Why should I have to?

I am a software engineer/consultant/add-you-own-title-here. From my view point, when I look at another person in professional life, I look to see if the other person can code well, takes responsibility for their mistakes, what tasks they can do well, and if they treat me and others in a friendly sort of way. Given that all those are satisified, I don’t much care if they are white, black, brown, yellow, or green with purple spots and spiked hair (or no hair).  It all comes down to can they do the job, and not tick the rest of us off in the process? That’s what I judge people on.

When meeting somebody in other circumstances, I will eyeball them – first impressions do count. Are they friendly? Do they operate according to most social norms (granted all of us, at one time or another, can act like idiots…moi included)? Do they love their spouses and kids? Do they pay their taxes and follow all applicable laws the majority of the time (yes, we all do screw up from time to time – that’s why speeding tickets exist)? Do these things, and I’m ok with them and willing to give them a shot.

The last thing that I judge people on is their skin color; I really could care less. Yet, THIS is being thrown in my face as if I am personally responsible for it. Why? Because I’m white. Because, being a middle aged, educated, professional in suburbia (ok, in rural America) , somehow I benefited from practices that were in place over a hundred years ago in America. White privilege, white power, whites in control…..from those that are pushing for slave reparations, I should ante up.

Not a freakin’ chance.

First, why should I? My ancestors weren’t here in America during that time in question. My paternal grandparents came over during the Irish potato famine (I am third generation). My maternal grandparents came over in the early 1900s from Sweden (again, third generation). My families were could not have been responsible or active in the slave trade earlier. They certainly did not own slaves later.

Yes, slavery happened. And yes, it still exists today (example: the Saudi couple just found guilty in Colorado for literally enslaving someone). The hard truth is that while many of the slave traders were white, many were not. And many of the blacks in this country were sold into slavery by other blacks back in Africa.

If one followed this to its illogical conclusion, the Irish should be suing the Swedes for the havoc caused during the Viking era, right? Heck, sue the English, because their policies starved the Irish and forced the Irish to emigrate (where, by the way, they were out. We all could be suing the Italians for the slavery practiced by the Romans. Look at the results of the Mongol Horde, Islamic Jihad, Aztec exploitation.  The sad truth is that if you go back into history, at almost any time and in almost any location on the globe for any given culture, slavery existed. It continues, sadly in the modern era, in a number of areas!

This whole idea of slave reparations here in America hinges on one and only one thing – white guilt. For whatever reason, there are those in this country that can be guilty over things that they have not done. My take on this is that while compensation could have been done for for those that suffered the actual indignity and loss, it is too late now. Face it; they and the ones that enslaved them are dead.

Frankly, in my humble opinion, this is only get rich scheme at a societal level based on the color of one’s skin. Somehow, the thread that something that happened long ago has an active role in someone else’s life is lacking in my estimation. Besides, we have already transferred, since the beginning of the Great Society back in the 1960s, over 5 trillion dollars to the poor of this country, many of them black. That’s a lot of bucks! And the politically incorrect fact is that it has been a mostly white population that has already paid that bill.  Are wewilling, and able, to roll that back and start fresh?

Let’s do the what-if. Does anyone really believe, given the massive amount of money already transferred to the poor, that more is really going to make a difference? And how are we going to know who should or should not receive that money? Should it be given by those whose ancestors owned slaves to the descendants of those slaves? From a practical standpoint, how would we really be able to tell.  Just look at the fraud committed by those claiming to be Katrina victims – FEMA lost 1.2 billion dollars?  Given the vast sums of money, you don’t think that some are going to scheme to obtain to which they are not entitled?

No, I am not pro-slavery, so don’t go there. No, I don’t believe that it was a good thing then, or now (so don’t go there either). Don’t get me wrong – I am always for a hand up. But this smells of a hand out situation to me. At what point does the past become the past? At some point, it doesn’t matter – at some point, we have to start to ignore the color of one’s skin in order to make the skin color irrelevant.  If we don’t silence the race baiters in this case, we will never reach that point that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke about being judged not by the color of one’s skin but by the color of their character.

The actual workings of actual reparations could be a boondoggle of immense proportions trying to prove who should get and who should give. And if you just say “Make it easy – all black receive and all whites give”, well, that is nothing more than…….. racism.