ALPERN AT LARGE – Having fought the good fight against racism of ANY kind my whole life, I’ve been concerned for quite some time when the cultural blowback against cashing in and grifting on the evils of past African-American slavery and racism would occur.
It’s coming.
The fight against racism works best when you’re taking it to the racists, because the non-racists will back you up. It happened in the Deep South of the U.S., and it happened in South Africa.
But the fight against racism will NOT work at all when you’re taking it to the non-racists, and it REALLY won’t work when you twist the narrative and history in an attempt to push the non-racists into some forced fascist-style admission of racism.
Californians to pay big-time for slavery reparations?
California, a Union/Anti-Slavery state, where some residents of all colors fought and died far away from home against the Pro-Slavery South, to pay reparations for who were descendants of slaves?
Really?
Reeeeeeeally?
REEEEEEALLY??? Freakin’ REEEEEEEEEEEEALLY???
You see, a survey (co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times) of over 6000 registered California voters revealed overwhelming (up to 90%) opposition to Sacramento’s push for cash reparations to the descendants of enslaved “African Americans”.
(I used the quotes around “African Americans” because I have known—both as neighbors and patients—black Americans born in AFRICA…and they do NOT see eye to eye with many of their fellow black Americans born HERE. They consider themselves the TRUE African Americans…but I digress.)
What’s disturbing, if not horrifying, is that the 76% of black voters in California favored the cash reparations, and 51% strongly favored the cash reparations.
Which will invariably make most of all wonder why the majority of black voters’ sentiments so divergent from everyone else.
Because I’m not too certain that Asian or Jewish or Latino voters want cash for their own persecution (even though so many actually experienced it, or perhaps their parents experienced it) if they live in California.
Jews (particularly white male Jews) and Asians being excluded from colleges and graduates schools?
Latinos who faced discrimination?
Not certain they want anything more than a chance to get ahead without being told there’s already too many of “you people” already overwhelming this university.
No cash, but just an acknowledgement of the past and a chance for a better future.
Native Americans are a tougher story and conundrum to resolve, but did not California voters both past and present support all sorts of financial opportunities and casinos to somehow enrich those born in poverty and misery?
I’ve heard it all, in that somehow you and I, our neighbors, and folks from all over the Golden State and the North benefited from slavery…and therefore we have to pay for the sins of our ancestors.
Even though MY ancestors showed up about a half-century after the Emancipation Proclamation, as part of the mass of exodus of Jews who fled persecution and death from Russia and Eastern Europe as part of the latest turn in a millennia-long history of slavery and slaying of Jews/Hebrews/Israelites.
(Of course, the greatest anti-Jewry turn was the Holocaust, of which there are still a few living survivors, and no shortage of the children of survivors…but…again…I digress.)
–Even though the Chinese and Japanese came here to encounter their own waves of prejudice, confiscation of their assets, and physical violence that led to the forced internship (with all of their possessions stripped from them) of Japanese-Americans during World War Two.
–Even though the many waves of Hispanics who lived and arrived here over the past one to five centuries faced their own waves of persecution and violence.
–Even though the Indigenous/Native Americans who lived here for thousands or even tens of thousands of years had their lands and right stripped from them.
Yep..the white Americans, the Asian Americans, the Hispanic Americans, and the Native Americans all have to get their resources yanked away because of things neither they, nor even their ancestors ever did…to give to those who were NEVER slaves, or whose grandparents or even great-grandparents were NEVER slaves.
As the Black Lives Matter movement showed, there were no shortage of well-meaning Americans who threw money at an organization that made former race-profiteers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton look like amateurs…but Black Lives Matter wasted and abused their money, too, didn’t they?
By the way, the aforementioned survey emphasized that Americans of all stripes DID want to compensate those descendants of slavery in some way…but NOT cash.
Because demanding CASH after decades of attempt after attempt after attempt to provide redress is getting old, older, and OLDER to the non-racists who’ve opposed and fought against racism their whole lives.
–And it’s NEVER been favored by Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans who’ve been themselves picked on and discriminated against their entire and ongoing lives.
–And it’s pretty obvious that those undergoing the shakedown for money are pretty much NON-racist.
–And it’s pretty obvious that the demographics of those who are of mixed-race, Asian, Hispanic, and other non-black backgrounds aren’t going to take well to the Reparations push by Sacramento…and those demographics are going UP.
There WILL be political and economic blowback.
And while black Americans who don’t want anything but accuracy in our textbooks will probably thrive in the future, those who demand unrealistic and inappropriate Reparations from the past in anti-slave California will likely doom themselves to a terrible future (ditto for their children and grandchildren).
Pity.
I was hoping we could all get along together as…well…fellow Americans.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)