A Fool's Hope

An Obama quote:

"I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

He doesn't say it outright but he implies that the US government ought to give some form of payment to Native and African Americans.

The problem: The perpetrators and the victims of the old injustices are dead. How does that culpability and victimhood transfer over, through multiple decades, to the present generation?

Comments

[Saul Wall]

If I remember my Old Testament correctly, God allows guilt to be passed down through 7 generations. While I think that the UN Human Right's dealie forbid transferring guilt to a perpetrator's ancestors, even the UN doesn't believe in their own human rights law anymore, at least not for Muslim nations. I guess that if O-man is a Muslim then that would apply to the US.

Now we just need to find a way to determine which white people have ancestors going back fewer than 7 generations to slavery and colonization. I am a Canadian and my parents both come from Europe long after the deeds were done so I call "not it".

[Classical Liberal]

Well, I'm a white American, but on my father's side, at least, my immediate ancestors were "po' white trash." My paternal great-grandfather was a sharecropper. He didn't benefit from slavery, he was harmed by it, since he had to compete against not low wage, but no-wage slaves. Should I get reparations too?

Slavery didn't benefit the U.S., it only benefited certain individuals--the slave owners. Others had to compete against the slaves/slave owners. That's how I see it, anyway.

[MikeT]

The only reason to do these reparations is to stoke the fires of resentment in those paying them, so that the "hate" keeps burning. It's good for business, if you're a liberal race baiter.

[TheBraveTruth]

Slaves had it rough. It was unjust—horribly, cruelly unjust, and not to take away from their suffering at the hands of tyrants…but whose ancestors have not endured injustice? Mine endured brutality from a couple different angles (citizenship, race, religion) and that was a lot closer in generation to now than slavery was.

Actually, I was jumped by a gang of blacks because I was white. What did I do wrong? I was friends with a black girl at school, and her friends didn’t like that; so they tried to beat me up. I also didn’t qualify for the majority of grants offered when I went to college (graduated ’96). Why? Because I wasn’t black! You want more intense? My grandfather almost lost his eyes, when a man held him down and burned all around his eyes with a cigar. Why? He was the “wrong” religion – this was in the United States! Other forefathers were starved and forced to leave their country. Why? Wrong citizenship! Other relatives had to hide from the Nazis; for YEARS of their young lives they lived, at great danger to themselves and those hiding them, in a tiny hallway, hidden deep within a house. Do I need to describe what would have happened had they been caught? I hope not. The list goes on…..so where’s my free handout?

My free hand-out is another breath and a new day to get up and go out to make a difference in my life and in the lives of others. Love and value your fellow man, but don’t cripple him with the poisonous lie that the-world-owes-him. Blacks who buy into that make themselves slaves all over again, giving up their power by looking and waiting for someone else to give them something small, instead of working for and now receiving much more. They also drag down the image of the many deserving African Americans, who make the required effort to improve themselves and this country, instead of whining and pointing the finger at the distant past.

Lastly, anyone (including a certain Presidential candidate) who stirs up racism instead of focusing on real solutions in this country should not be given a wide and continuous public forum at government expense, let alone a public office and absolutely not the most powerful public office in the United States. Obama sat under a vehemently outspoken, RACIST preacher for 20 YEARS, but Obama didn’t have the guts to “change” to another church or work within the church system to “change” the pastor. Obama even says this hate-monger ‘preacher’ is “like an uncle to him.” How sick! I clearly see Obama as a deceitful, self-serving racist. [Strong words, which I do not speak lightly.]

Such a man is NOT fit to unite and represent this nation; instead Obama would divide us by his racism, as even his campaigning has already done. I’m going to vote McCain. McCain is not a racist – neither anti-white, nor anti-black. Unlike Obama, McCain doesn’t bring all his personal baggage to the table to complicate the issues and distract us from where we need to focus. This country needs an experienced professional, not some whinny, flip-flopping, double-talking, RACIST.

Mr. Obama, if you’re reading this, let me make it plain:

I respect you as a human being…

in fact, if you were born alive after your mother had tried to abort you, I would hope there were laws in place to protect your right to continue to live (laws which you voted against – you hard-hearted, murderous sicko!)

but that ENORMOUS chip on your shoulder is a HUGE red flag that SCREAMS,
“DANGER to our NATION!”

As I see it, anyone who votes for you is 1) a hate-mongering racist or 2) buying your double-talk. Either way, that fits them into the category of sadly and excruciatingly ignorant!

I think you’re counting on deceiving our newer voters into buying your rhetoric, but our youth is not so gullible. They’re going to see through your double-talk and your subtle, but thoroughly racist attitudes. (Re-read your book! You dis’ your own grandmother for being afraid when a man kept pushing her to give him more money. Your focus was on her race and his, and you paint her as a “typical white woman” instead of being concerned for the safety of the very woman who was raising you! Add ‘twisted’, ‘blind’ and ‘ungrateful’ to your list of attributes!) We see your efforts to revamp and polish your image to intentionally mislead the public in order to get elected. We aren’t buying it!

Many intelligent African Americans don’t want you in office either. They know having you as President will only hurt the African American image and increase resentment and racism against them. They want a solid, effective President, without that racist chip on his shoulder, especially if he’s going to be the first African American President. I wouldn’t vote for you any more than I would vote for a member of the KKK. We would all rather wait for a strong, solid African American candidate to become President. We’ll all know the real thing when he comes along! And when he does, I’ll vote for him myself!

Any way you look at it, voting for you harms, divides and weakens this great nation!

No! Mr. Obama, we cannot afford to have you as President of the United States!
(especially not now!)