(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



I don't want to live in a fascist dictatorship. Now is not the time to push for reparations. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-06-18  

This is not my personal opinion on whether or not the federal or state governments should provide reparations. This is a warning based on my experiences communicating in all forms with friends and family, co-workers, and acquaintances.

Almost every person I have discussed this with, all of them middle income people (I don’t know anyone obscenely wealthy), including people of color, tend to get very agitated at the prospect of using everyone’s federal tax dollars to compensate people who are descendants of those who were once enslaved. I.e. the whole of the electorate should not have to foot the bill.

For instance, this afternoon Reverend Al Sharpton was speaking about reparations on his “Politics Nation” program on MSNBC. One of my best friends, who is a very liberal person of Russian Jewish and Armenian descent, so his people certainly have also not had fair shake given past history, started bitching at the television when the Rev’s guest put a “modest”, according to Reverend Al, price tag on reparations.

His guest was Sandy Derity, PhD, author and economist. He stated that since the Civil War, the wealth gap between African Americans and, ostensibly everyone else that lives here, is 14 trillion dollars. Rev. Al stated that would be about $330,000 paid to every black American that can show they are the ancestor of slaves. My friend said something along the lines of “Are you fucking kidding me? Every penny I’ve ever paid in federal taxes is going to go to one person?!” Now, this man is politically active and would never vote anything but democratic. Nonetheless, he was not happy with how it was being discussed.

My point is, IMO, if we go through with this or even make it a party platform plank, we are going to majorly alienate moderate/swing voters who may hold their collective noses and either vote fascist, or vote third party due to anger over just this one issue. Either way we would be fucked.

One hundred and sixty years after the US Civil War, most citizens, permanent residents, and sponsored workers, all of whom pay taxes, have no direct connections to slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. But citizens have the right to vote. And democratic politicians had better realize that this is not the time to be focusing on this issue. Not before we have strong enough majorities in the house and senate, and the executive branch, that we can pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, end partisan gerrymandering, and take control of the Supreme Court (through whatever means necessary).

Most importantly, also IMHO, the taxes used to fund reparations needs to be heavily skewed upwards toward the wealthy, white Anglo descendants of the plantation owners and robber barons. Claw the money back from the obscenely wealthy that have benefited for decades from republican tax cuts that started with St. Ronnie and have continued to the detriment of the middle class. Taxes already collected and already earmarked to fund safety net programs and service the debt should not be touched. Adding a special tax aimed at the extremely wealthy and distributing that money over time would be much more palatable to lower income and middle class folks.

Reparations are the right thing to do. That is my actual opinion, and I saved it for the end. But the means to do it must be debated and decided upon by broad public discourse and voting on ballot measures. Not by a study group in San Francisco that wants the local government to pay five million dollars to every African American resident of the city (yes, that was proposed).

Now is not the time to be putting it in the forefront of our discourse. The stakes are too high, and I don’t want to live in a fascist dystopia. We are exactly one election cycle from the apocalypse. If republicans take control of all three branches, our experiment in Democracy will be permanently over. Let’s just keep our powder dry until we can make reparations happen without risking losing everything.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/18/2176217/-I-don-t-want-to-live-in-a-fascist-dictatorship-Now-is-not-the-time-to-push-for-reparations

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/