Today, I was very busy and I was not planning to post anything else on NeoRepublica, but after reading this article on slavery I could not help myself. First off, as I often do for the benefit of those who care about class, race, ethnicity, etc. I am a mixed race American of Cuban descent. Cubans, on the island, can be broken down racially as 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 mulato or mixed (this is for simplicity’s sake, accurate statistics are unknown). Enough of that though, it is not that relevant. This article was written by a self-described “white” American who is the descendant of slave-traders and from reading this article it looks like the guilt of participating in the slave-trade has spilled across the generations.

Katrina Browne

What she writes is one part liberalism at its finest and another part absolute irrationality (some may say that I am being redundant). Essentially, she concludes that because of the ripples in history caused by America’s history of racially-based slavery and discrimination, apologies are not enough and she “believe[s] [that] we do need more reckoning.” She wrote that equal rights and affirmative action are not enough. This is one of the myriad of reasons that people cite to make the case for some sort of economic redistribution or class preference and all that it does is undermine American freedom.

First let’s talk about the racial part. As a member of a minority group, more importantly, as a dark person (compared to “white” people) in America, I can attest that there is nothing in this world except the degree of my personal effort that has held me down or allowed me to succeed. Even my father, who spoke no English and whose Afro hairstyle would make Ludacris cringe, was able to pick himself up form his bootstraps without worrying about the “privileges” of the “white guy” next door.

Luda

No white privilege stopped me from reading books. No white privilege stopped me from rejecting a culture of mediocrity (these subcultures exist in all communities, “white punks", “black gangsters,” “latin thugs,” etc.) No white privilege stopped me from gaining an education. I could go on, but Katrina Browne personally insults me when she wraps her real condescension in “white guilt” by expressing that the poor “brown people” of the world cannot do anything because “the man” has held them down. If anything, Katrina Browne holds my ethnic “brothers” down with their hand-outs and their affirmative action by allowing us to profit from our race or ethnicity and not our sweat and intellect. So let’s first be clear, race is not a handicap.

Second, if people want to make the case that historical circumstance must be taken into account in the present in order to truly create better society, then we cannot stop with slavery… the list of actions taken by this nation and others against particular racial or ethnic groups is ridiculously extensive. What should we do about the Native Americans who were killed by both disease and military action at the hands of the United States? Should we surrender our entire civilization to them, given that this land was “theirs” before it was “ours"? How about the country of Cuba, where the entire native Taino people were destroyed? How do they distribute “reparations” or whatever other form of compensation? Technically speaking, US crimes against Native Americans and their descendants were very terrible and the inequalities that persist to this day are a result of “our” actions.

But why stop at the United States? Why not go back to Great Britain where the persecution of heretics was prevalent during the 16th and 17th centuries? Or Spain, for their treatment of Jews and Muslims during the Inquisition? Or to any country that ever engaged in any form of discrimination? Why not go back as far as all of documented history and if ever, any nation has discriminated against any race or ethnicity that a person is descended from, why not give that person some form of reparations? Adjusted for inflation, this will make a lot of random individuals in the present very rich for crimes committed by people in the past, a past now represented by certain countries and people in the present. As for me, I will be super-rich. I am certain I have African, Spanish, Native, and maybe even Arab heritage which, depending if they ever lived as a discriminated minority in any country that still exists today, means that I may be getting a good number of checks in the mail. Add to that the fact that I am also of Italian descent that I may get a check for the US internment of Italian-Americans during WWII. Hurray for racial reparations!

This Armenian-American received this chain from the Turkish gov’t as Reparations(jk)

Third, what about immigrants who arrived at this country after slavery was abolished? Are they exempt from having to “do more"? Or are they only exempt if they are not white, given that “white” people have “benefited” from the oppression of African-Americans? I wonder if I have to surrender some of my hard earned money or if my children will have to sit in the back of the bus because other people we are not related to oppressed some other people we are not related to many years ago. Collective punishment for a collective crime will punish people who did not benefit at all from the crime, people who benefited marginally, people who did benefit most, and ironically enough it will punish the people who were oppressed to begin with. The promotion of redistribution of wealth only drives away wealth and rewards people (in the present) on the basis of some genetic coincidence and not effort. The overall effect on America will be to make everyone poorer: less wealthy people, less investment, less businesses, less jobs, less overall opportunity for those poor oppressed minorities.

Fourth, Browne’s insistence that “love” of our fellow man should drive this redistributive experiment is misleading. If she means that out of personal affection we reach out to our fellow man, sure why not, if it’s our free choice? But this is not her intent. She insists that the state take the responsibility of fixing these “disparate outcomes” that exist today in society. The only way that government taking away one person’s wealth and giving it to another on the basis of race won’t be considered robbery is if we love the government for it. How Orwellian. Forced redistribution is “love.”

In totality, what she expresses here is a view of history that would have us look backwards forever until all historical grievances are addressed. Should the Christians continue to persecute the Jews for their complicity in Jesus Christ’s death? This is similar logic: collective punishment for a particular grievance carried out by particular people who are already dead. Luckily, reality is much different. The only way for humanity to progress (yes, that lefty word) is for societies to be forward looking (within reason, some introspection and retrospection is sometimes necessary). We must strive to create conditions and institutions so that the mistakes and crimes of the past are not allowed to occur ever again. We must make sure that there are no more Holocausts, no more slave trades, no more political persecution… and one day we will also realize that there should be no more ever-intrusive governments. If the crime of slavery was giving benefit to one race to the detriment of another, then the solution cannot be the same action in the opposite direction… the solution must be to abolish any system that is NOT colorblind. We can only start setting the foundation for a better world today… otherwise we will forever be condemned to answer for crimes and inequalities perpetrated by people who no longer exist and who have no relation to many in the present.

The truth is that the Left will look for any and every excuse to place the “collective good” or, as Browne writes, “the public good” above individual achievement and individual rights. Race is one of these excuses. I’ll let the Brownes of the world know that while they worry about their historical guilt and historical “disparate outcomes” I will make sure that I live my American Dream… I will live it without worrying about anyone else’s privileges… and I will live it because I have the freedom and the right to. I will not have it derailed by the ancient crimes of people who have neither benefited me through “privilege” nor have any relation to me… and I would hope that no American would have their dreams derailed by the irrational arguments I read in that article.

-AG