Hell. I really really wish that the SCLC had not chosen to wade into this particular morass. I understand why they did. And, since I don't particularly count myself as any sort of Christian, I suppose it shouldn't really matter to me. But ... still. Reparations, as such, are a staggeringly bad idea. (Although I note that their particular variant is one of the less onerous proposals -- allowing for the whole, "Well, which universities would students be allowed to go to and how would the moneys be handled?" issues. To say nothing of the issue of how it would be handled for people who either don't want or have already been to college -- a scholarship wouldn't do me the least bit of good, for example, unless I could somehow pay off my student loans with it. But I digress.) I don't deny that the various effects still linger; I just think that reparations will give a lot of people a chance to think, "Oh, well, that's done, that's all we need to do, everything's fixed, let's go on from here," and that's simply not the way this society works. (Despite rather dogged efforts.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!