According to Robinson, America is "in denial" about slavery, despite the
fact slaves helped to construct the Capital building in Washington D.C., and
many other edifices. Therefore, as Robinson saw it, a debt was owed, since
many fruits of these efforts remain and the slaves' labors went unpaid.
Robinson seemed simplistically to believe that whites as a race benefited
from black's unpaid labors, and as a race owe. Moreover, the denigrating
experience of slavery, coupled with the systematic destruction of cultural
roots which slavery entailed -- plus the demeaning Jim Crow apartheid
following emancipation -- all have combined to leave an entrenched "black"
underclass. Robinson argued that Affirmative Action did not reach down to
these poor "blacks." (Affirmative Action helped Robinson, he stated.)
Robinson analogized his reparations idea to a "domestic Marshall Plan." A
branch of this domestic Plan ought to attack poverty generally, he conceded
(responding to a question by Cooper). But the bulk of Robinson's plan was
limited to poor "blacks," owing to past slavery. Robinson also wanted a
conspicuous memorial to slavery to be erected in Washington D.C., to include
a full-size replica of a slave ship, among other things. His argument
seemed to assume that only "blacks" had ever been enslaved, and it was this
distinction which qualified only "blacks" for reparations for slavery.
Robinson has a reparations Web-site -- www.thedebt.net --
which includes a forum with spirited (and rare) interracial debate
between "black" and "white" visitors.
(BTW: KPFK Pacifica Radio is listener-sponsored, but it is somewhat
maverick. It considers itself independent, and often is well to the left
of NPR.)
My comments: Reparations for slavery are out of the question for
quid pro quo compensation. Although the concept of an inconceivable wrong
inflicted should not be forgotten (e.g., Robinson's tourist attraction), no
conceivable payment can ever compensate it.
Slavery differed from Japanese Nisei internment in World War II, for
example. After the war internment victims or their heirs could be
identified. The losses involved could be valued, and the sands of time have
not entirely covered victims' tracks. By contrast, slavery's injury was
indefinite. No means exists for evaluating the losses suffered by many
generations of people bred as chattel and owned their whole lives as slaves.
ANY amount paid today for compensation for slavery will be spat on for being
a comparative pittance, and it will be spat upon again tomorrow, when more
compensation will be demanded using the same arguments.
"Reparations," suggested by Robinson, seem another minority identity
politics wedge-issue for segregating "African-Americans" along racial lines.
It seems a splendid carrot-and-stick for separating "black" from "white,"
with a reward-punishment combination. Even if Robinson's "Marshall Plan"
benefits only the poorest "blacks" (and he mentioned no way of qualifying
recipients), it clearly aims to perpetuate the supposed distinctive
separateness of the "black" "race."
Robinson seemed to assume that only "blacks" were ever slaves, and no
non-African was ever "black." I think he may be wrong about both. Even if
Native American Indians were never slaves (they were), they can argue their
own case for "reparations," I think, as compelling as slavery. They might
argue, for example, at least slaves survived and had descendants to press
these claims. Indians who owned all America since the Ice Age were
exterminated by Europeans or by their agonizing diseases. Atrocities andtortures (e.g., scalping) abounded. Many tribes disappeared forever.
Indians ended up about one percent of the American population -- today's
smallest minority "race." Once America starts paying "reparations," she can
be swiftly bankrupted. A multitude of deserving claimants from all
directions would suddenly appear. New "reparation" grounds would proliferate.
My response to "reparations" is that one cannot be in debt to oneself; one
cannot pay a debt to oneself. In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment moved
Jefferson's declaration, "all men are created equal," into our Constitution.
This concept of human equality has come into our New World civilization
slowly and piecemeal. Nonetheless, it is clear to me the solution to
"race"-based inequality is not more government programs and expenditures to
jack up "low" "races." The answer is abolition of the pernicious "racial"
divisions totally.
Prominent in atomic quantum mechanics is the Uncertainty Principal. A
similar "quantum" principal seems to affect human "races." Physics's
quantum uncertainty principal states that electrons cannot be simultaneously
located and measured. Any test answering one question about an electron
will fail to answer the other question (i.e., energy vs. position).
"Race's" uncertainty principal is similar, because in the law's eye, people
cannot be both different and the same. (Only our human eyes can see these
contradictions.) Thus, no matter how powerful a societal microscope
Government focuses on its citizenry looking to see how they differ by their
"race," it will also block equality. Conversely, any government service
which is truly equal for everyone necessarily remains blind to "race."
Robinson's naïve reparations plan is expressly based on "race"-assignment.
It assumes the reality of a "black race," and it attempts to segregate
"black," repeating a frayed liturgy of oppression and racism-victimhood.
In America, segregating the "black" "race" results in "purifying" "white"
and perpetuating the caste system which keeps a "tainted" "black" "race"
fixed beneath a privileged "pure white" "race." Although "race" and any
alleged "purity" of it are both total myths (e.g., mythical "one-drop"
rules), "race's" continual reinforcement with suggestions of this sort
delays our "racial" union, which would surely end the disparity Robinson
complains of. Clearly, the American caste system founded on "race" is the
hypnotic suggestion-complex fixing the societal inequalities which Robinson
wants to remedy. The frequent invocation of "black" and "white," denoting
"races," also perpetuates a sort of societal color-scale, insidiously
suggesting (hypnotically) that light skin is somehow "better" than dark
skin. Exposing -- denying -- "race" and dispelling "race"-hypnosis would
effectively end chronic inequalities. What Robinson has suggested cannot.
George Winkel
Biography: I practice appellate defense law in the California
Fourth Appellate District, the State Supreme Court, and occasionally before
the U.S. Ninth Circuit.
For the opinion of others on the issue of reparations for slavery, visit the Reparations for Slavery? Point-Counterpoint section of IV.
L.A.-based Pacifica Radio station KPFK (fm 90.7), on 2/25/00, broadcast an
interview with Randall Robinson, Executive Director of TransAfrica Forum.
The interview was on Pacifica's "Radio Nation" program, hosted by Mark
Cooper. Robinson, author of the book "The Debt," argued for reparations for
slavery.Also by George Winkel:
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