Startin' Stuff Week, Day Three
I generally don't address strawmen, but this is from that ridiculousness I pointed to yesterday:
We all know there is so much white guilt floating around that if you could only transform it into electrical power, America would be freed of its dependence on fossil fuels. But, come on now. Reparations?!
Every time someone talks about white guilt over the past, I have to wonder: just who's making them feel guilty? It's not like anyone is lying about what happened…
And I also wonder, is guilt the only possible response?
See, I don't want white guilt. Guilt and gratitude are both like shirts. Fine and comfy while new, but wear them too long and they get all stank.
But I'm not letting anyone forget the realities of what brought us all to this pass. Especially since I
can think of an alternative to guilt.
The alternative is acknowlegement of the truth. And a choice to act responsibly. A choice to live up to your professed morals.
I
need to give white folks this alternative because frankly I'm not even considering feeling gratitude because someone decided to give me what I'm owed.
I recall wondering if I might be missing something. Were these people seriously demanding that damages should be paid 140 years after slavery ended? What ever happened to the statute of limitations? What ever happened to common sense?
Yes, you are missing something. Roughly 100 years of Jim Crow, government mandated segregation and disenfranchisement, red lining and denial. Roughly 100 years of socially sanctioned assaults on the liberty and dignity of a people whose efforts fueled the development of this nation and to the degree that the USofA has impacted world history, every nation on the planet.
Think about it… what would the USofA look like without having had the labor of Black Americans to fuel its economy? I'm not talking about that nonsense that pops up occasionally about a Black man invented this or that so they wouldn't exist without us… that's a nice thing to tell children to build their pride, but just as SOMEbody would have invented the lightbulb if Thomas Edison's grandmother had died in labor all those things would have come about sooner or later.
I'm saying without the capital generated by Black labor, this nation
could not have industrialized when it did. And meanwhile Europe would have chugged along its historical track, producing all the wars it ever did, all the ethnic purges of gypsies and Jews… there would not have been a nation in a position to intercede in Europe's various wars. More importantly, there would have been no nation in a position to intercede economically after those wars.
A people that important to the history of the world deserves more than to have its concerns summarily dismissed.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/16/2003 02:10:13 PM |
Posted by P6 at July 16, 2003 02:10 PM
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