Slavery is a stain on American history and America is a minefield of discrimination.
Conservatives will argue that this is true everywhere in the world, throughout history, while others argue that American Slavery is a special case and reparations are in order.
In either event, every four or five election cycles, cities will burn with fresh demands for Reparations until this demand is satisfied. We may as well admit that few reasonable people seriously predict otherwise.
While conservatives will argue questions of legality, “Who was responsible for slavery?”, “Who will pay?” and “How do you determine who was harmed?” – liberals will ask questions of fairness and equality. “Will people who didn’t have anything to do with slavery be forced to pay people who were not directly harmed?”
The larger problem, of course, is finding a one size fits all solution that everyone can agree on.
I’ve studied stereotypes and typecasting in Minnesota for years. One thing I’ve discovered is that Black people are completely unique in every way and have absolutely nothing in common with one another. They are all uniquely different. I would imagine this is the same elsewhere.
Even if there were a will to stop cities from burning, end the justification of crime, money to actually offer reparations, and a population willing to accept some unfairness in order to correct this historical injustice, there still isn’t a plan which everyone accepts.
Robert L. Johnson, Founder of BET Black Entertainment Television, recently proposed a solution of $333,400 be given for every man, woman and child that watches his channel. Activists in Minnesota were quick to reject this idea outright.
You can’t just buy your way out of this problem, America. Who is supposed to raise a family of five with reparations of only $1.67 million? It’s ridiculous.
Everyone is arguing about fairness, US law, and who’s going to pay for it, and no one is proposing a plan.
I suggest the United States set up a major government agency creating incentive structures that benefit only women and minorities.
We should require that all college entrance processes and corporate hiring departments ensure women, Black and minority candidates are hired over any equally qualified white men in every circumstance, with all other things being equal.
And if they are ever accused of discrimination, educational organizations and corporations will have to prove their innocence under this plan.
This set of education and corporate incentives and disincentives allows for a clear path through the minefield.
Of course there will be detractors, people who say this program is unconstitutional, racist, demeaning etc., but the most insidious enemies of women and Black children will be the elites who don’t want women and Black children competing with their kids.
These discrimination deniars will pretend the program doesn’t exist. They will shame others into silence for suggesting the program or incentives do exist, as if they were trying to keep and create more Black poverty.
This program is actually very easy to implement because it’s already the law of the land. The only thing stopping progress within this generation are the teacher’s unions, who stand in the way of school choice.
The teacher’s unions have also continually voted to teach Black kids that they are losers, and turn them into activists instead of teaching them success strategies. Bitching about victimhood is the opposite of a success strategy. These unions need to tell the truth about the opportunities already afforded to women and Black students across America.
There’s a significant nationwide movement toward improving school choice. No teachers unions can stop it at this point. This is going to create competition.
There will be winners and losers, but the winners will be schools who embrace durable, if uncomfortable, truths over comfortable lies.
Those who teach proven success strategies will produce better outcomes than those who teach oppression narratives.
The durable truth is that Affirmative Action combines with corporate policy to guarantee education and job access.
Instead of strategies based on the truth and designed to take advantage of existing law, most white teachers teach students about how uniquely oppressed they are and beat the lesson into them that following the rules is a sucker’s play.
I’d like to propose that every woman and Black child in the United States learn:
- The United States cleared a way for you in education and jobs, by law, 60 years ago.
- Wealthy people and white men have lied about your rights to keep you oppressed.
- It’s in every citizen’s best interest for this generation to take advantage of Affirmative Action and succeed.
Follow the rules, avoid jail and drama, and build your skill stack and every corporate hiring manager is 100% more likely to hire you over any equally qualified white male applicant.
We can fix many of these problems within a generation if we focus on these durable truths,
Anyone telling a Black child any lie other than that is doing them a disservice. Worse than that, since so many of these outcomes are associated with systemic, generational poverty, I’m going to suggest that failing to teach women and Black children the truth about Affirmative Action is tantamount to genocide.
