and pay up," said the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, a New York minister and activist, at a ceremony this month to rebury the remains of more than 400 free and enslaved blacks in a colonial-era cemetery rediscovered in lower Manhattan in 1991.

The only answer of course to relentless demands is relentless refusal.

That isn't the only recent news item, however. Perhaps because the recent elections are over and the focus on Iraq, at least the main war there, is long gone, talk of reparations is returning, as evidenced by the many discussions about it taking place.

So far it's not clear what tactic those pushing for reparations will use next, especially with litigation still in progress. But as I thought would be the case, this issue is still alive.

September 16, 2003

Rally fizzles: The second annual Millions For Reparations march appears to have been a complete dud. I wasn't even sure it happened at first, as I couldn't find any mention of it in any media source. Finally a lone article about the event appeared in The Village Voice. If the several thousand who showed up in DC last year was underwhelming, the sight of the few hundred who made it this year must have been sad. In fact, according to the article itself:

Though there were some nationally known figures, the small crowd was mostly a reflection of the New York face of the movement--middle-aged holdouts from the civil rights era. There was an open acknowledgment that theirs was a movement in its incipient stages in dire need of support from the masses, especially black youth.

So does this mean that the slavery reparations issue is dead? No, I wouldn't go that far. There are too many people who believe in it who won't listen to reason to make that claim, and too many children going to public schools pushing this message.

However, its influence is at this point waning, something I didn't expect to see. Mention of the issue is decreasing all across the political world, and even this web site is getting less and less hits, submissions and hate mail. Could it be that people really have figured out how ridiculous this all is, and are distancing themselves from these ideas? It just might be.

In the meantime, there are still the legal matters to deal with. Until the current batch of lawsuits are taken care of, it's not safe to call this issue won, and even when that happens, it will probably take a number of years for this to go the way of the Holocaust denialists. Things are looking better than they have in a long time, but by no means can we yet declare this is over.

August 24, 2003

The trial begins: While as a political issue reparations is nowhere on the radar, the legal proceedings stemming from last year's lawsuits are about to begin. The cases originally submitted last year in various states have been consolidated into one in Illinois, and that case has begun.

Right now there is too little information to say which way this is going to go. Legally, this should be laughed out of court. But much more laughable cases have gone further. We'll keep on top of it here as much as possible. More extensive information can be found on Aetna's web site.

July 31, 2003

Justice Departments: "Your elected officials are too white.": It's been a few days since I read this. I think it took me that long to beleive that this was real, that this was actually happening in America.

The Justice Department is investigating whether voters in the town of Vista California are electing officials of the appropriate skin color. No, I'm not making this up:

"Justice Department investigators want to determine whether a pattern emerges in Vista," according to the Times. "They plan to check whether members of minorities and whites vote differently; whether whites in Vista vote as a block against minority candidates; and whether whites are able to beat minority candidates, even when minority voters are unified at the polls, said Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez."

The column which discusses this points out, in addition to the creepy concept of the Justice Department deciding local elections, the double standard of "whether whites in Vista vote as a block against minority candidates" (bad) and "when minority voters are unified at the polls" (good).

As I told some friends of mine, I no longer recognize my own country. This is worse than I ever thought it would get.

July 11, 2003

The speech: After languishing in the background ever since last year's underwhelming " Millions For Reparations " march in DC, President Bush's recent speech has brought slavery reparations back to the public policy forefront. After calling it "one of the greatest crimes of history", one article after another has been printed stating that he didn't go far enough, and that both an apology and you-know-what must come next (along with articles expressing a bit of anxiety that such demands might be heeded).

The 40-Acres-And-A-Lexus question is what the purpose of this speech was, and more importantly, whether or not this can be parlayed into something that will make reparations a reality. For the former question, it's anybody's guess in this entangled global political era. For the latter question, I still see no evidence Bush would support reparations: the lack of an apology here possibly proves that.

But with the next annual reparations march coming up in just 2 months, and with Liberia the current focus of our international decisions, it is possible that this might result in renewed interest in this issue. For anyone who comes to this site as a result of this (or at any time), especially if you are someone who is in favor of slavery reparations: glad to meet you, please look around and enjoy the information presented here, and while you're here, let me kindly remind you of the reaction that this country will get from those who have pledged to this site:

We Won't Pay.

June 24, 2003

Now "whiteness studies": It was only a matter of time. The Washington Post reports that the University of Massachusetts now has a course in "whiteness studies". Many of you can probably guess where it's going without even looking at the article.

June 17, 2003

Modern-day slavery?: Another reparations lawsuit has been filed, but this one has a twist to it. The plantiff's contention is that he was a 20th-century slave. This isn't as strange as it might sound, as the CIA estimates that there are over 100,000 slaves held in America today.

While this would then be a legitimate complaint, there is a minor problem here: slavery is already illegal, outlawed by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. Anyone held in captivity in America since 1865 has their beef with their captors, not the US government. Yet that didn't stop this from being described as a "reparations" suit, and in all likelihood, it won't be the last.

May 18, 2003

LA joins the fray: Los Angeles has become the second city to require that all companies doing business with the city to disclose whether it earned profits from slavery. This joins the city of Chicago which passed a virtually identical resolution last year. In both cases it was unanimous, and in both cases the law does require that restitution be paid, but it's also obvious (and sometimes not even hidden) that this is a stepping stone to exactly that.

One thing the article does point out that is worthy of mention: since Chicago passed their ordinance, not one company has made such a disclosure. This site was put together on the presumption that, with or without such a movement, people would start drawing the line on this themselves. This may be the strongest evidence for this yet.

May 11, 2003

Second march announced: It appears that a second annual march is on after all. Announced on the Millions For Reparations web site, this year's march will take place, it appears, in New York City at the United Nations building, Saturday, September 13. So far there seems to be little mention anywhere else of this.

April 29, 2003

NAACP profits off slavery?: If the charges in this article are accurate, then it would appear so. Think we'll see a boycott anytime soon?

March 19, 2003

"Diversify the media...or we'll do it for you": This is so foul it must be reported widely and then ridiculed widely. The Black Caucus has decided that there are an insufficient number of minority-owned cable network channels, and that they need to step in to fix that. The chilling statement comes from this paragraph:

The letter also said the caucus members hoped that the cable industry would take steps to beef up the diversity of its programming and ownership of cable channels "without the necessity for us to seek legislative solutions."

Pardon my amazement here, but this is still America we live in, yes? We now have lawmakers openly talking about changing the both the content of the media and the ownership of the media to until both satisfy their approval. Let me repeat: the government is outright stating that they will take control of the media unless it satisfies their requirements.

For those of you that think that the people pledging this site are going to far by possibly stating they won't pay taxes if reparations happen, please look at the above and tell me whether the government we have right now is one that has earned even one penny from us.

March 18, 2003

More important things: With the world heading towards a potentially terrible battle, it doesn't seem apporpriate to spend too much time on this issue. And definitely, the world seems to agree: the conflict with Iraq is about all that's in the news at this point. As much as the purpose of this site is to be the one place to get that kind of information, it really doesn't seem terribly important that, for example, Randal Robinson gave another pro-reparations speech.

But then again, perhaps what is happening right now is proof of exactly why this is so silly. There are already wrongs being committed by both of the primary countries of this conflict. They're adding up faster than anyone can even catalog, and they're happening right now as you read this. These are things which need to stop, whether or not you are for or against this war.

But instead of focusing on the here and now, at ending the injustices happening at this very moment, we focus on what we read in books and hear from our ancestors, try to dig up corpses to hold on trial, and then hold the living responsible for them. We does this while we stand and watch the living do things right now that need to stop.

By the time this war is over, no matter how it turns out or how long or short it is, there will be no shortage of accusations of war crimes and "atrocities". And even forgetting about this war, more of these occur every day. This includes slavery. Yes: while proponents are getting paid to make one speech after another about the horrible oppresion visited upon those in the richest country on the planet for being the same skin color as people who were enslaved centuries ago, slavery continues to this very day!

Don't worry: I'm not abandoning this project. But when there are accusations of people being grinded up in plastic shredders, isn't it a bit tiring to hear people continually complain about how opressed they are by something that happened a nice century or two before to someone who isn't even them?

March 1, 2003

No more rallies?: The news here is the lack of it. At last year's Millions for Reparations rally, it was claimed by a number of the speakers that this was the first step of a much larger push, and that we could expect to see this happen year after year until reparations payments were finally made. At the time, the most interesting thing about this claim is how proud the speakers were of claiming that there would still be marches no matter how far removed from the events of slavery and the 60's civil rights struggles we went.

What is now interesting is that, perhaps because of the underwhelming attendance at this rally, there are no signs that a follow-up is being planned anywhere. The web site for this march has not been updated since about a month-and-a-half after the event, and there is no talk anywhere that I've been able to find of anyone planning a second run.

February 12, 2003

The indoctrination: More evidence of why this issue is not going to be dead for a long time comes from Wisconsin. the "Let It Shine" program (using federal dollars, naturally) will be including discussions of reparations in their K-12 curriculum. From the article:

"A lot of African-American kids have no idea of their culture. They have no idea what part of Africa they came from," he said. "If they know where they came from, in terms of their culture, then they'll know where they are presently."

The shame here is that, if this were really the case, that would be a highly laudable goal. But rather than being the goal, this will likely be a means to an end, since one of the premises of reparations is that slavery from 150 years ago is responsible for poverty today.

So, listen to all of the worst rhetoric of the pro-reparations crowd, and know that now it will be taught to children in Wisconsin; and if that takes off, children around the country. And that you're paying for it. How do you feel about this?

If you're less than thrilled here's one idea to consider.

January 26, 2003

Coming soon: Ever hear of William Wilberforce? Don't worry if you haven't. The story will be coming to a theater near you; along with, probably, scrambling and desperate attempts to smear him or underlie his achievement in any way possible.

Sharpton to quiz other candidates: Al Sharpton has declared his presidential candidacy and, keeping us here at WWP from having to do the same, will be asking other Democratic contenders about their position on this issue. Thus we take another step forward, as reparations now becomes an on-the-table policy question that candidates might need to pick sides on.

January 24, 2003

Texas reparations bill proposed: He admits "There's no way in Hades" that this bill will pass. But that hasn't stopped Texas state representative Ron Wilson from proposing a bill that would pay reparations to "virtually everyone in Texas except Anglo men and Jews."

Does this not make it clear that it's nothing but racism, resentment and, it's probably not unfair to say, hatred against whites and/or Jews that is fueling this issue? There's little enough logic in the reparations case as it is: including random minorities just on the blanket claim that "they've been discriminated against" is using the force of government in a manner so reckless that it would seem almost designed to create racial conflict where it didn't exist. Surely, that isn't the goal here.

Is it?

January 21, 2003

Not even hiding it: From the Boston Globe:

The editor of a sizable newspaper told me recently that he decided the racial makeup of four new hires - two minorities, a white woman, and a white male - before reviewing a single applicant.

As the saying goes, where's the outrage? Well, I guess it's right here, now isn't it?

Brownback backs off: Kansas Senator Sam Brownback has dropped his support of a commission that would have possibly studied the issue of slavery reparations. The Senator did not give reasons why, but it seems from the article that his GOP colleagues explained to him the great unwisdom in such a move.

Lawsuits resume: After a brief respite, the lawsuit parade is back underway. This one originates in Texas, and with more than 100 defendants under attack, proponents definitely aren't aiming low.

Among the usual claims there is an interesting clarification of terms from one of the lawyers for the plantiff:

[NAACP Texas President Gary] Bledsoe said the case is a reconciliation lawsuit, not a reparations lawsuit. He said a reparations lawsuit seeks payment for individuals while this lawsuit seeks to have a trust fund set up to benefit African-Americans.

We can probably take from this that they realize the uphill public relations battle that they have in front of them, and are playing the game of changing the terms, but leaving the act the same. In reality, many who are openly for reparations, and use that term, also feel that a trust fund is the best way to distribute any money extracted.

The irony, of course, is that reconciliation is the last thing that would come from any successful reparations lawsuit.

January 19, 2003

Britian rejects reparations claim: An attempt by the Rastafarian Brethen of Jamaica for reparations from Britian has failed. Putting it in simple terms, the British High Commision stated:

We regret and condemn the inequities of the historic slave trade, but these shameful activities belong to the past...Governments today cannot take responsibility for what happened over 150 years ago."

Precisely. Not surprisingly, the Rastafarians are not giving up.

January 17, 2003

How about them?: So tell me, reparations supporters: does this family get paid?

January 15, 2003

Bush opposes U Michigan affirmative action: In the clearest indication yet of where the president stands on current race relation issues, George W. Bush today announced that his administration will challenge U. Michigan's affirmative action program, which is right now being looked at in the Supreme Court. Said the president:

"At their core, the Michigan policies amount to a quota system that unfairly reward or penalize prospective students solely on their race."

And like clockwork, Tom Daschle came out criticizing:

"Once again today, the administration as shown as clearly by their actions as anyone can, that they will continue to side with those opposed to civil rights and opposed to diversity in this country."

Expect more of the same. It appears that Bush is finally coming out swinging on issues he mostly ducked for the first half of his presidency, and if he does more sparks than this will surely fly.

January 8, 2003

Senator proposes possible reparations panel: Just when it seemed like this issue had no traction whatsoever in Congress, Republican Senator for Kansas Sam Brownback has proposed to create a council to study race relations. With the kind of language that he uses to justify his push, it's clear that it's only the pro-reparations activists that are likely to get a sympathetic ear.

I mentioned Brownback's party affiliation for a reason. Had this been introduced by a Democrat, it would have likely gone nowhere. But with the Republicans having one of the clearest mandates of any party in a long time, this will have to be taken seriously. This is an odd play, and it's not clear at all where this will take us, but it definitely is important enough that we can't ignore it. Here is how to contact the Senator with your concerns.

"Support reparations or flunk!": Proof that this issue is alive and well comes from a 10th grade classroom. A student relates his tale to The Sierra Times:

Well, in class before the holiday, we were talking about our standpoint with the reparations. I happen to be against reparations for many reasons, but my teacher is strong for them. So I tell her that I am against the whole reparations movement and she gets pissed. She tells me that being against reparations tells her that I am a person who has no morals and I should transfer her class if I think otherwise. She also said that there is no possible way to get a passing grade on the paper if we are against reparations.

And if we know about this one, how many other places is this happening that we don't know about? It's not as if we can expect teens and pre-teens to understand that they are having a one-sided set of philosophical views shoved down their throats.

Of course we shouldn't assume to know what's going on everywhere, but with cases like the teacher who duct-taped students to the floor to teach their students what like on slave ships was liked (Registration required) and students who get openly graded on ideology as opposed to quality, it's not much of a stretch to assume that the only thing that makes this case unique is that it made it out to the media.

To repeat, this issue is far from over.

January 6, 2003

Bush Nominees Rebuf Reparations: The tide continues to mount against the reparations movement. Two of President Bush's nominees have issued statements against the push for reparations.

It's possible that with a wildly successful midterm elections past them, and a pro-reparations movement that simply can't get its feet planted, the major political players are deciding that the time to speak against this idea is upon us. If that's the case, and the public agrees, the road to obtaining reparations might become so long and arduous that, against previous predictions, we might just not see them in our lifetime after all.

And that will certainly ruffle some feathers.

December 10, 2002

Settlement in insurance case: Last month a settlement was proposed in a case involving differing costs of life insurance policies. Metropolitan Life insurance, if the Rainbow/PUSH press release is accurate (not a small "if") will be settling out of court regarding the practice of difffering costs of life insurance policies.

This isn't specifically reparations related. It's important nonetheless. While there was no small amount of blatant racism in the America of the early-to-mid 20th century, it can't be judged by simple summary statistics alone whether or not racism might have been the determining factor in financial decisions made decades ago; such attempts to find "racism" by looking at crude averages are used today to shake down companies who have done no wrong.

Metropolitan's decision then could be a sign that, despite the political enviornment not extending even a lukewarm hand to reparations proponents, targeted companies might be willing to try to buy their way out of this. It's appearing more and more that the private sector is where this battle is going to take place.

December 2, 2002

Affirmative action on the line: The Supreme Court announced today that they will decide on the Constitutionality of affirmative action in the area of university admissions.

As one activist put it, "No matter how the majority rules, the court now can't help but make a historic decision." It's clear that affirmative action needs to go, but it's also clear that whether or not it does, this decision is going to have a galvanizing effect on whichever side winds up in the minority vote. One wonders in fact exactly what the pro-side will do if the ruling is against them. With every branch of federal government in Republican hands, who would they appeal to, and how?

November 16, 2002

2002 election analysis: It would be standard to use this opportunity to analyze the 2002 elections and determine what it means for this issue. Unfortunately, there's really not that much that we can say definitively. So few elected officials have come out on either side of this issue that we can't put up any kind of scoreboard. The closest "victory" for either side was the defeat of US Senator Max Cleland, who has a history of being friendly to mainstream civil rights initiatives.

Despite that, it is probably fair to say that the 2002 elections represent a significant setback to the reparations movement. Of the two major parties, Republicans are less amenable to the reparations message, and even before the election, there was very little legisatively that was being done for this. US Representative John Conyers will probably continue to introduce his yearly bill to create a commission to study the issue, but the forward momentum the movement had been gaining has now hit a wall.

There's still enough activist movement for reparations that it would be foolish to declare the issue dead. But it is probably fair to say that if reparations does happen, it's not going to happen any time soon.

November 7, 2002

Study disputes slavery legacy: It's an accepted fact of the pro-reparations contingent that slavery is directly responsible for the current economic conditions of black Americans. That accepted fact is now being questioned by a study released by Dartmouth economist Bruce Sacerdote. If his conclusions are correct, then the economic disparity between the progeny of black slaves and black non-slaves in America disppeared after a mere two generations, before most Americans today were born.

Even if this is true this does not necessarily mean that the existence of slavery hasn't had a ripple effect that reaches down to us today: see this essay for a longer dissertation on this matter. However, it does show strong evidence that once we are left alone to succeed on our terms, we will succeed if that's what we want.

Of course, some of us have been trying to say this for years.

October 3, 2002

The headline says it all:

Conference against racism expels non-blacks...

You add the commentary. I'm busy deciding whether I should laugh or cry.

October 2, 2002

Chicago takes another step: The Chcago city council today voted unanimously to require companies that do business with the city to disclose ties to slavery. Do we have to guess what the motivation here is? The City Councal of Chicago is home to Dorothy Tillman, the woman who demanded that white waiters not serve her.

Power indeed corrupts. Exactly what slavery has to do with some pipes you might install in a city park is pretty unknown, but when it comes to government, logic is irrelevant. Count this as one small step closer.

October 1, 2002

Direct descendant lawsuit: Another reparations lawsuit has been filed, and unlike some of the previous ones, this one deals with individuals directly affected by slavery ... sort of.

Timothy and Chester Hurdle claim to be the last surviving direct offspring of Andrew Jackson Hurdle, who was enslaved at the age of eight. As a result, they have filed a lawsuit for compensation. Well actually, it's not quite for that:

"I don't want a penny out of anything," Chester said. " What I'd like to see is something done to help the future generations of our race."

This lawsuit admittedly is the least illegitimate attack so far by the reparations movement. That still doesn't make it right though. To see this, let's imagine that humans could live much longer than they do, and these plantiffs were slaves themselves. Is 137 years not a long enough time to move beyond what happened in the past? If it isn't, is any amount of time?

But again, they aren't doing it for themselves. They are doing it for their race. It's said often, but bears repeating here again: can you imagine the uproar if any white man were to say such a thing?

September 30, 2002

Ending slavery today: The New York Daily News today printed a commentary about the efforts to address the legacy of slavery: that is, the slavery that exists in this very day, in the same Africa that reparations proponents say they are trying to save. Noting the small turnout for the speech of one of the proponents, Columnist Stanley Crouch notes:

I met Yessa last winter, after he addressed a group of students at Columbia University. The small turnout surprised me, but when I listened to him speak, it became clear why he did not draw a crowd.

If Yessa's talk had been called "How Europe Disabled Africa," he would have filled the auditorium. But he was talking about slavery in Africa that cannot be blamed on Europeans.

Let's see how many senators he can get to sign his petition. In the meantime, if you want to do something about the effects of slavery, go here to see how you can help an organization that's actually trying to end it today.

September 29, 2002

Mostly quiet again: The reparations debate has again mostly disappeared from the public radar. There have been other minor news items that could be put here, such as Jesse Jackson's recent flipping out over the movie "Barbershop" (it's getting harder and harder to understand how this man has any following at all). However, I think at this point I'm going to attempt to keep this space devoted as much as possible to the reparations issue directly. While it's quiet right now, it very possibly (and I believe it will) someday become something that by itself will be hard to keep up with. So again, if you don't see any updates for a long time here, it's probably because there's not too much to report.

There was one news item that came and went faster than I could archive it. There is a case in Florida right now that deals with Holocaust reparations that some slavery reparations advocates are looking at as a doorway into getting their case heard as well. Yeah, there are clear differences between them, but don't blame the messenger. In any event, if anyone happened to catch that I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction .

September 14, 2002

Meeting of the whitey-slappers: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, the man openly leading an anti-white race war, was the guest of New York City Council, home of Councilman Charles "slap a white guy and feel better fast!" Barron.

Do I really need to add any commentary to this?

Libertarians take a stand: In the rush of information after last month's march I managed to miss this, but the Libertarian Party became the first national party to speak out against slavery reparations. From their press release on August 20th:

"Millions of white Americans who have no reason to dislike blacks may find one the moment they're forced to pay a race tax," Dasbach said. " The only people who will benefit will be the pandering politicians who get to dole out the money - as race relations get worse.

A "race tax" ... those 7 letters sum up more succinctly than anything I've seen so far exactly what slavery reparations is: and what will happen if it gets implemented.

This incidentally makes the Libertarians and the Green Party (in favor) the only two significant parties to take a stand on the issue of slavery reparations, while for the most part, the two "major" parties are running for cover.

"Reverse Reparations": A Republican interest group recently got into hot water by the easiest method known to man: telling the truth.

GOPAC ran a radio ad which described Social Security as a form of reparations paid by blacks to whites, citing the differences in life expectancies between the races. The facts of this are indisputable, but that didn't stop (or maybe caused) the NAACP to throw a fit and get the ad pulled. The more telling comment, however, came from Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe:

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called the ad "reprehensible race baiting."

Quite a statement that after all of what's happened in race relations in this country over the last few decades (including countless incidents by the party he heads) it took this, of all thing, for him to finally use these words.

September 3, 2002

The lawsuits return: Deadria Farmer-Paellmann has returned to the courtroom, and late on Tuesday filed another set of lawsuits aimed at the following companies:

Investment banks:

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Brown Brothers Harriman

Insurers:

American International Group Inc.

Lloyd's of London

Tobacco makers:

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.

Liggett Group Inc. (indirectly owned by Vector Group Ltd.)

Railroad firms:

Union Pacific Corp.

Norfolk Southern Corp.

Other companies:

Tobacco and insurance conglomerate Loews Corp.

Textile firm WestPoint Stevens Inc.

The article also makes clear that the pace of these lawsuits is only going to accelerate. Now for those of you who think that reparations can never happen, ask yourself what the possibility is that, as the list of targeted companies grows, just one of them will eventually decided to settle rather than fight this extortion. The game is once again afoot.

September 1, 2002

Regrouping: All has been quiet on the reparations front since the march, at least in terms of actual news items. The pundit world unleashed a storm against it, which I'm still catching up on archiving.

The pro-reparations crowd though, after silence for a short time, has come out and suddenly called the rally a victory. Ron Daniels wrote:

As the organizers predicted, the March/Rally was the largest demonstration in history mobilized in support of reparations.

Considering that it was also effectively the first, this isn't quite a quantum leap. Conrad Worrill must have developed some sort of a hallucination, as he talked about the 50,000 people who attended. My own initial estimate of 10,000 was shot down by others that were there: 2-3 thousand is the generally agreed upon figure, with some media outlets talking about the "hundreds" that arrived for this.

Nevertheless, despite the hurrahs, all has become quiet again. It's clear that the march didn't acheive all of what they wanted it to, but at the same time, it's clear that it was far from a death knoll, and that any quiet right now is most likely indicative of movement that we'll probably see before the year is over.

August 23, 2002

Slap-happy pol flooded: NYC Councilman Charles Barron probably didn't expect this. But then again, if you can go and make a flippant remark about slapping whites right in front of the media, you're obviously not doing much thinking at all.

So ever since then, Barron has been flooded with offers from whites around the country to have them slap him. But of course, it's still whitey who just doesn't get the joke. Ayup.

For now, if you wish to add to the offer pile, here's his email address. And if you do, feel free to mention this web site to him if you want to. I'm sure he'd be most interested in it.

Myself, while a lot of people are asking him "What would have happened if a white man said it?" I have a different question: "Would King have laughed?"

August 22, 2002

Rally verdict: Round 1 a draw?: This last weekend's Millions For Reparations march, if nothing else, accomplished one goal that it set out to do: it put the issue of slavery reparations back on top of the news pile. News agencies across the country covered the weekend event, and pundits everywhere have since been discussing it.

That's where the bad news starts for proponents: nearly everyone who's talking about this is against it. Making things worse was the turnout: some articles talked about the "hundreds" that showed up. My estimations were actually higher than that of most major articles: given retrospection, I'd say about 4 to 5 thousand showed up. Still, to paraphrase one person, "That's still 995,000 short of their original goal."

What's more is that proponents are now showing signs of questioning this basic strategy. Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes in Black World Today about how proponents really shouldn't expect a shouting angry march to cause people to have changes of hearts. All told, very few proponents are calling this march a rousing success.

But that's not the whole story. While we can look at the attendance numbers as 995,000 short of a million, we can also look at them as 5,000 more than ever rallied before for this. Considering that previously this was still a relatively fringe issue, these numbers really weren't that small, especially considering how far many people came for this (though the largest contingents, minus Houston, seemed to come from nearby states). And now, people are talking about this, which really was one of the original goals in the first place.

So all things considered, this weekend was a push. As someone who was there, nothing about it was really that surprising, but the final call is that the rally did its job of being a first step in what's going to be a long struggle.

A slap in the face: One thing that didn't serve as good advertising for the rally was the "Slap Whitey" remark from New York City Councilman Charles Barron. As reported by NewsMax.com:

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health,"

He followed it up by defending it as "black hyperbole" and "oratorial [sic] improvision [sic]." The mainstream news has ignored the comment (I'm sure they'd do the same if the races were reversed). The pundit world, however, has picked up on this.

Personally, I'm tempted to make the offer to him, free of charge or any kind of payback. I know some of you understand.

August 19, 2002

Rally done, lots to do: The Millions For Reparations rally is past, and there's a lot of work to do. Pictures and reviews of what happened over the weekend will be posted soon.

August 15, 2002

Final analysis: It's two days before the march and the pundit world is now brimming with commentary about reparations, with most speaking against it. There's too many to list, but one in particular stood out.

Michelle Malkin has tackled the often asked question of "Well, if you're owed reparations for past crimes, what about me?" But this time, there are actual dollar figures attached. After listing off the various crimes of the past, she concludes:

Crunching the reparations numbers, every American of Spanish descent owes me $514,000 plus compound interest. Adjusted for inflation, every fellow countryman of Japanese descent owes $750,222. California residents owe my family an even $300,000. Alaskans, Hawaiians, Oregonians, Washingtonians, Arizonans and Montanans must pay $75,000 to atone. And anyone else -- white, black or otherwise -- whose family members ingested Filipino-harvested asparagus, peas, cauliflower, onions, tomatoes, grapes or fish, or who burned Filipino-cut firewood, or who lived in homes built of Filipino-sawed lumber from 1923-1947, can settle their debt by sending me a check for $999.99.

As for Russell Simmons, you owe me, too. A free pair of your $65 Phat Classic shoes should cover my pain. I wear a women's size 6-1/2. No sneakers, no peace.

Thank you, Michelle. It's good to get one final reminder of how mad this all is before we head into this weekend.

August 13, 2002

Finally the media is noticing: Five days before the Millions For Reparations march, the media is at last taking note. The Associated Press has covered the march in a recent article.

The only unique item in the article is a curious mention of who is not going to attend:

Major names such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, National Urban League President Hugh Price and Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, were not expected to attend as of Monday.

Now lest we forget, Jesse was on the podium with California Governor Gray Davis as the latter was almost pushing reparations (ie, talking incessantly about how it might be a good idea to investigate, but saying nothing that could be construed as definite support of it). The reaction against it was so deafening that Davis has not ventured anywhere near the topic again. Could it be that even Jackson and the NAACP don't want to be tied to this issue any more? Stay tuned.

August 12, 2002

Barbados president declines reparations: While the UN is trying to force this issue, the president of Barbados is declining any offer to accept reparations payments. In a statement that would be declared racist from the mouths of some others, president Olusegun Obasanjo declared:

...we do not need reparation. our forebears were either participants, accomplices on silent watchers in the slave trade business. So we do not need to ask for reparation.

He does go on to say that those in lands where slaves wound up are more justified in asking for them. But even so:

if we press Europe to pay reparation, Europe will press the Jews to pay and the jews may also press the Romans to pay them, observing that the resultant confusion wil be endless and complex.

Spoken well, Mr. President. Maybe coming from you, people will start to listen.

Movement at the UN: The first step towards reparation payments may have been made at the United Nations. Black World Today columnist Donna Lamb writes about the recent vote to establish a "Working Group of five Independent Experts on People of African Descent."

The United States voted against the creation of this group, but was outvoted, 30-17-4. And lest the purpose of this group not be clear:

Ida Hakim explained, "the force that brought this working group into existence was the reparations movement, so I'm confident that this working group will deal with the subject of restoration and reparations."

There are still quite a lot of people who think that reparations will never see the light of day. I wish I could agree with you.

August 11, 2002

A declaration of war: It's probably not fair for me to suggest that this person speaks for all African Americans, or even all reparations advocates. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored what Bud Johnson writes in his recent column:

In essence, in my own Outer Limits way I'll be at war with this racist nation until somebody apologizes for making me pee on myself because I couldn't use those White only toilets in 1940s' downtown Houston...

...On the real side, the unconquerable African warriors have been pestering and drawing a little blood from America since they got off the boat and will continue to do so until justice and equality translates to peace...

He then goes on to add that "Hey, I don't want to even think about an all out racial war," but for someone who doesn't want to even think about it, he certainly talks about it an awful lot.

So, even though few reparations advocates have answered my questions to them, I ask them now: how do you feel about what Bud is saying? In your own opinion, are you at war with America?

August 7, 2002

"Thousands for reparations:" It's been my presumption that the main reason that upcoming march got the name "Millions For Reparations" was to leave an escape hatch in case millions didn't show up. That way, if the turnout was much lower, organizers could fall back and say, "Oh no, we meant millions of dollars, not people."

A quote from a Black World Today article today shows this might be the case:

The historic Millions for Reparations Mobilization, August 17th in Washington, D.C. is rapidly gaining momentum. Thousands of Africans in America and our allies will be in the nation?s capital

"Rapidly gaining momentum," eh? Don't know about you, but if only thousands show up, then "historic" is not the word I would use to describe it. The rest of the article is the usual "America is the devil" tripe, and not worth a reply.

August 6, 2002

Black journalists show their objectivity: Last Friday Jesse Lee Peterson of BOND (Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny) debated Michael Eric Dyson of the University Of Pennsylvania in an event sponsored by the National Association of Black Journalists. Jesse's description of his reception sums up the objective nature of these "reporters":

"I opened my remarks by stating that black Americans don't need reparations, what they need are two-parent households with good fathers leading them. And yes, they should get educated, but that will not repair the moral and physical damage that has taken place over the last forty years. Immediately, the crowd erupted with boos and laughter. During the question and answer period, Dyson, one of the heads of the NABJ, and others in the audience called me ignorant and accused me of being 'the white man's boy,'" added Rev. Peterson;

Not to worry Jesse: through actions like these, such organizations are showing themselves for what they are: partisan groups disguised under the umbrella of "journalism." Keep up the good work.

August 5, 2002

No answer from Fleischer: Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary for President Bush was asked about the upcoming Millions For Reparations march by a report for WorldNetDaily. He wound up giving a non-response, saying he had answered this question last year.

No one wants to touch this one, but sooner or later someone will have to. If nothing else, August 17th will be a showcase for who's willing to stand up on this issue, on either side.

August 1, 2002

Houston says no: Houston City Council yesterday voted against backing John Conyer's annual bill to investigate the possibility of slavery reparations.

Protestors naturally arrived for the vote, and one summed it up perfectly:

Activist Quannel X used a noose to illustrate his support at Tuesday's session.

"If you forgot, remember this," he said as he held up the rope.

There's no need worry about me forgetting that. That's exactly what I see in every reparations proponent: a person raising his own noose.

July 29, 2002

A loud silence: It's less than three weeks until the Millions For Reparations march, and the media is dead silent. Not a peep from any news organization that I've been able to find. And Usenet and web board browsing reveals only a very small handful of people talking about going.

This isn't meant to be a prediction, since I don't claim to be able to tell the future. However, any rally that I would expect millions to show up for should be generating more buzz than this one is so far.

Hearing in NY: The City Council of New York held a reparations hearing last week, on July 22nd. This is reported in The Black World Today, so naturally there's not a negative remark about the hearing to be found.

Yet we continue to find arguments against reparations in the very words of their supporters. From the testimony:

When you look at the statistics that define the quality of life--infant mortality, healthcare, life expectancy, wealth, unemployment, incarceration--and you compare the statistics of the Black and Latino community with that of the white community, you would swear you were talking about 2 different nations...

Now the numbers are probably true. But if the reason that this is so is because of the "legacy of slavery," then why is the Latino community lumped in there as well?

From there a supporter might be tempted to try to find some "atrocity" that befell Latino-Americans to justify their claim. And if we do that, then there's just about no one in this country who isn't owed money. I challenge someone to find some sort of ethnic group in America which hasn't experienced some level of hostility.

July 24, 2002

It's also responsible for Haley's comet: Commentators such as John Perazzo have been pointing out for some time that the true causes of black poverty center around modern issues such as high teen pregnancy rates, and not a "legacy of slavery". Now a group in Orlando is claiming they are one in the same:

To [Peola] Dews, 66, the effects of an institution that ended 139 years ago are still alive. Slavery fostered low self-esteem among blacks that has led to today's high teen-pregnancy and crime rates, among other problems, she said.

Given this twisted logic, it's clear that for some reparations supporters, absolutely anything done wrong by any black man or woman today is not their fault, but due to the paralyzing effects on them of something that ended generations before they were born. It's stuff like this that makes me pessimistic about us being able to talk things out, as much as I still prefer that method.

July 15, 2002

Dealing with Sudan: The Village Voice on Friday ran an article about the Bush's administration refusal to cut off economic ties with Sudan despite the prevalence of harsh slave conditions there. The article quotes John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International as he describes the conditions there:

Psychological and physical torture is an integral component of Sudanese slavery. Of the former slaves we have interviewed extensively, more than 70 percent of the females over the age of 10 reported being raped by their masters. More than 90 percent of all freed slaves claim to have been beaten frequently. Forced conversion to Islam is commonplace, and many said they witnessed executions of disobedient slaves.

So now the question: why do reparations supporters never (at least that I've seen) address the fact that there exists slavery in our world today? The web site Iabolish.com, in fact, estimates that there are at least 27 million people ensalved in the world right now.

Making this a tougher question is the fact that, as much as reparations supporters often try to portray American slavery as somehow being in a class seperate from all other slavery that's ever existed in the extent of its cruelty, as the article indicates, things in Sudan are at least as bad as they were here in America (and arguably much worse). And there are plenty more examples than that.

Is it really so much to get just one response from anyone in favor of reparations payments to answer why they care so passionately about what happened to Africa centuries ago, but say virtually nothing about the slavery that continues to exist there today? I'm sorry if you've been working on this as well, but if you have, I certainly haven't seen it, and I've been looking.

July 12, 2002

Yet another "legacy" of slavery: CNSnews article reports today that N'COBRA has pointed to the differences in coronary heart disease (CHD) death rates between blacks and whites as part of the legacy of slavery. When the study concluded that it was lifestyle habits that needed to most be addressed, their response was:

"Ultimately, you can say that an individual has a responsibility for themselves [but] if you understand what the historical roots of those things are, then you cannot expect a people who have lived a certain way" to be able to change unhealthy habits, like smoking or eating too much junk food, said Kibibi Tyehimba, co-chair of the Washington, D.C. chapter of (N'COBRA), which is hosting a pro-reparations march on Washington August 17.

There you have it. You need to pay reparations because it's your fault someone else smokes too many cigarettes. They can't help it, after all:

"We still carry with us many of the thoughts, expectations and stereotypes" of the slavery and Jim Crow eras, said [NAACP member Hilary] Shelton.

Then don't carry them any more. If you do, it's only you that is weighing yourself down.

He obviously needs reparations too: FOX News reports today the real reason behind Michael Jackson's recent outburst about the "racist" music industry: he's broke. And why is he broke? I don't know. It could have something to do with his 120 paid assistants. Or perhaps it's the zoo that he keeps at home. Or then again, it could have to do with the fact that he remixes songs over and over again, oblivious to how much they cost.

Part of his complaint was that Sony didn't do enough to promote his new album Invincible. This is disproven by one little fact: it debuted at #1. The only way for that to happen is for people to know about the album ahead of time, meaning that it was well marketed. Yet once people listened to it, it crashed off the charts like an anchor. I listen to excerpts from each track myself, and heard all of one song that I liked, and don't remember which one it is now. So MJ spent $30 million to produce this dud, nobody wanted it, and now it's "the man's" fault?

Is it clear yet why we're tired of this song? The man who had the biggest album in history, and sold a staggering 58 million albums total in the United States alone, is going bankrupt because he sneezes into platinum kleenexes, re-produces music until it's about as natural as a can of Spam, and is now telling some white guy still struggling with his student loans that it's all his fault for keeping him down. Exactly how ridiculous is this all going to get before people realize that the race card needs to be burned?

(Shameless plug for bands I like): To see what kind of music can be produced for significantly less than $30 million, listen to this quickly rising group, or this gem that I stumbled upon a few years ago.

July 11, 2002

Reparations to Americans?: Why not? If we're going to follow the same logic as those of slavery reparations proponents, then the lawsuit filed by American POWs against multinational companies that they performed slave labor for makes perfect sense. One of the former POWs even put it in rather familiar terms:

"This really isn't about the money. It's about holding them accountable. We paid a penalty greater than anybody understands ... and then our own government tells us we don't deserve that. Can you believe it?"

Do these sentiments ring a bell? I do have respect for someone who risks their lives for others, yet my feelings towards this are the same as for those who seek American slavery reparations: it's over. In this case we even have a treaty that says so, though the plantiffs predictably say that it doesn't apply to them.

So I once again put this to the floor for those in favor of slavery reparations to address: tell me, exactly how do you feel about this case, and why?

July 9, 2002

And now a word...: Since things are quiet, and since a few people have been good about helping spread the word about this site, offered advice, had email talks with me, and generally spread some nice, well-cooked karma around, I thought I'd take this opportunity to bring some of them to your attention, so please give these guys some love, and traffic as well:

• League Of The South: An excellent southern-heritage based site, with a fantastic summary of the US Civil War. All of the simplification that we try to perform on this complex period is shattered by a piercing question that makes you wonder why more people don't ask it: "Why was the United States the only country to fight a civil war to end slavery?"

• Adversity.Net Very extensive site about reverse-discrimination, run by a really great guy, Tim Fay. He's been personally fighting against race-based injustice for years, and knows first-hand just how bad things are getting. Some of the horror stories that he lists on his site are indeed just that. Check out, for example, the story of the black man who had his business taken from him for refusing to accept special perks from the government. Is there still anyone out there who wants to claim that these kinds of policies don't induce dependency?

• Project 21: One of the alternatives to the NAACP, Project 21 includes as one of its main men Michael King, who has written some excellent material for this subject and others. Check out this piece, which has been getting some media attention.

There are other organizations to be sure (we cannot leave out BOND and Frontpage Magazine), and I really am working to get more of this kind of information on the site. In the meantime, these guys have both done good work, and have been really friendly to WWP's efforts (Tim and Michael are both pledgees, in fact), so I wanted to make sure they got plenty of good word from anyone who is interested in this issue.

July 8, 2002

Beyond irony: At some point, a hypocritical statement reaches a level that's awe-inspiring. When someone says something that's so perfectly against everything they support and they produce, you almost have to admire its audacity.

The Herald, the state-run newspaper of Zimbabwe, has (prepare to be shocked), come out in favor of reparations. In an editorial entitled, West needs to pay Africa reparations (which doesn't even list an author name beyond "By a Correspondent"), the Herald goes off about the usual litany of charges against the West, peppered with slams against most of Western culture. Part of what's included in there is a statement that African countries, while receiving reparations payments, should still be free to choose their own form of government (a statement I don't disagree with, at least the latter half). But part of the justification for this was jaw-dropping:

After all it is socialism, not capitalism, which keeps the morally/ethically correct principle of sharing on the agenda thereby ensuring that every member of the society has a decent access to his share of the national cake.

I think that's only second to tanks breaking down the Branch Davidian's walls while simultaneously blaring out "This is not an attack!" People are falling over like flies in Zimbabwe due to starvation, a direct result of President Mugabe's anti-white land policy, and while watching the death toll accelerate, the country's propoganda machine proudly pronounces this as proof of their superior way of life, but, um, they still need America's money.

No wonder no one signed their name to it. It really makes you wonder just what they would have to say or do before those who claim to be supporting Africa would actually begin talking about them, and maybe even condemning them. If any of you reparations supporters out there have a response to this, I'd be glad to hear it.

July 1, 2002

Questions answered, answers questioned: A list of reasons why they are marching in August has been posted, and a response to them has been written. You can find them both here.

As is the case with most arguments in favor of reparations, this one meanders all over the map, making sweeping but completely unclear charges. This unfortunately is necessary, because the only specific "crimes" that can be listed were performed by dead people on dead people. So it probably will continue to be the case that we'll be subjected to phrases like "crimes against humanity", and other emotional but contentless charges.

June 25, 2002

We're back: You may have noticed that the news section (or any of the site for that matter) hasn't been updated much recently. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that for a while (middle of June, mainly), there really wasn't much to report, and I didn't want to be loading this page up with trivia. The issue was simply taking a lull while the War on Terror took up most of the headlines.

The other reason is that even once things did start picking up again, I've been busy with some items of my own (a wedding and a tournament, both within a week of each other). However, we're still here, and now that this is all done the site will be getting back to its more frequent updates. Thanks for your patience.

June 10, 2002

Rally grievances aired: The Millions For Reparations march is just over two months away, and Conrad W. Worrill, Chairman of the National Black United Front, has generated a list of reasons for why, "They Owe Us!"

The list is sadly representative of the reparations mindset. Every problem that any black might have in their lives is traced back, often through highly suspect if not ludicrous logic, until some white man is found, and at that point the search ends: the personal responsible has now been discovered. Of course, you could just as easily perform the same process until you found someone with blue eyes to blame. About the only thing that's surprising about the list is that the "white man" didn't get blamed for earthquakes, sunspots and the extinction of the dinosaur. I'd also make a mention about diseases, but I've already once seen AIDS described as a disease invented to wipe out the "black man", so I probably shouldn't give anyone any more ideas.

May 28, 2002

Peterson speaks: Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, head of the organization B.O.N.D., began recently a national speaking tour to stop reparations. Yesterday he appeared on FOX News to discuss the reasons behind this tour:

I'm doing this national speaking tour to stop reparations now because it is a divisive idea. It's going to divide us like nothing else before in history. The people who are in favor of reparations, people like Jesse Jackson and the so-called liberals, they want to continue to use black Americans for their own personal gain, to gain power and wealth. They have done that by way of governmental programs and affirmative action. If we don't stop this, America will be destroyed. I love this country. This is my country, and I can no longer sit back and allow it to happen.

Also on the Fox News web site today is a column from Ifeminists author Wendy McElroy, saying that it's time for people to begin speaking out without fear of being labeled.

My thoughts exactly. A consensus, it seems, is coalescing.

May 22, 2002

Working for Africa?: Another excellent column from Frontpage Magazine writer John Perazzo. This time, he details a partial laundry list of government sponsored nightmares, all occuring in Africa, all virtually unspoken of by the same civil rights leaders who claim to be fighting for that continent.

This phenomenom is not restricted to the most prominent civil rights leaders. Grass roots groups that push for reparations often describe their fight as one in defense of Africa after "years of devastation by European-Americans," or some other similar description. Yet while feeling the pain of people dead for centuries, their pain sensors go curiously numb when the present situation in Zimbabwe is brought up, and as a result you'd be hard-pressed to find any mention of it on their web sites: to date, I haven't.

If any pro-reparations organization out there can prove me wrong, and show me that they are truly and equally against all racial hatred, regardless of who is on which side of the gun, feel free to write to me, and I'll be more than happy to include your information as a positive counter-example.

May 21, 2002

Who do they speak for?: The Village Voice today ran a rather interesting column about how inner-city blacks are reacting to the reparations movement. The resulting answer is striking: most of them don't know about it, and many of them that do know, don't care.

There are a lot of quotes in the article that are more than a bit illuminating, too many to go over. But despite the fact that the author of the article is generally in favor of reparations, she concedes a point that others in the article also allude to: that those people screaming loudest for reparations are a different set of people than those who are supposedly the people who most need it. And when you think about the nature of their message, this actually makes too much sense.

May 20, 2002

Reliving the past: And reliving it and reliving it...

On Usenet it is being reported that there are now "Slave Camps" sprouting up, one stated as being near Memphis. For a fee, you can "relive the slave experience", at least as its customers choose to relive it, with chains, whips, and plenty of crying.

This is another one of those things that I just can't comment on: if you don't see the wrongness in this, I'm not sure anything I can say will help you to. Although to semi-quote one reaction to this, if this is the kind of thing you're saying you need money for, you're not making your case for reparations too well.

May 16, 2002

Blacks revolting?: The fact that not all blacks like this idea is finally getting some media coverage. Deborah Kong writes about blacks who are standing up to this mess.

Joe Hicks, one of the people discussed in the article, states that reparations would be "an insult to hard-working blacks to insist they need some kind of government aid because of something that happened over a century ago". I know that I would feel that way if anyone for any reason insisted that I couldn't make it without their help.

Of course that happens even with people who are successful. A black man or woman who does rise in today's society gets met with the charge that they wouldn't have made it without affirmative action, or welfare, or some governmental initiative. Really, thinking about it, isn't it just a little less impressive to be the person who's always saying "You wouldn't have succeeded if it weren't for me," then it is to be the person who actually succeeds?

May 14, 2002

Like I was saying...: I recently wrote a column about how I really don't enjoy this, and do it only because the nature of the message of reparations proponents is one that is not about fixing a problem, but instead making sure that there is wrong that can be eternally held over the heads of others.

As if feeling the obligation to prove my point, Randall Robinson, chief general of the reparations army, gives a speech in which "forever wronged" seems to be his central theme. Read it for yourself, and see if you don't get the same impression.

"We can't all make it like Oprah [Winfrey]," he states. Correct, sort of (only Oprah can make it like Oprah). But people like Oprah and the scores of individuals that we can easily rattle of the top of our head proves that there is no wall. It's not necessarily that everyone can make it: it's that there is no external force in existence that makes it impossible. To quote a certain bard, "The problem, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves."

May 13, 2002

Shades of gray: The news on the reparations front has been quiet for the last week or so. So it's good timing that a pair of items were released yesterday dealing with a topic vital to the reparations debate: namely, that slavery wasn't the simplistic good-vs-evil cartoon that it's often made out to be but was, rather, an institution that occured during a time and place in which new ideas were exploding into a young country's consciousness, creating all manners of conflict, confusion, pain, and even hope.

"Hope" you say? Take a look at the story of Marie Therese Coincoin. It's a lot more than that, to be sure, but that's due to one of the central points of the article anyway, which is to show the immense social complexity that the institution of slavery created, showcased through the life of someone who started out slave, and ended up slave owner.

Also echoing that complexity is the new novel "Walk Through Darkness". It's a great sign when a comtemporary black man can approach such topics with a lucidity that this review states he has (I haven't read the book myself). Now if we can get more people to stop looking at the world by classifying everyone into simplistic categories, we might have a shot at ending a lot more problems than just the reparations debate.

May 8, 2002

Lawsuit dismissed: While most of the country's attention is on the two recent lawsuits filed against private companies, little mention is being made of the dismissal yesterday of a federal lawsuit filed by three board members of N'COBRA. An appeal is planned. This one doesn't look like it's going anywhere, but with today's legal system anything is possible.

Africa's role in the trade: John Perazzo is simply one of the finest writers today on the subject of race relations in America. His current column in Frontpage Magazine is an example of why. For instance, while it's long been known that American slaves weren't just created out of thin area, John points out that African tribal contigents actually fought against Britian's attempts at abolition. It's facts like these that really need to get out if we're going to have any meaningful discussion of this issue.

May 6, 2002

Burning the race card: While Gray Davis ponders whether or not California should formally join the reparations fight, another battle is being fought there. A poll just released showed that a near majority would support the Racial Privacy Initiative, which if enacted would eliminate racial classifications from nearly all state laws and documents. Ward Connerly, who also was responsible for California's anti-affirmative-action initiative, was the author for this one, saying the state should not "define people by their hyphens." Beautifully put, sir.

South Carolina next target: With California and Georgia in the fray, Jesse Jackson has descended upon South Carolina, and told them to catch the wave. So far reaction hasn't been strong, but as Neal Boortz points out, it looks like proponents are starting to realize that private companies are probably an easier target than trying to get taxpayer dollars. Of course, as Neal also points out, this still pretty much encompasses everyone.

Another "atrocity" comparison: One constant counter-argument in the reparations debate is from people who are the possible progeny of other past wrongs, the Jewish slavery in ancient Egypt being one of the most popular. However, Michael P. Tremoglie of David Horowitz's Frontpage Magazine has just written a devastating piece about the destruction of the Sicilian civilization at the hands of the Arabian Empire.

It's things like this that people should remember whenever proponents talk about American slavery being "The worst holocaust in human history," or other such hyperbole. In reality, human history is replete wich such "holocausts," and most of them involve cultural disasters that few people know anything about. This one in particular should be just asked of anyone who attempts such dramatizing (while again, for all who would assume otherwise, not ignoring the wrongness that was our peculiar institution).

May 4, 2002

Georgia joins the fray: Georgia's become the second state to probe insurance companies about their history of issuing slave policies, joining California in their release of similar information earlier this week. I'm not sure exactly what prompted Georgia Commissioner John Oxendine to suddenly take this up, but I'm taking this as another sign that this issue is gaining steam.

Fox News is also reporting that Gray Davis and Jesse Jackson had planned another joint press conference, and that it was cancelled shortly after Fox called to ask about it. Combining this with the fact that Davis wouldn't commit to answering a direct question about whether or not he thought reparations would be a good idea, and the Republicans' glee over the entire episode, and one wonders whether or not Davis is thinking twice about exactly what it is that he's stepped in.

Site redesign: The new web site design is now before you. Some parts need content of course (such as this news section), but outside of adding a discussion board, the site is essentially done. If all goes well this should give me more time to devote to this.