Sins of the father

Imagine if you will.  Cops show up at your job and arrest you because your great grandfather murdered a man.  He's dead now so he can't be prosecuted for the crime, but you are his great granddaughter so the law says you have pay for his crime.  You're sentenced to death and duly executed.

Does that seem fair to you?  You didn't do anything wrong but you're still being held accountable for it.  It's still somehow your fault because he was once in your family.

Imagine now.  A black man robs a liquor store and is sent to prison for 10 years.  He gets cancer and dies with 8 years of his sentence remaining.  Cops arrest his son and send him to prison to finish out his father's sentence. His father's dead and can't finish the time but the crime still needs justice so his son has to pay for it.  The son spends 8 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

Is that fair?  The son didn't rob anyone but he's still held accountable for it because his father did.  Would you want that to happen to you?  No?

Every time you demand reparations for slavery, you're demanding justice from someone who didn't do anything wrong to you for something that didn't even happen to you.  All the racist diatribes, all the cries of white privilege and oppression in the world doesn't change that.  You still don't deserve reparations for something that didn't happen to you personally from someone who personally did nothing wrong to you.

Can you imagine what life would be like if everyone could be tried and jailed for things their ancestors did hundreds of years ago?  EVERYONE would be in jail.  Even the judge.

To hold the son accountable for the sins of his father is as stupid as arresting someone for a crime they didn't commit.  It's no different and until we recognize that, we're never moving on because guess what.  EVERYONE HAS ANCESTORS WHO DID SOMETHING WRONG.  Doesn't matter your color or where you're from.  One of your ancestors is guaranteed to have committed a crime at some point in your family tree.  Do you personally want to be responsible for every infraction perpetrated by someone else?

Don't forget about slavery.  Don't stop fighting for equality.  Don't forget about the past because it's important to learn the lessons the mistakes in the past taught us, but don't hold people to the fire for shit they didn't do unless you want the same in return.

There's a lot of black people in prison who did some really bad stuff.  Imagine if we made their children pay damages to their victims.  Black people would riot because they'd think that's unfair.  Well, it's unfair to ask white people to pay you for slavery.  No white person alive today is guilty of owning slaves.

It's ridiculous to cry racism when someone says to get over slavery.  You need to because it's over and it never happened to you and you need to be working on fixing what's wrong in the present rather than whining about a past that can't be changed.  Blaming slavery for all your ills is as stupid as blaming white people or immigrants.  It's just an excuse made by people who've been taught for generations that they're skin is why there's no point in trying to make anything of themselves.  You're not still in the ghetto because the evil white man won't let you move.  Fair housing act.  You're in the ghetto because you haven't moved yet.

Let's take a moment and be honest about what you're really asking.  It's not about justice.  It's revenge.  Generations of black kids have been taught all their lives that the white man is evil and to hate the white man.  Even when the white man has made progress in being more racially tolerant, it isn't enough.  Things ARE better now.  We're desegregated.  We have laws on the books that prohibit discrimination.  Blacks are freer now than they ever were and whites are more socially conscious of how they treat people of color.  It's white liberals who are leading the crusade for equality.  But it's not enough.  It will never be enough until blacks have made white people their slaves or they've whiped white people off the earth.

And that's the truth.  White people may think it's about equality, but we know better.  We know it's hatred.

Hatred for something that happened centuries ago.  Hatred for perceived injustices because we never acknowledge that maybe we did something wrong and that we determine most of what happens in our lives.  It's always someone else's fault.

Well, sweeties.  You are more of a minority than you think.  The rest of the world isn't out to avenge their ancestors.  Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans... Countless peoples who faced discrimination at one point in history.  They put their big kid panties on and built themselves a good life regardless.  Jews were rounded up and systematically slaughtered.  They still managed to be successful.  Mexicans know Texas used to be part of Mexico.  They aren't still bitching about it.  They're too busy working.  Japanese sent to internment camps in World War II came out and opened businesses.  Native Americans massacred and shoved into reservations still built lives for themselves.

It's not about getting even for the past.  It's about succeeding despite the past.  That's how you win against oppression.  You rise despite what anybody says.  You don't blame others or whine about how left out you feel at the Oscars.  You build your own shit.  Everybody does that except you.

Black folks, act a fool if you want to but you're not going to achieve anything by holding on to the past and blaming everything on it and you're never going to be paid for slavery.

Because it's over now.  You're free.  Now stop wasting your freedom.