The thing to realize about reparations is that a lot of people are pushing for it, and they’re so fanatical that they don’t realize their movement is going anywhere.
Although the vast majority of non-Black Americans are opposed to reparations, the pro-reparations people believe that all they have to do is continue to make their case, and eventually they’ll succeed. Reparations has become something of a cult. Its believers are guided by faith, not logic or reason, and like all ideologues, they’re willing to fight to the bitter end, convinced that God is on their side.
One thing they’ve done successfully, at least so far, is gain enough political support to be active on the State, county and city levels. Sometimes it can seem like every conceivable municipality has a reparations scheme. Locally, Hayward’s doing it. Oakland’s doing it. Alameda County’s doing it. California’s doing it. None of these schemes stands a meaningful chance of actually happening, but if they all did occur, you could kiss your hard-earned money goodbye. Every petty bureaucrat would have the legal means to tax you to death and there wouldn’t be a thing you could do about it.
My opposition to reparations is based on some cogent facts. First, I don’t believe reparations are justified. No one alive has ever owned a slave, or been one. All that happened long, long ago; it would be like Jews demanding reparations from Egypt for enslaving them three thousand years ago. Another reason I oppose reparations is because it would irreparably harm race relations in America. White people (and most Asians) would resent it terribly, while Black people would resent them for failure to support. The last thing we need in this country is more racial animosity.
A final reason I oppose reparations is because, if passed, they would represent a collapse of our democracy in favor of a communist-style authoritarianism, where a minority of people are allowed to seize the assets of the majority. We’ve allowed representatives of this oligarchy to control our local governments (State, county, city) and they have run amok: witness the damage they’ve caused in Oakland, and that Pamela Price is causing in Alameda County. These people have no respect for democratic government, for fair representation of all constituents. They wish to pack government with their authoritarian members, taking advantage of the political ignorance of the general electorate to pass laws behind closed doors, laws that are inimical to the interests of the vast majority of citizens. They then trust that voter apathy or laziness will enable them to institutionalize their schemes, so that when ordinary people realize their harm (if they ever do), it will be too late to reverse course.
To appreciate the racist absurdity of reparations, consider the Alameda County Reparations Committee, or ACRC. (Did you even know that Alameda County has their own reparations scheme? Bet you didn’t.) They propose to establish a 15-seat oversight board that will run the scheme. The board would be statutorily dominated by Black people (or, in the words of the ACRC itself, “African-Americans”). For instance, one of the fifteen seats is guaranteed for “a storyteller of African American stories.” Another seat is reserved for someone “age 55 or older who has lived in a predominantly African American community.” (Hey, I qualify for that, but I don’t think they’d choose me.) Another seat would be for someone working for a charity “principally serving the African American community.” Other seats are reserved for homeless people or the formerly-incarcerated.
Well, I have news for ACRC: your scheme is blatantly racist. It’s as bad as the Founding “Fathers” excluding women, slaves and non-landowning men from participating in government. You’re always criticizing the founders for that: now, you’re outdoing yourselves in that exclusionary practice.
As I said, I don’t think that any of these reparations schemes are going anywhere. Meanwhile, they’re chewing up precious resources. The ACRC was supposed to finish their work by now, but they just requested (from the Board of Supervisors) two extra years, and an additional $5 million, to issue their first report.
This is a scandal and is clearly unacceptable. We have little reason to believe that the ACRC is a credible organization. With the November 5 elections looming, I suggest that voters (and reporters) ask every candidate for Alameda County Board of Supervisors (including Nikki Bas) whether they support the ACRC. If the answer is “yes,” they’re not qualified to hold public office.
Steve Heimoff