I find it rather hard to empathize with Georgetown U. Sociology Prof. Michael Dyson. He has a tenured position. I don’t. He will have a nice pension when he retires. I won’t. He probably owns a home. I don’t.
And yet he thinks I should pay him my money as “reparations” for slavery that ended in America 150 years ago. He has never been a slave, I have never owned a slave (or even met one, or known anyone who’d ever seen one), but I have to pay.
Over my dead body, sunshine.
I missed this story when it came out in January. Dyson has recommended that white people–he has not defined “white,” which may keep people of mixed racial ancestry (that is, most of us) on tenterhooks–ought to set up “Individual Reparations Accounts” to pay back people who have never been slaves for slavery that ended 150 years ago. (http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8618 )
This, he says, is not so much to grab money that the recipients never worked for as to “force white people to confront their own privilege and consider why you possess what you possess.” Then again, he looks forward to receiving other people’s money. “I ain’t turning down $25 million,” says the Ph. D.
I confess I find it hard to imagine the mental landscape of any individual so wanting in honesty, fairness, decency, and self-respect. If he had a little more integrity, he’d be a mugger.
Those who send their sons and daughters to Georgetown ought to be ashamed of themselves. They’re paying this freeloader’s salary and pension.
I really don’t see how “white privilege” or “systemic racism” or the Bossa Nova kept him out of an extremely comfortable and secure position. Do you?
And what of all the white Europeans who emigrated to this country after slavery was abolished? Should their descendants restoration too? I guess it doesn’t matter since all whites are somehow guilty of association of people who lived and died before my grandfather was even born.
It’s pure insanity. Theirs is an ideology of shame, guilt, and yes racism. Nothing good will come from it except more hatred and divisiveness.
And it’s a sin to stir up strife and division among people who would otherwise be at peace with each other.
The whole thing is ludicrous. I hate that there was slavery, but that was abolished long ago. Reconstruction was working until the Democratics derailed it. It is my earnest endeavor to treat all ethnicities equally.
Being born Caucasian did not equate to being born to privilege in my case. My mother’s family lost everything in the Great Depression. My father’s family were working class and of modest means. My father’s education was derailed by the war and he spent the rest of his career as a tradesman although he never made more then $5 per hour. I’m not complaining, but I wasn’t exactly born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
I wish opportunity and prosperity for all.
It would be nice if we could all have the kind of prosperity this professor enjoys.
I agree.
When those whole mess comes down, there will be a big change and these people that think they have it made may find out that their position isn’t so secure after all.