... but I'm not sure what to make of the conclusion.
John starts out strong with the story of the African American Bruce family who purchased a California beachfront resort in the early 1900s. When the Klan couldn't scare them off (Bet you never saw palm trees in Birth of a Nation, did you?), the local government took the Bruce family land through eminent domain. They were paid 14K for land that was worth 70K at the time. Today that land is worth twenty million dollars.
John's point is to say that for most middle class people, the thing that they possess that accumulates the most value throughout their lives is their home. And prime real estate in good neighborhoods has been systematically denied African Americans certainly before and even after the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. So of course land wrongfully taken should be returned. Whoever owns Bruce Beach now is basically the receiver of stolen goods, and in those cases the buyer is out of luck.
But then John segues into the more general issue of reparations. But he never addresses two basic questions. Taken from whom? Given to whom? Should immigrants from other countries who came here after 1870 and definitely after 1970 pay reparations? Why should we pay reparations to people of African heritage who didn't arrive here until after 1970? Take two famous cases of biracial people. President Obama has a white mother and an African father who never lived in the US. Should President Obama get reparations? Kamala Harris has a mother from India and a Jamaican father whose ancestors were never slaves. Should VP Harris get reparations? Doesn't the whole issue of a rapidly growing multiracial population in the US complicate this entire issue?
And maybe a line from one of Warren Beatty's lesser known films "Bulworth" made over 20 years ago is right in the solution - Paraphrasing, most racial problems will be solved when we are all the same color. Senator Bulworth was cruder in his expression of the sentiment.
John starts out strong with the story of the African American Bruce family who purchased a California beachfront resort in the early 1900s. When the Klan couldn't scare them off (Bet you never saw palm trees in Birth of a Nation, did you?), the local government took the Bruce family land through eminent domain. They were paid 14K for land that was worth 70K at the time. Today that land is worth twenty million dollars.
John's point is to say that for most middle class people, the thing that they possess that accumulates the most value throughout their lives is their home. And prime real estate in good neighborhoods has been systematically denied African Americans certainly before and even after the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. So of course land wrongfully taken should be returned. Whoever owns Bruce Beach now is basically the receiver of stolen goods, and in those cases the buyer is out of luck.
But then John segues into the more general issue of reparations. But he never addresses two basic questions. Taken from whom? Given to whom? Should immigrants from other countries who came here after 1870 and definitely after 1970 pay reparations? Why should we pay reparations to people of African heritage who didn't arrive here until after 1970? Take two famous cases of biracial people. President Obama has a white mother and an African father who never lived in the US. Should President Obama get reparations? Kamala Harris has a mother from India and a Jamaican father whose ancestors were never slaves. Should VP Harris get reparations? Doesn't the whole issue of a rapidly growing multiracial population in the US complicate this entire issue?
And maybe a line from one of Warren Beatty's lesser known films "Bulworth" made over 20 years ago is right in the solution - Paraphrasing, most racial problems will be solved when we are all the same color. Senator Bulworth was cruder in his expression of the sentiment.
