Either Alan Keyes has lost his mind, or he’s getting back at The Man. You may have heard of The Man. He’s responsible for all that ails the black community.
Keyes is now a slave reparations proponent. A commenter at Ramblings’ Journal suggested (tongue-in-cheek?) that Keyes may be taking revenge on the Illinois GOP for using him as a token. I wasn’t following this story because frankly, I couldn’t care less about Keyes or the race in Illinois; however, now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t figure out why else Keyes would support such nonsense.
This is why I’m not a liberal, and I thought it was the reason why Keyes wasn’t a liberal. Without the ability to read his mind, I have no idea why he’s supporting reparations. The possibility that gets top billing is his desire, subconscious or otherwise, to mock the GOP while garnering publicity for himself.
According to the Chicago Tribune (registration req.):
Speaking at a news conference at the Hotel InterContinental in Chicago, Republican Keyes added to his now familiar talking points his stance on slavery reparations.Prompted by a reporter’s question, Keyes gave a brief tutorial on Roman history and said that in regard to reparations for slavery, the U.S. should do what the Romans did: “When a city had been devastated [in the Roman empire], for a certain length of time — a generation or two — they exempted the damaged city from taxation.”
Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes — federal because slavery “was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment.” In calling for the tax relief, Keyes appeared to be reaching out to capture the black vote, something that may prove difficult to do, particularly after his unwelcome reception at the Bud Billiken Day Parade Saturday.
Keyes released a statement to “clarify” his position:
I have consistently opposed the effort to extort monetary damages from the American people. As I have argued in the past, the great sacrifices involved in the Civil War represented the requital in blood and treasure for the terrible injustices involved in slavery. In this form the so called “reparations” movement represents an insult to the historic commitment that many Americans made to the end of slavery, which included the sacrifice of their lives.I have also consistently maintained that the history of slavery, racial segregation and discrimination did real damage to black Americans, left real and persistent material wounds in need of healing….
The idea I have often put forward to address this challenge involves a traditionally Republican, conservative and market-oriented approach: removing the tax burden from the black community for a generation or two in order to encourage business ownership, create jobs and support the development of strong economic foundations for working families.
This has the advantage of letting people help themselves, rather then (sic) pouring money into government bureaucracies that displace and discourage their own efforts. It takes no money from other citizens, while righting the historic imbalance that results from the truth that black slaves toiled for generations at a tax rate that was effectively 100 percent.
Mr. Keyes, why stop at a generation or two? Why not remove the tax burden in perpetuity? The statement is akin to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s in Grutter about how we pitiful, low-achieving black folks need skin color preferences for 25 more years so we can catch up with regular Americans.
Let’s talk about the “righting” assertion. The first “righting” we did was dismantling slavery. My goodness, wasn’t that enough? What wouldn’t present-day slaves in the Sudan give to see the same happen for them and their children? Freedom, precious freedom, is worth its weight in gold.
The second “righting” was erasing Jim Crow from the books. Rightly or wrongly, America created a “protected class” of people whose skin color, once used against them, now works in their favor to bestow all kind of government goodies. And blacks want more? At whose expense?
Keyes tries to eat his cake and have it, too. He sounds so much like a liberal it’s scary. While using free market terms and concepts to “trick” conservatives, he’s really pandering to a certain race of Americans, something I and many conservatives speak out against daily.
If this makes whites angry, it should. It makes me angry, too, especially when I see a bunch of limousine liberals (and one conservative?) serving up this jive. It’s all a scam, nothing more. Who will pay? The descendants of Arabs who sold Africans into slavery? Other Africans who sold their countrymen and women into slavery? How do we parse the ethnic make-up of individuals in order to calculate how much they owe/are owed?
But of course, proponents know this is un-workable, so the plan is to scam…I meant, skim off the top of the U.S. Treasury rather than figuring all that out. Clever. Fallen man is always trying to get more unearned and undeserved stuff. Nothing new under the sun. In fact, Rep. John Conyers, who I think should retire, introduces a “reparations study” bill every year that goes nowhere. Yet. As long as he’s living (in or out of office) I suspect he’ll keep trying.
You will never read or hear me argue that slavery and segregation did no damage to black Americans. That educated people come up with ideas like slavery reparations over a century after the fact is enough evidence of how racial divisiveness, real victimhood and degradation are manifested in misplaced guilt of whites who weren’t even alive during slavery and manipulation by blacks seeking more government perks to avenge the bondage of ancestors who rest in their graves. That was a long sentence. Tired now.
My take on reparations is that blacks already receive reparations in the form of welfare, skin color preferences (government perks for “minority-owned businesses, lower admissions standards, protected class status, etc.) and white guilt that still exists among descendants of whites who lived during slavery whether they owned slaves or not.
Early in my “career”, I wrote a scathing anti-reparations piece that I sent to several major newspapers. An editor at the Baltimore Sun wanted to publish it. He called me to verify that I was the person who sent in the op-ed, and he gave me a target date for publication.
A week or so later I e-mailed him to confirm the date, and he told me the piece wouldn’t be published after all. He implied that it was too “rant and rave.” I asked why he wanted to publish it in the first place if it was too “rant and rave.” What changed? No response. I have reason to believe his boss was a black woman (long story) who didn’t like the piece, so she nixed it when he brought it to her. It was a little incendiary. 
I may dig it up and post it for your enjoyment.
In conclusion, as the descendant of African slaves, I’d opt out of any reparations program, whether it be a full tax-exemption, a big fat check or one received at the first of every month, like welfare. I want no part of government guilt schemes.
Consider this Part I. I have much more to say.
Check out these articles: David Horowitz’s “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks — and Racist Too” is a classic. It will anger you black liberals, so be warned.
Does America Owe Reparations?, by Walter Williams.
A Conservative Slave Reparations Plan?
Bloggers:
Brian Scott, Outside the Beltway, Michelle Malkin, Blogs of War, Evangelical Outpost, The World Wide Rant, The Moderate Voice, Nykola.com, Avery Tooley, Booker Rising
