From the September 2002 Idaho Observer:

Black Reparations: The Ultimate Prize

(The next fraudulent crusade by black elites in the name of the poor)

by Elizabeth Wright

What are black youth to make of the adults around them who insist that their life chances are “limited” due to the enslavement of their ancestors, the segregation of their ancestors, and the mistreatment of their ancestors? Should they assume that all the black men and women who have lived since those troublesome times were powerless to construct productive lives beyond those past ordeals? Should they assume that they too are just as powerless to move beyond this past adversity, unless and until bundles of money, this time in the form of official “reparations” for the labor of those ancestors, are delivered to them?

As readers have learned from the pages of Issues & Views, in the years much closer to slavery than we now live, blacks founded and ran their own towns, owned and prospered on millions of dollars worth of land, formed so many successful businesses that it necessitated formation of the National Negro Business League, directed their own schools and colleges -- all of this long before the 1950s.

Yet now, according to the custodians of the race, the “residue” of the slave experience pierces so deeply into the psyches and immediate lives of blacks, that only more monetary resources from whites can heal the wounds and finally eliminate what these worthies are calling the “lingering negative effects” of slavery. Could it be that the injuries done to blacks that are lingering the longest are those caused by a perverse poverty industry, that sprung up on the backs of the poor since the 1960s, and is crafted and run primarily by black elites?

The demand for monetary reparations for blacks, which started back during the days of Abolition, began as a direct demand for compensation from the federal government. But reparations advocates have moved further on, and resolutions now are being submitted, city by city, to selected municipal councils throughout the country. In each case, there is a call for official hearings to discuss “compensation to the contemporary victims of American slavery and the century of de jure racial discrimination that succeeded it.” This past May, in Chicago, such a resolution was passed, making it the first city to comply with the request of reparations advocates.

On the federal level, in Congress, Bill H.R. 40 is currently pending in committee. This bill calls first for the appropriation of millions of dollars to establish a Commission that will “study” various reparations proposals. The prospective members of this Commission, who are described as “experts in the field of African-American studies,” will be paid as government employees and “reimbursed for travel, subsistence, and other necessary expenses.” The members will ultimately determine the nature and amount of compensation due to “eligible” blacks.

Like the Jewish moguls who are successfully using the clout of the United States Government to extort funds from European governments and businesses, to supposedly compensate Holocaust victims of World War II, the advocates of black reparations envision billions of dollars to be utilized for multiple financial schemes -- for “collective development,” as some call it.

Already the proposals for utopian programs abound: A leading reparations advocate suggests two massive “enterprise banks,” one each to be formed on the East Coast and West Coast -- with smaller funding entities in between. These banks will supposedly distribute funds for such noble ventures as the creation of businesses, the building and/or maintenance of schools, and sundry other projects to be announced. Guess who gets to administer and supervise all this cash? Along with the Usual Suspects and old-line “povereticians” are a raft of new caretakers waiting in the wings.

And on and on it goes. It would appear that the black masses are forever doomed to be the milk cow of cunning elites. From the usurpation of a principled leadership by rogues, to the redirection of black energies away from indigenous economic development, to a welfare system and poverty programs that undermined the authority of black men on their own home ground, to an affirmative action system that thrives on the notion of black inferiority -- and now on to “reparations.” One scam after another teaches young blacks that they must forever look to whites for resources and solutions.

When, like other ethnic groups throughout history, American blacks were pressured to do for themselves, they proved their mettle and, by the 1950s, had grown an impressive middle class. Members of this dominant class, however, faced with the liberating prospect of integration, proved how shallow they were -- first by abandoning their critical economic role in black communities and, in fleeing, by eliminating themselves as a moral presence. Out of this class came the managers and overseers of the trillions of dollars that were funneled into the decades-long “War on Poverty” -- the war that was designed to end the misery of the poor. It is this middle class that was the primary beneficiary of the War's largesse.

Contrary to the inventive fabrications of reparations advocates, there is neither a straight nor curved line from slavery to the present plight of the poor. This lie must be disseminated, however, in order to justify the current demand for reparations. How could it be that more black families were intact and with fathers in the home in the 1940s and 1950s (a period chronologically closer to slavery) than in the 1970s? Why is it that income trends were steadily rising for blacks from the 1940s into the early 1960s, but had dipped by the 1970s? Something happened during these later decades that impacted negatively on masses of blacks. That something had the full compliance and assistance of the black leadership.

It was the state's corrupting social programs, driven by its promise of a guaranteed living, that helped to foster the births of thousands of illegitimate children to immature young people -- a guarantee of perpetual poverty. Without the economic incentives designed by liberal elites and sanctioned by black leaders, there is little likelihood that the black family would have deteriorated to the degree that it did, and this decline certainly was not a residual effect of slavery. Instead, it was the culminating logic of the principle that you get more of what you pay for and create incentives for, and less of what you don't.

Today, illustrious black elites are going for the gold, the ultimate prize -- this time in the form of “reparations.” And, once again, today's crusade, which is expected to fetch billions of dollars, is conducted in the name of the disadvantaged, downtrodden masses. One generation after another has learned too well that to be black means to “play the system,” that is, to bilk, to extort, to run con games on Whitey. Reparations will add to this repertory of shakedowns.

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Note: The article above first appeared in the September 25, 2000 edition of Issues & Views. Elizabeth Wright is the editor of Issues & Views.

One the web: www.issues-views.com