I discovered recently in the Washington Post that a group of black lawyers, to include with the predictability of gravitation Johnny Cochran, is planning to sue for reparations for, sigh, slavery. Blacks want more money (I could stop the sentence here) from me and my children. Sometimes I feel like an udder.

The case for reparations relies on acceptance of what has become the public bedrock of American politics: That blacks have been terribly damaged by slavery, which has led to their generally sorry state, and that I did it. Therefore I should give them money.
Permit me a revisionist view of slavery.

I suggest that blacks ought to be grateful that their faster ancestors caught their slower ancestors -- which is exactly what happened -- and sold them to the slavers. American blacks would otherwise be somewhere on the Slave Coast of Africa, barefoot, illiterate, blankly ignorant, wearing loincloths, living in stick huts that would give Eeyore the willies, and shuddering with malaria. That's what Africa is: primitive, hopeless, godawful. I've been in Masai hutments, spent time in the outback of Cuando Cubango. It's not Stone Age. It's more like Stick Age. No country in Africa today comes close, or ever has, to the culture of Fifth Century Athens, 2500 years ago.

Yes, slavery was brutal and ugly. It was, however, hard on the slaves, not on today's blacks. Slavery brought our blacks into contact with a vastly superior civilization from which they benefit enormously, and without the slightest gratitude. Everything blacks enjoy in this country today -- air-conditioning, writing, automobiles, television, medicine, welfare, medicine, everything -- they enjoy only because they were brought here. Further, they have contributed almost nothing to the industrial and technological flowering that has provided the benefits they enjoy.

I begrudge them none of this. I am, however, tired of endlessly being blamed for their problems.

Whites, it seems to me, and not blacks, suffer the deleterious effects of slavery. The crime, AFDC, Section Eight housing, the other costs of supporting illegitimate children, the burned cities, the enormous hidden cost of affirmative action, the constant lowering of standards for blacks, the cost of police forces: Whites bear this burden. It is not light.

And there is the unmentioned cost of fear. Something seldom explicitly stated is that whites are afraid of blacks. Racial watchfulness circumscribes our lives. Whites cannot just take a convenient exit from an urban freeway to find a hamburger: If it goes into the ghetto, we may not get back out. A white woman (and FBI figures bear this out) has good reason not to get into an elevator after hours with a black man, unless he is clearly of the middle class. Always, whites make the calculation: Where are the blacks, can I walk here, live there, have an apartment on the ground floor? And what happens when the children reach the age to go to school?

I wish things weren't this way. If I could cause blacks to prosper and become middle-class wage wonks with Volvos, I'd do it. I don't want them to be unhappy. I don't want it partly because I don't like seeing people miserable, as blacks in the ghetto seem to be, and partly because I don't like living in . . . not quite fear, but alertness. Thing is, there's nothing I can do for blacks.

However, if they are going to accuse me of racism and oppression and worse, in defense I will suggest another explanation. Maybe the problem isn't whites. What if blacks don't succeed because they can't succeed? On every known test of intellectual capacity, blacks score about a standard deviation below whites. While they can't be blamed for this, as neither can whites, in a technoindustrial society those fifteen IQ points are a killer, absolute death. The difference is altogether enough to account for the inability of blacks to progress despite almost frantic efforts by whites to jump-start them.

Putting it otherwise, is there any reason to believe that blacks now in this country would be materially better off if slavery hadn't occurred? That if they had arrived as free citizens they wouldn't be exactly where they are today?

The zeitgeist notwithstanding, differences of intelligence exist between both individuals and groups. The differences are real. They've been carefully studied at great length by very smart people who are perfectly aware of the pitfalls of testing. For example, Jews score a standard deviation above other whites. That is, their advantage over other whites almost exactly equals the advantage of whites over blacks. In any physics laboratory with a statistically significant number of physicists, a (very) disproportionate number will be Jews. Why? Because physics requires a high level of analytical intelligence. They've got it.

Permit me to enunciate a principle, the recognition of which would transform sociology: Brains have consequences. This luminous thought explains why affirmative action doesn't work, why Head Start doesn't work, why efforts to compensate for the effects of slavery don't work, why black students perform badly in school systems controlled by blacks, why blacks stubbornly remain almost nonexistent in fields such as high-energy physics. It also seems to explain (the differences are smaller and the evidence scantier) why certain Asians are so prominent in the mathematical professions.

Now, if blacks can't succeed, the moral landscape shifts. The usual basis for racial policy is that, the debilities of blacks being the result of oppression by whites, whites must therefore be punished and blacks compensated. Here is the guilt model, endlessly purveyed in politics. But if the problem is inherent, the moral element vanishes, and so does any hope that remedial programs will ever work. Then what?
I wish I knew. So far, we have established, without talking about it too explicitly, what amounts to a custodial state, in which blacks of the ghetto are supported by a patchwork of public assistance with no expectation that they will ever achieve civic responsibility. Affirmative action, a form of charity, provides jobs and artificial entry into the economic middle class for the more advantaged who nonetheless could not have been hired on their merits. (If they could be, they wouldn't need affirmative action.) Will this go on forever, with its concomitant resentments and hostility on both sides? Probably.

Meanwhile, I for one weary of being blamed for the inadequacies of others.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

Best Article I've read in a long time

One of the worst articles I've read in a long time...

I could go on endlessly with a rant, but I'll simply point out that to suggest to anyone that they "ought to be grateful that their faster ancestors caught their slower ancestors" in order to be sold into slavery is about as insulting a comment anyone could make.

It's racist tripe that any neo-Nazi would admire... How can anyone be proud of a statement such as this?:

Quote:

However, if they are going to accuse me of racism and oppression and worse, in defense I will suggest another explanation. Maybe the problem isn't whites. What if blacks don't succeed because they can't succeed? On every known test of intellectual capacity, blacks score about a standard deviation below whites. While they can't be blamed for this, as neither can whites, in a technoindustrial society those fifteen IQ points are a killer, absolute death. The difference is altogether enough to account for the inability of blacks to progress despite almost frantic efforts by whites to jump-start them.

A lot of half-truths and statistics......in other words...


Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Statistics can be bent to serve any master....I think this is the case with this article.

There's simply WAY TOO many variables involved to put much stock in standardized test scores (although I do think they have value individuallly...but not to guage an entire race or culture). I'd love to see what the scores would be if Black kids were schooled in a private suburban school and a group of White kids were schooled in the inner city...

Some (SOME...bits & pieces) of what is in that article is more true than we may care to admit.

A "black" (he wasn't actually black, but in US political language he is) friend of mine once said something along the following lines:
"I'm glad the Dutch had slaves and that my ancestors were put in slavery. Otherwise I'd be living in Africa right now, and I like The Netherlands much better".

I should be clear that I in no way support reparations of any sort. Never. Nope.

But the rhetoric and tone of that article is far from my own.

There is a difference between saying reparations are stupid

(and I think many here would agree they are)

To also throwing in..

Be grateful you escaped Africa via slavery and it's not my fault studies have shown you are intellectually inferior anyway, so get over it.


My guess is that Warlord can see some anti-illegal sentiments present here and threw his end of the spectrum in 'thought' into the ring, perhaps to test the waters and see if he finds others likeminded.

I'm in no way saying those of you wanting to secure our borders and deport illegals are of the same beliefs as Warlord.

Quote:

It's racist tripe that any neo-Nazi would admire

It's pretty thinly veiled, too.

_________________
only symbols can be twisted ,burned,spat on etc.NOTHING truly Holy can be desecrated..... - Sabbath Steve

All the Bible study tends to be head knowledge until life experiences drive that knowledge the 12-18 inches to our hearts. aldat

In serious mode now:

Reparations are stupid. They are. Mindlessly stupid.

In not--so--serious mode now:

I'm of 100% Germanic descent. For decades i've been trying to get the German Government to pay me and my family reparations. They owe it to me......big time. In that August day, in the year 388 A.D. my family descendents were peacefully existing in their village on the banks of the upper Rhine. They were Visigoths (Central Europeans) and they were just having a day......filled with laughter and happiness.

Then out of the deep forest depths they came. Bloodthirsty, cruel and destructive Alemanni (an Early Germanic tribe). They burned my ancestors village and mutilated and killed all the men, afterwards taking all the women and children into the lower Rhine Valley region. My ancestors lives were altered and changed for the worse. Years and even decades of slavery ensued.......at the hands of the evil and cruel Alemanni masters.

My ancestors paid for it all......all the time and suffering at the hands of the Alemanni--those earlier Germans--those Germans have offspring. And their offspring in the current Germany owe me something for all the suffering my forebears have gone through.

I deserve some $$$$$$$$. Then I will feel better.

Good post,Shawn

Shawn said:

Quote:

And yet, there are people who want money from me as if I have?

You sound like those Germans that owe me money.

_________________
"The 'farce' is strong with Sith Lord Obama-Wan." words of Scourge.

"Uh....You can believe me....Uh....because I never lie, and....Uh....Uh....I am always right." words of Sith Lord Obama-Wan.

Daddy likes it all, the DraíodóirDé likes it all

Great post Shawn. That sums up my opinion on this too.

This topic is pretty scary and for some of the reason's listed. I think what offends me is the "entitlement" mentality that makes everyone a victime. Sorry GW, my family is from Germany / Austria . . . can I get my $3 to you on Friday?

Half of my family is black (adopted) so as much as I'd like to think I'm not racist, I find from time to time I am. I hate it when that happens, but we are people. Everyone show some rasism / superiority / intollerance. I just hope I contiue to identify and correct those thoughts when they pop up.

That article both struck a chord and sickened me too. The thing that sticks in my craw though, is the thought that I'm responsible for what someone else did. Where does it stop? Who pays back the Irish, the Chinese, the American Indian, the emascualted downtrodden christian white male with a job and a mortgage? (whoever THAT guy is)

Man! Let's love people and show some compassion, but not enable them to be victims or suck us dry becuase they do not want to apply themselves. That goes for all white, black, retarded, handicapped, smelly, arrogant, smart or whatever Americans. Everyone can do something.

(cooling down)

Seems to me it's hard to move forward while you are preoccupied by the past. Having said that, what's the answer, how do we help those who have a victime mentality? How do we help them move on to a healthy self-image?

Has it ever occured to anyone that the african american culture simply has an opportunist tendency ... IE when it comes to what shawn was saying about looking for handouts -- they find the easiest, quickest way to get what they need and they go for it. Which is a very sly form of intelligence if you ask me. The image that their culture is "dumb" is completely off ... they have a different form of intelligence.

Not saying that it's good that they do this, just that their culture has raised them to be this way.

Which brings me to my next point. I simply cannot believe that Jews were born smarter than whites, and that whites were born smarter than blacks. I think it's as a result of the culture they are brought up in. The Asian culture, for example, may have strong and seemingly natural skills in the mathematical fields. This is true. Has anyone ever stopped to think about the fact that the Asian culture in general has a huge focus on dedication to one's work and the perfection of one's craft? That is something they are ingrained with from birth, if they are born to Asian parents who are also the same way. It's the same with black opportunism ... they aren't born that way, they are raised that way.

Thoughts???