Reparations for Slavery: Fair or Folly?

We are offline due to a much-needed research period this winter/spring, so we've decided to re-publish some earlier pieces that you might have missed the first time.

With 'reparations for slavery' back in the news thanks to presidential hopefuls such as Kamala Harris, Francis 'Beto' O'Rourke, and Liz Warren, here is some data we were able to find on the subject back when Ta-Nehisi Coates last floated it. We hope you find it as interesting as we did.  

*     *     *

[Re-post, original post here.]

'The Hayward family's nurse Louisa and her legal owner,' 1858

Having addressed Atlantic editor Ta-Nehisi Coates' wish for reparations for red-lining, we now turn to another of his claims: That descendents of U.S. slaves deserve cash payouts for their forebears' suffering.

There is the question of both a) the legitimacy and b) the practicality of such a scheme. We shall only discuss the former, because if it is truly worthwhile, the latter can always be worked out.

Poring through Coates' 17-page article, we have guessed that he objects to U.S. chattel slavery on the following grounds:  1) Its very existence was unconscionable, 2) It was unusually inhumane, 3) It destroyed the Afro family, and 4) It helped create the large black-white wealth gap we see today.

We shall address his points one by one.

Reparations for Redlining?

We are offline due to a much-needed research period this winter, so we've decided to re-publish some earlier pieces that you might have missed the first time.

With 'reparations for red-lining' back in the news thanks to the plucky Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, here is the data we were able to find on this thorny question back when Ta-Nehisi Coates last tossed it in the punch bowl. We hope you find it as interesting as we did.  

*     *     *

FHA map of Los Angeles, 1939 

[Re-post, original post here.]

'Ingenious and powerful,' 'important and compelling', 'stunningly ambitious;' it has 'broken traffic records and vanished from newsstands,' 'setting ablaze' social media.  What is it?

It is 'The Case for Reparations,' Atlantic's June 2014 cover story by editor Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The idea has been tossed around since Emancipation, falling out of fashion as of late. Coates brings it roaring back in this long-form piece, calling on Euro-Americans to 1) publicly express their guilt about past oppression, and 2) pay reparation money to their Afro countrymen.  Does his argument hold water?

The 17-page article covers much ground, but it seems Coates seeks redress for three major wrongs:

• Slavery
• Land theft
• Red-lining

They are three quite different topics, and should be treated as such.  We shall begin by addressing the most recent: so-called 'redlining.'

Coates tells the story of Clyde Ross, son of Mississipi sharecroppers who came to Chicago in the Great Migration:

'Three months after Clyde Ross moved into his house, the boiler blew out. This would normally be a homeowner’s responsibility, but in fact, Ross was not really a homeowner. His payments were made to the seller, not the bank. And Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought “on contract”: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither. 

Ross had bought his house for $27,500. The seller, not the previous homeowner but a new kind of middleman, had bought it for only $12,000 six months before selling it to Ross. In a contract sale, the seller kept the deed until the contract was paid in full—and, unlike with a normal mortgage, Ross would acquire no equity in the meantime.'

Why was Ross obliged to buy a house 'on contract'? Because he could secure no regular mortgage financing. Chances are, in large part because he was Afro-American.

Governments Are Us

Harper's Weekly, 1869

David Brooks has a history lesson for Donald Trump (via Steve Sailer):

The Trump story is that good honest Americans are being screwed by aliens.  …  This is a tribal story.  

Somebody is going to have to arise to point out that this is a deeply wrong and un-American story. The whole point of America is that we are not a tribe. We are a universal nation, founded on universal principles, attracting talented people from across the globe, active across the world on behalf of all people who seek democracy and dignity.

Naturalization ceremony, 2010

This lovely fiction from Mr. Brooks is as quaint as it is ahistorical. But it does go back a fair way. Not as far as our founders, bequeathing a nation 'to ourselves and our posterity.' Not as far as our first naturalization act, in 1790, extended to 'free white persons of good character.' 

Not as far as Thomas Jefferson, quoted by Alexander Hamilton:

Not multiculturalists

'The opinion advanced in [Jefferson's] The Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to its particular customs and manners. 

'They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or, if they should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? 

'There may, as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule.'

The idea that the U.S. was meant to become a League of Nations avant l'heure dates back to the mid 19^th century, when America's first nativist party, the 'Know-Nothings,' agitated against Catholic immigrants (both Irish and German). They were  lambasted by people like George Julian, VP candidate:

'Know Nothingism . . . tramples down the doctrine of human brotherhood. It judges men by the accidents of their condition, instead of striving to find a common lot for all, with a common access to the blessings of life.' (1)

By the 1912 presidential election, Woodrow Wilson was currying favor with his new electorate by trumpeting:

'America has, so to say, opened its doors and extended its welcome to men who were Americans everywhere in the world. She has invited all the free forces of the modern civilized peoples to come to America where men can be free, and where all free forces can unite and forget all their differences of origins.' 

Wilson-style multiculturalism: No Asians or Blacks, thanks

But even a 'proposition nation' man like Wilson wasn't a true multiculturalist—he did not extend this welcome to Blacks or Asians:

'The whole question is one of assimilation of diverse races. We cannot make a homogeneous population out of people who do not blend with the Caucasian race.'

These days, things have gone so far that we're being told that not letting masses of Mexicans or Africans into our countries is the equivalent of turning away the Jews in 1940, or runaway slaves in 1840.

Forcing Africans to be governed by their own: Worse than slavery

This is an astounding statement. Forcing a Mexican to be governed by other Mexicans, or a Senegalese to be governed by other Senegalese, is akin to committing genocide upon them. What a statement on the governing abilities of Mexicans or Senegalese! Perhaps Jefferson was onto something after all…

The 'magic dirt' theory, of course, says that once these foreigners set foot on our soil, they are suddenly blessed with the qualities that have allowed us to govern ourselves so successfully all these years.

Coming to take part in the Great Democratic Experiment

But we at TWCS suspect that, on the contrary, Jefferson was right—Governments Are Us. 'That temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism' has not been equally distributed on Planet Earth. 

We mostly rule ourselves now--the age of empire is over.  If we rule ourselves badly, that's because we are somehow ill-equipped to handle the running of a large, modern representative state.

(Formerly 'Failed States Index')

So if we few in well-run countries usher in the many fleeing ill-run countries,  what will be the result? Is it possible such people will recreate the conditions they've created in their own countries, right here on our soil? If so, we should be very, very careful which groups we let in the door.

What is the evidence?

Segregation: Our Most Cherished Myths

Tennessee, 1955

Newsweek recently sounded the alarm in a long-form piece on what they view as a troubling new trend:

Sixty years after Brown vs. Board, forty years after the end of busing, it appears that all the social engineering in the world can't make our multicultural dreams come true:

Economist Tyler Cowen, who is a conservative, calls white parents’ visceral fear of a mostly black school “discouraging.” ... [Journalist] Hannah-Jones agrees. “You’re gonna have to force and cajole people” into integration, she says, which is why the court orders of the 1960s and ’70s proved effective. “We’re not going to do this voluntarily.”

 Boston busing protest, 1970s

By 1988, the high point of school integration in the U.S., nearly half of all black children attended a majority-white school. … Since then, however, the gains of Brown v. Board have been almost entirely reversed. 

Water will find its level. Yet the narrative remains that somehow, after enough 'forcing and cajoling,' a diverse and happy future awaits us all--even ethnic groups as radically different as Northwest Euros and Sub-Saharan Africans.  

Train station, Pretoria, South Africa

We at TWCS, on the contrary, posit that: 

• Any time a large flux of Afros has arrived among ethnic NW Euros (up to and including the present), the latter have reacted sharply by separating themselves, and 

• Their reasons have been not senseless but on the whole fairly defensible.

The two biggest laboratories for this social experiment, of course, have been South Africa and the United States. We have chosen to examine the latter.

Johannesburg 1990, Detroit 1973

Is Hannah-Jones right? Will enough 'forcing and cajoling' bring about the multicultural blessings we've long been waiting for?  Or, on the contrary, have we believed so many myths about segregation that we've painted ourselves into a policy corner? 

Progressives: the New Race Realists

I will save you from your people

One hundred years ago, progressives referred to people of color as 'backward races,' 'degenerate and unprogressive,' 'non-adults.' Today's leftists, of course, believe no such thing. They think all humans are equal, as they tell us at every available opportunity.

Don't they?

Careful: TWCS is noticing a sea change.

The rhetoric and the actions emanating from the left as of late show that they have perhaps taken a U-turn—a salutary one.  People of Color, they are now saying, in fact have little agency, are near-prisoners of their instincts, and thus can't be held to the same standards as other ethnies.

 Take up the Leftist's burden

In other words, today's progressives have become de facto race realists.

On what do we base such a claim?

The Diversity Tax

Historic Carpetright Building in London, 1930: Built, 2011: Destroyed by Diversity

It is in our day an undisputed fact, almost a religious dogma, that 'diversity is our strength.' This credo is endlessly repeated by our leaders, including the heads of state of the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., and France.

Former University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger:

Diversity is not merely a desirable addition to a well-run education. It is as essential as the study of the Middle Ages, of international politics and of Shakespeare. For our students to better understand the diverse country and world they inhabit, they must be immersed in a campus culture that allows them to study with, argue with and become friends with students who may be different from them.

By 'diversity,' of course, Mr Bollinger does not mean diversity of opinion (verboten on many campuses), but diversity of melanin content.  

Nearly every political, religious, academic, and cultural leader in every Western country today agrees that (racial) Diversity is, indeed, Our Strength. Or as the French say, 'La diversité est une richesse.'

Are they right?

We at TWCS propose, on the contrary, that in Western countries diversity has proven to be much more like a tax. A tax that falls, like medieval manorial dues, disproportionately on the working classes.

Fort Hood Massacre: Diversity über alles

A tax is not ipso facto a bad thing. Most of us happily pay income or sales tax knowing it helps fund our roadways, police, garbage pick-up, etc.

But how much is the Diversity Tax costing us per year?  And what, exactly, are we getting in return? Is it worth it?

In order to get a closer look, we invite you to join us on a trip through the modern Multicultural West.  It may be wise to bring your checkbook.

The Past is a Real-Talking Country

California recently scrapped plans for a 'John Wayne Day' when his 1971 race-realist comments on Afro-Americans came to light:

High plains realtalker

'We can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.'

At the same time, Princeton students are demanding the Woodrow Wilson School be re-named, U. of Missouri is petitioning to remove Thomas Jefferson's statue, and San Fran's School Board president has even said he'll re-name every school bearing the title of a slave owner.

It is surely any people's right to wipe out the names of past heroes who ruffle current mores. We've seen Stalin and Lenin statues come crashing down in Eastern Bloc countries since the wall fell.

But Stalin and Lenin were proper génocidaires who oversaw the repression, imprisonment, torture, and death of tens of millions. Washington and Jefferson were founders of their nation who, uncontroversially in their time and place, owned slaves.

Good-bye, Enver Hoxha; Albania, 1991

But even if one were to convince them that slaveholding was not controversial in those days, this John Wayne dust-up opens a whole new can of worms. Are California's civic leaders even dimly aware of the kind of realtalk in which nearly all our prominent men of yesteryear engaged?  We fear they are not. 

May we gently remind them that When an out-group seemed to under-perform, or over-perform, or just act differently, people noticed.  

And commented.

Such was the way of the world--and still is, in most of the world. Only ethnic NW Euros seem to have caught the disease that pushes them to sing the praises of 'diversity' while at the same time loudly claiming we're all exactly the same.

The multiculturalist's conundrum: 

Why can't we be different yet exactly the same? 

As more and more decisions must be made about naming holidays, schools, bridges, airports, highways, erecting and demolishing statues... How shall our civic leaders be expected to cope? If they start subjecting each historical figure to the 'didn't say anything that offends me today' test, they are in for some sore and cruel disappointment.

We at TWCS would very much like to help them. First, by acquainting them with the fact that the past was, indeed, a real-talking country, as the quotations we are about to share will show. 

Another Californian realtalker 

Second, by helping them step into their ancestors' shoes, in order to pick out what is simple observation of difference (as painful as that may be for us to hear today), and what is real bigotry.  

We propose five categories of historical realtalk (some of which overlap in our quotes):

• Banal my-group preference
• The More Able remarking upon the Less Able
• The Less Able remarking upon the More Able
• Us remarking upon the otherness of Them
• True bigotry

We focus on two out-groups with whom ethnic Europeans have long been in contact: Sub-Saharan Africans and Jews.


So which kinds of old-style realtalk can our city fathers forgive, and which should have them tearing down statues?

When Progressives Get Religion

Progressive passion play

(Part one of two)

Columbia University linguist John McWhorter penned an essay last year which he defended on CNN:

In 2015, among educated Americans especially, Antiracism—it seriously merits capitalization at this point—is now what any naïve, unbiased anthropologist would describe as a new and increasingly dominant religion. It is what we worship, as sincerely and fervently as many worship God and Jesus and, among most Blue State Americans, more so.

Far-fetched?

For those who insist that religion must include a divine being, not so fast. Communism scholar Peter Sperlich:

Supernaturalism and specific deities are common, but not essential elements of religious systems.  ... Several indisputably “traditional religions” have managed to function perfectly well without specific deities; for example, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Jainism.

... If the chief characteristic of a religion is the belief in the reality of an unseen, it matters not whether this unobservable entity is a specific deity, the “spirit of history,” or the “laws of nature.” (1)

 
But psychology tells us that the conservative is far more apt to traditional religious belief than the progressive. So is McWhorter just blowing smoke?  

As it happens, he is not the first to test the waters of leftist ideology-cum-religion. The 20th century's greatest progressive idea, Communism, has been intriguing scholars for the last 100 years for its likeness to spiritual belief. The millions of pages written on the subject have taught us this if nothing else: The leftist, in his own way, seems just as prone to religious thinking as the rightist.

So to test McWhorter's assertion, let us take a deeper look at how the progressive has succumbed to the religious aspects of both Communism and Multiculturalism. Are there any real parallels? And what can this tell us about the pitfalls to which the leftist mind is vulnerable?

Reacting to Spree Killings, Progressively

[Please excuse this brief detour; we are still hard at work on our 'Re-colonization' series.]

Of the many things Progressives are known for, number one is being on the right side of history.

So in the wake of this latest U.S. spree killing, we turn to our leading leftist voices to help us make sense of the madness.

Having studied their recent corpus on the question of the spree-killer-for-a-cause, we believe we've found some progressive principles to light our way.


I. Do not make generalizations about his group

Why Re-Colonization? Future Orientation

Mongongo tree and fruit

Each day, the Kung San walked long distances to the mongongo groves to collect their fruits.  

Once he asked a tribesman why nobody had ever made an attempt to grow mongongo trees near some of the permanent water holes where the tribe resided.  "You could do that if you wanted to," he replied, "but by the time the trees bore fruit, you would be long dead." --Anthropologist Richard Lee

(part I of two)

At independence, 50 years ago, optimism for the tropics was high. No one could have dreamed that half a century later, a massive movement for re-colonization would be afoot--led not by Africa's leaders but by her masses.

1960: Demanding Europeans leave Africa; 2014: Africans demanding to be let into Europe

We have looked at some of the reasons that the global South wants into Teutonic countries.  But the real appeal is broader.  Globally, tropical peoples are trying to migrate to lands run by temperate peoples.

Image source 

Like a baby trying to crawl back into the womb, the formerly colonized are coming back to their old foreign masters and begging (or demanding) to be ruled by them again.

One year of African boat people = a city the size of Venice. Can Europe absorb them all?

Why?

We propose two major reasons: Future orientation and Commonweal orientation.  These two qualities, we argue, are plentiful in the North but in short supply in the South, where their opposites (Short-Sightedness and Clannishness) can be found in abundance.

Today we shall focus on the former: Future orientation. We argue that the shortage of this trait in warmer climes has prevented these societies from developing the way they wish to. This is why, two generations after independence, millions are voting with their feet to place themselves back under Euro rule.

We also argue these traits follow tropical peoples long-term, which is why North America's centuries-old African population has never assimilated. This too, we shall show, should be a cautionary tale for European deciders on immigration.

So what is the evidence to back up our assertions?

Being a Progressive, Yesterday: Race

Progressive-era labor unions were a mighty white affair

Slate ran a series a few years back, 'Liberal Creationism,' after the brouhaha over James Watson's remark that Afros were less intelligent than other groups.  In this prescient piece, the author warns that many of the old 'racialist' tropes are likely to soon be proved true, and that the average progressive should mentally steel himself for it:

If this suggestion makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you're not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn't just another fact; it's a threat to their whole value system. 

The same values—equality, hope, and brotherhood—are under scientific threat today. But this time, the threat is racial genetics, and the people struggling with it are liberals. ... You can try to reconcile evidence of racial differences with a more sophisticated understanding of equality and opportunity. Or you can fight the evidence and hope it doesn't break your faith.

The proof is at this point hard to ignore, even if thought leaders are doing their level best to conceal it. As blogger JayMan asks from atop his mountain of scientific data, How much hard evidence do you need?  It is likely that in the next several years some lab finding will 'clinch' the question once and for all, pushing HBD into the mainstream as it has germ theory or heliocentrism.

Microbes and Planets: The skeptics had to be convinced

At that point, what is a sincere progressive to do?  The notion of cognitive or behavioral differences between ethnic groups is, for him, deeply repugnant.

One is tempted to hand him the same 'deal with it' doled out by his ilk to those who found the monkey-to-man mythos unpalatable:

But it may be more kind to invite such folks to spend some time with their own forebears--the Progressives of the late 19th / early 20th centuries.  People who like themselves were born with a desire to make the world a better place, but who unlike themselves did not shy away from the realities of human biodiversity.

So who is this creature, the Progressive?  What did he once believe and may believe again?