Obama Rings the Reparations Bell

By Eileen F. Toplansky

As Black Lives Matters and their allies rev up the call for reparations, it is time to revisit what Milton R. Konvitz wrote in 1976 for the celebration of the Bicentennial of American Independence[1]:

In the late 1960s, when militant blacks staged demonstrations in various churches demanding a half-billion dollars in ‘reparations’ for three hundred years of subjugation and discrimination, a writer in an Anglo-Jewish journal formulated a demand for ‘reparations from various nations on behalf of the Jewish people, including demands to the Vatican for the harm done by teaching that the Jewish people were guilty of deicide and for the  promotion of the blood libel; on Spain for the Inquisition and for the expulsion of Jews in 1492; on Germany France, Austria, and Italy, as successors of the Holy Roman Empire, for imprisoning Jews in ghettos; on Arab governments for oppression of the Jews for hundreds of years; on Russia for forcing Jews to live in the Pale of Settlement, for prohibiting them from owning land, for imposing on Jews a quota system that severely restricted their admission to high school and to the universities.  

As far as Italian-Americans, should they too demand reparations?  How many people are aware of the worst lynching in America — the mass murder of Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891?  Moreover, “Sicilians were viewed by many Americans as culturally backward and racially suspect,” writes historian Manfred Berg.  Because of their dark skin, they were often treated with the same contempt as black people.  In fact,  “many Southerners looked down on these Italians as ‘white Negroes.'”

Then there are the Chinese, who had to deal with “the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  Although the Chinese composed only 0.002 percent of the nation‘s population, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to placate worker demands and assuage concerns about maintaining white ‘racial purity.'”

Moreover, “[f]rom the burning of Boston’s Charlestown Convent in 1834 and the rise of the single-issue, anti-immigrant Know Nothing party in the 1850s … to the No Irish Need Apply signs of the 1890s — immigrant Catholics faced the brunt of Protestant America’s rage.”

Yet Obama, our first black Caucasian president, demands reparations for black Americans.

Former President Obama said earlier this week that the case for reparations for Black Americans is “justified,” but he added that the “politics of white resistance and resentment,” among other issues, made the prospect of pursuing the issue during his presidency a “non-starter.”

White resistance from a man who was voted in by 43% of white voters!

There’s not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country was built in significant part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it — but a large portion of it was built on the backs of slaves[.]

So who is a living slave today in America today, Mr. Obama?  Am I supposed to give you reparations, when my ancestors were suffering in the ghettos of Russia?

Obama claimed that he feared “that reparations would be an excuse for some to say ‘we’ve paid our debt’ and to avoid the much harder work of enforcing our anti-discrimination laws in employment and housing; the much harder work of making sure that our schools are not separate and unequal; the much harder work of providing job training programs and rehabilitating young men coming out of prison every year; and the much harder work of lifting 37 million Americans of all races out of poverty[.]”

Obama is a master of linguistic jujitsu.  Schools are no longer separate but equal.  Also, what do reparations have to do with training programs?  And yes, when will young men be expected to take responsibility for their actions?  Oh, and by the way, impoverishing other Americans to pay for these reparations demands hardly keeps people out of poverty, but it certainly causes racial resentment.

Moreover, as Victor Davis Hanson asks, do we distinguish between African-Americans born in the United States and African and Caribbean immigrants with no histories of ancestors who lived under Jim Crow or were American-based slaves?  How white or Asian or Latino can one be and still qualify for black reparations?

Furthermore, “[i]n our age of identity politics, will Armenian- and Jewish-Americans have equal or more compelling claims as well?  Both groups arrived following the genocides of their own people.  Many had relatives who perished due to discriminatory immigration laws that denied them entry into the United States.  Nearly 8 million Jews and Armenians were murdered in the Nazi and Turkish genocides.  Those totals are 23,000 times greater than the 3,500 blacks believed to have been lynched from 1882–1968 (a period during which 1,300 whites were also lynched).” 

Yet “[t]he case for reparations for Black Americans has picked up more traction on Capitol Hill in recent months after the country saw widespread protests against police brutality and racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd.”

You mean George Floyd, the violent criminal and poster boy for the left, where protests led to massive destruction?

Under the bill, the commission tasked with exploring reparations would examine slavery and discrimination in the country since 1619.

Like clockwork, Marxists distort history and insist that 1619 is the beginning of America.  But America was not even a declared country!  The entire 1619 project is a dishonest account of history.

Proponents for the cause to provide restitution for black Americans say reparations could be essential to helping address inequities and continued effects of slavery that presently exist for the black community.

What continued effects?  Obama employs a non sequitur.  Obama and his allies count on the fact that “Americans across the political spectrum have failed to separate the premise of critical race theory from its conclusion.  Its premise — that American history includes slavery and other injustices, and that we should examine and learn from that history — is undeniable.  But its revolutionary conclusion — that America was founded on and defined by racism and that our founding principles, our Constitution and our way of life should be overthrown — does not rightly, much less necessarily, follow.”

Reparations are just another spoke on the wheel of Critical Race Theory.

And right on schedule, the media support Obama when they write, “It also wouldn’t be the first time the country has paid reparations.  The U.S. previously paid reparations to Japanese Americans that were interned during World War II.”

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