The idea of reparations is, like many leftist ideas, one that sounds good and noble on the surface but once you peel back the outer layer you discover its an idea infested with greed, lies, and manipulations.
I'm just going to say it bluntly. The idea of reparations in the modern era is an evil one, and yet as Juneteenth approaches, Democrat politicians have the word on their lips.
As Jerry Wilson highlighted, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing for reparations for the city's black residents:
Ahead of Juneteenth, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed Executive Order 2024-1, establishing a Reparations Task Force to develop a Black Reparations Agenda. This Task Force is an example of the Administration’s dedication to co-governance, and in partnership with members of the Aldermanic Black Caucus, the Mayor’s offices of Equity and Racial Justice and Business, Economic and Neighborhood Development, and other key City departments, will conduct a comprehensive study and examination of all policies that have harmed Black Chicagoans from the slavery era to present day and make a series of recommendations that will serve as appropriate remedies.
I've tackled how ridiculous the idea of reparations is nowadays on multiple occasions, so you'll pardon me for quoting myself about the lack of logic around the idea:
First off, America is a country of immigrants. How many families were begun and prospered here after slavery was abolished is innumerable. Their families are in no way responsible for slavery, and yet, we’re going to make them pay? Even if families do go back to before the civil war happened, how many families had ancestors that owned slaves? How many even vehemently disagreed with it? They may have lived in a country that was built with the help of slavery, but is it truly fair to punish those who fought against the practice? Even died for it? I feel the family of the fallen already paid.
What about those of mixed race? Do they have to pay? What about successful companies that were founded after the civil war by immigrants. Do they have to pay an extra tax for a practice they never took part in nor would approve of?
What’s more, reparations is primarily aimed at the idea that white people owe black people. If we’re going to tax white people specifically, then reparations would never be paid. You’d have to tax all of America for such a plan to work, and why do all of America owe the black community? Again, many families weren’t even here for slavery and had nothing to do with it.
(READ: No American Owes a Dime In Reparations)
But the idea is that black slaves built this country and, as beneficiaries of their work, we should pay up for what they did. I addressed that as well:
So many kinds of people came to the new world and worked their own land, built their own towns, and established their own societies without the help of slaves. For one, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade transported well over 12 million slaves, but only a little over 300,000 made their way into the United States. This didn’t happen all at once. Slavery did officially begin in 1619, but it began with just over 20 slaves.
To think that over the course of time that singular group of people built an entire nation — even a burgeoning one — by themselves is the height of fantasy. Especially as you continue to plug in the numbers.
The slave population would later balloon to around four million by the time the emancipation proclamation was signed in 1863, and while that number is tragically large, it doesn’t mean that there was a slave for every family. The vast majority of slaves were held in the agrarian south and even then, only around 25 percent of the south was wealthy enough to own slaves.
(READ: No, Slaves Didn't Build This Country)
Reparations is the idea that the sins of your ancestors are transferable to you, and that any corporation or business founded on a civilization built using slavery is automatically guilty of benefiting from slavery despite never having taken part in it or approving of it. It dismisses the blood, sweat, and tears of every other race that migrated to the United States to help build this place and focuses on one race's part in it all. Yes, slaves were a tragic part of America's history, but they were hardly the whole story. In fact, for many regions in the United States, they weren't a part of the story at all.
Including Illinois, which was always a free state.
But I'll add this, because it needs to be said. The concept of reparations in today's day and age is pure voter manipulation. It's attempting to buy votes with money for the black community, and the equivalent of selling indulgences for white people and corporations. It's just the Democrat Party attempting to garner loyalty, using both money and guilt as the currency to buy you.
Moreover, this is another example of how the Democrat Party sees you as a person, or rather, how it doesn't see you as one at all. To them, you are a tool to be manipulated and used. History and context be damned. Your skin color is all that matters, and if they can use that as a way to manipulate you into loyalty then so be it. That's all that matters about you; how you can best be controlled.
