We’ve already heard the suggestion that black Americans’ votes should be worth twice those of their white countrymen as a form of reparations. We’ve also heard an economist estimate that providing full monetary reparations to blacks would cost approximately $14 trillion. Now there’s another brilliant reparations idea, one related by a black congresswoman:
Blacks could be exempt from paying taxes to compensate them for slavery.
The politician, freshman representative Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), did have one practical objection to the proposal, however:
Many struggling black Americans already don’t pay taxes, Crockett said — so it may be better to just hand those people checks.
The Washington Examiner reports on the story:
During an interview with The Black Lawyers’ Podcast, Crockett said she heard the idea of exempting taxes for black Americans from a celebrity. She said it “[wasn’t] necessarily a bad idea.”
“One of the things they propose is black folk not have to pay taxes for a certain amount of time because that puts money back in your pocket,” Crockett told the host J. Carter.
However, Crockett points out limitations to the plan…. “If you do the no-tax thing, for people that are already, say, struggling and not paying taxes in the first place, it doesn’t really—” Crockett said when Carter interrupted to suggest that people “may want those checks like they got from COVID” [Crockett agreed].
Crockett argues that reparations are necessary and that more studies on the matter and investments must be done.
“So many black folk, not only do you owe for the labor that was stolen and killed and all the other things, but the fact is we end up being so far behind,” Crockett said.
That politicians (Crockett isn’t alone) are talking about reparations reflects the idea’s growing popularity. In fact, reports Fox News, “at least 21 cities and counties across America” are considering reparations; Evanston, Illinois (population: 78,110), has already instituted them — at a cost of $10 million to its taxpayers.
So this movement is as serious as it is seriously misguided. Crockett is all in, too. As the New York Post relates, “Earlier in the interview, Crockett argued there needs to be consistency between the federal and state governments on reparations, because if there is not ‘everybody’s gonna run to whichever state and be like ‘Yo I need mine.’”
“She then went on to slam ‘people that aren’t even willing to do the studies, aren’t willing to invest to make sure we can roll this out the right way,’” the paper added.
For sure, having a “People of Color” (as opposed to People of No Color?) tax-sanctuary state could inspire some fascinating migratory patterns. Regardless, some wonder if the race-based tax exemption would be palatable to pols. For instance, “I strongly doubt … that any government will sign off on anything that could reduce its revenue,” commentator Eric Utter utters. “At this point, it’s more likely that it would simply double the tax rate for white people or Christians.”
Details aside, however, the reparations movement is as immoral as it is impractical. Most simply, there’s a tremendous disconnection between the actual victims of slavery and those who’d be compensated, and the victimizers and those who’d provide the compensation, as the slaves and slaveholders are long dead.
Moreover, all U.S. states considered, only a small minority of whites owned slaves during the antebellum period. Also consider that the ancestors of many (perhaps most) white Americans arrived on our shores after slavery’s abolishment, and that many are descended from groups — such as Russians, Poles, and Italians — that were never involved in the black slave trade. Given this, even if we accepted the discredited idea of group-specific responsibility for ancestors’ sins, how could these whites reasonably be held accountable?
There are other problems with the reparations argument as well:
- According to the 2007 book White Cargo, more than 300,000 whites were shipped from Europe to North America during the 17th and 18th centuries, used as slaves, and sometimes worked to death. Will their descendants be identified? Can they be? Will they also receive compensation?
- Reparations advocates often seek allies and justification by saying that other “marginalized groups” (e.g., American Indians) should also receive reparations. Yet since approximately 3,000 Indians owned black slaves, will their descendants be identified and moved from victim to victimizer category?
- Likewise, what of the descendants (e.g., Kamala Harris) of black U.S. slave owners or of blacks involved in the slave trade overseas? Will they be labeled victimizers and denied reparations?
Not considering the above and simply framing this as white=oppressor and black=oppressed would itself be racist. Is this about justice — or “just us” and skin color?
For those interested, below is a Fox News Outnumbered segment on Crockett’s comments.
A note on the above: One commentator called slavery “America’s original sin.” Huh? Once having been ubiquitous, slavery could be called every country’s original sin! (Except that with human sacrifice and other savagery having once been common, there’s much competition for the National Original Sin title.) America didn’t invent slavery — it inherited it.
It then eliminated it, too.
As for reparations, I think whites should offer them under one of two conditions. The first is that whites must also get royalty checks for all the inventions, innovations, and other white-birthed triumphs, as the flip side of the collective blame coin is collective credit.
The second is that reparations can be as great as anyone pleases — as long as they’re paid in Confederate money.
