There’s much talk about “white privilege” today, and it’s becoming ever clearer what it really means: being last in line or excluded for benefits but perhaps alone in line paying bills.
The latest example is a Seattle black “gay pride” event whose organizers said they would charge whites a “reparations fee” of up to $50 to attend.
(What a bargain! If I didn’t have something better to do, like sticking needles in my eyes, I’d go and bring three friends.)
Radio host Jason Rantz reported on the story Monday, writing that the event organizers
have the support of Seattle City Council president and mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez and the Seattle Human Rights Commission.
TAKING B(L)ACK PRIDE [TBP] organizers say all are welcome to attend. However, “white allies and accomplices” must pay the reparations fee. It will be charged on a sliding scale of $10 to $50 depending on one’s ability to pay. The event location is Jimi Hendrix Park, owned by the city of Seattle. This raises questions about the legality of a reparations fee.
Critics question whether race-based admissions fees are appropriate. Seattle Municipal Code clearly prohibits racial discrimination. But organizers have pushed back, calling criticism of their admissions structure “casual violence.”
Of course, many things today, such as “microaggressions,” are oh-so conveniently labeled violence to provide a pretext for eliminating anything contradicting the leftist agenda. But actual violence, such as BLM and Antifa rioting and the burgeoning crime plaguing Democrat-run cities, is tolerated and sometimes even tacitly encouraged.
As to this, 14 people have been shot and five killed in Seattle this month just over a three-week period. So the TBP organizers could actually do some good if they’d focus on tackling their city’s crime wave. But, well, that doesn’t advance the “revolution” (it inhibits it).
TBP, scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday), isn’t the first example of fees targeting only whites. Last year, for instance, a Georgia clothing store had instituted a whites-only booking fee before taking heat and issuing a non-apology “apology.”
In a similar vein and also in 2020, a Washington and Lee University School of Law professor said that blacks’ votes should be worth twice whites’ as a form of reparations while a Columbia Law School academic suggested that white Americans’ taxes should be investigated for slavery ties in order to determine reparations obligations. Then, earlier this year, two Harvard doctors called on hospitals to discriminate against whites as a form of “medical restitution.”
As for the TBP discrimination, the group did walk back their illegal proposal, at least somewhat. As Rantz posted in an update to his story:
This is despite the fact that the Seattle powers-that-be are on TBP’s side. Not only are, again, the Seattle City Council president, mayoral candidate Lorena Gonzalez, and the Seattle Human Rights Commission (SHRC) all-in on the Caucaphobic cash grab, but the last entity actually issued an über-woke statement.
Mentioning “the very real social dynamics and ramifications of this issue,” the SHRC stated that “black trans and queer peoples are among the most marginalized and persecuted peoples within the LGBTQIA2S+ community. They often face shame not only from the cis-heteronormative community, but within the queer community at large as well.”
“In making the event free for the Black Queer community, the organizers of this event are extending a courtesy so rarely extended,” the commission continued, “by providing a free and safe space to express joy, share story, and be in community.”
Well, they sure have their rationalization down pat. Interestingly, though, human rights commissions (sometimes called human rights “tribunals”) are the entities that in other nations, such as Canada, have persecuted people simply for criticizing Islam or homosexuality. But overt racial discrimination is apparently just fine — if it’s the “right” kind.
To be frank, however, I’m amenable to offering slavery reparations. Really. In fact, I’m all in. Under one condition: Whites can make amends for their historical trespasses — as long as they also receive royalties for all their historical triumphs.
In other words, if this matter is to be assessed racially and there can be collective blame, there also can be collective credit. And while this isn’t the right place for a laundry list, we can note a few things:
Whites might not have been the first to practice slavery.
But they sure were the first to end it.
Looking at things racially, as the Left wants to do, the argument could also be made that whites and their Western civilization also deserve credit for representative government, the protection of human rights we take for granted, a majority of the inventions and innovations we hold dear, etc.
Of course, the Left is wrong, and what matters regarding both blame and credit is not whatever racial group one might fall into but the trespasses and triumphs of individuals who should be judged on the basis of their own actions — not on the basis of whatever their ancestors may have done, and not on the basis of their skin color.
But to those leftists who disagree, I say: Cut me the royalties check, wokesters, and I promise to kick back a good percentage in reparations as I kick back in the Caribbean. Deal?
Somehow, I’m hearing crickets.
