Whites to have Individual Repatriations Accounts to pay blacks for slavery?

[Deleted]

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/ma...tionfront&_r=0

Professor Michael Eric Dyson thinks that white people should have an "Individual Reparations Account" to make donations to black institutions and individuals.
The proposal is part of his forthcoming book, “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America.”
Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University, made the argument in an interview with Ana Marie Cox in the January 8 edition of the New York Times Magazine.

A.C - Your forthcoming book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” is subtitled “A Sermon to White America.” Which part of white America do you envision reading it?

M.D - I envision the audience to be that ocean of white folk I encounter who are deeply empathetic to the struggles of minorities — they are the ones who ask me, “What can I do, as a white person?” This is my attempt to address them in the most useful and, hopefully, edifying manner.

A.C - What’s your strategy for getting through to the white people who may not be particularly sympathetic?

M.D - What I’ve seen under the wonderful presidency of Barack Obama is the tendency to not tell white people the truth, for obvious reasons — they don’t vote for you. But I’m not a politician. I don’t have that power or influence, but what I do wield is a different kind of bully pulpit. We have to have enough belief in white people to tell them the truth. They are grown!

A.C - There are a lot of areas within race relations that seem like less of a conversation and more of an attempt to prove to white people that these issues — police brutality, for instance — are a real and present danger.

M.D - I open this book with horror stories about my engagement with the police. These are the stories that have shaped me, that join me to the mass of people who, regardless of our station in life, regardless of educational attainment and achievement, have felt this. The president of the United States has these stories, the former attorney general has these stories and a prominent black intellectual like me has these stories. The reality is that this is part and parcel of what it means to be black in America, and I wanted to spend time talking and thinking about it from a number of different perspectives to show white brothers and sisters that we aren’t making this up. This is not fabricated.

A.C - I can’t help but think that if the same levels of police brutality were happening to white people, we would just disband the police.

M.D - Police brutality would not be seen as the price of keeping our society safe. Recently, I was outside of Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington at 3 a.m., and a young white kid is cursing the police, and I’m going, “Oh, my God, they’re going to shoot him.” And then it occurred to me that they wouldn’t — he’s a white kid. And what did I hear the police say? “Now, son, you’re clearly inebriated. You need to go home and sleep this off.” And I said to myself: “My God! This is what we want!” We can’t even afford a display of anger that many white people have.

A.C - At the end of your sermon, you do a “benediction” section, in which you talk about making reparations on the local and individual level: donating to groups like the United Negro College Fund or a scholarship program, but also, to cite your example from the book, paying “the black person who cuts your grass double what you might ordinarily pay.” That gave me pause!

M.D - Good! I used to say in church, “If the sermon ain’t making you a little bit uncomfortable, it ain’t effective.” Look, if it doesn’t cost you anything, you’re not really engaging in change; you’re engaging in convenience. You’re engaged in the overflow. I’m asking you to do stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’m asking you to think more seriously and strategically about why you possess what you possess.

A.C - I agree with reparations, but maybe this is my white privilege speaking: I can’t imagine actually doing that.

M.D - That is what I meant by an I.R.A.: an individual reparations account. You ain’t got to ask the government, you don’t have to ask your local politician — this is what you, an individual, conscientious, “woke” citizen can do.

A.C - But charity can’t be the end of it, right? The Koch brothers gave the United Negro College Fund $25 million, but I doubt you would consider them “woke.”

M.D - No. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that charity is a poor substitute for justice. But I ain’t turning $25 million down.

infracted - forbidden topics

[Crissi]

yeah, this is a race thread. Not allowed

closing