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Reparations Won’t Work

President Biden has apparently given up on his pledge to be President of all Americans. It would seem his strategy is to be President of minorities and those who look forward to free government money. He announced last week he would support a study to determine if reparations would be appropriate for all black Americans. I noticed he didn’t say reparations for descendants of slaves, but ALL black Americans. He also stopped short of promising he would sign any legislation that came out of the study. He did suggest, however, the study consider the decades of systemic racism in America. He went on to quote reports from the CDC as proof of racism. According to the CDC, black Americans have a higher rate of hospitalization and deaths from COVID 19 than white Americans. I question the data as well as the premise of systemic racism.

I am unaware that hospitals and clinics keep statistics by race. Once in a while, I see it on an admissions form. When I do, I check “other”. Doctors shouldn’t care about the nationality of my ancestors. More often than not, there are no questions about ethnicity. Why would there be? Bad joints, asthma, cancer, heart disease, the common cold, and most other human maladies are impartial. Viruses don’t check for skin color. If black Americans have a more severe reaction to the Coronavirus, there must be a medical reason. If there is one, I am unaware of it. In the absence of any logical explanation, I question the data. I question whether or not the reports are accurate, or are they self-serving to a predetermined agenda?

I also question the premise of systemic racism in America. The TV anchorman reporting racism as fact is a black American who has risen to the apex of his field. In 2008 we elected a black American as our President. We currently have a black American as our Vice-President. I could go through the extensive list of black Americans who have earned prominence in their respective professions. When I look for racism in professional sports, I see a disproportionate number of black Americans who have worked hard enough to get where they are. No one has accused professional sports of reverse discrimination. Where then, is the system that punishes Americans based on skin color? I have read the statistics that indicate our criminal justice has a different standard for blacks then it does to whites. If that is so, let’s fix that rather than assuming all America is racist.

President Biden favors reparations to achieve the goal of racial equality. It won’t work. We tried reparations with Japanese Americans interned during World War II. It may have given white Americans a warm fuzzy and alleviated some guilt due to the actions of our grandfathers, but the attitudes of Japanese Americans about internment never changed and never will. Does anyone really think reparations will change the way black Americans feel about the years of slavery and reconstruction? Reparations would be viewed as free government money much the same as stimulus checks. Those Americans who still had jobs didn’t really need the money and simply put the first check in savings. Having received the first one, they now feel entitled to a second and third one.

Reparations will not change the tensions between black and white Americans, but they will make black Americans more dependent on government.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 20 years.