a slave to logic

A topic I’m getting a little sick of lately is reparations. The idea that we can give money to the ancestors of slaves to somehow make up for that period of time in our history where working conditions might not have been exactly ideal.

I still remember sitting in History class as a kid and first learning about slavery. I was looking around with a “this guy is kidding right?” look on my face. I was listening to the teacher and flipping along looking at the pictures in the book but it seemed surreal. It didn’t seem possible that it could have actually happened.

It made me never want to wear cotton again.

But reparations?

A bad idea and here’s why: within a couple generations all the money will be right back with the white people. Don’t believe me? Look at all the black athletes and entertainers who strike it rich and then a few years later they’re bankrupt and getting their mug shots taken. If white people are good at anything it’s taking other people’s money. Sorry to say it but it’s true.

Note that I say “white people” even though I’m white. Somehow I must have missed this gene in my DNA otherwise I wouldn’t be forced to sit here and write dumb stuff like this.

Reparations wouldn’t work and then black people would be even more pissed off.

Nobody wants that.

So I came up with a better idea.

A little of the “what’s good for the goose” strategy. Slavery in North America lasted from approximately 1525 to 1866. 341 years. In that time 12.5 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic to the “New World.” Of those, 390,000 came directly to North American and another 50,000 made their way from the Caribbean.  So we have a total of 440,000 slaves brought to North America.

My plan is to let Africa take 440,000 Americans back to Africa to work as slaves for 341 years. We’ll let Africa squabble about which country gets how many slaves, but I think the general idea is sound. After 341 years they release the Americans and we let bygones be bygones.

Now obviously we can’t let Africa pick and choose which Americans to take because the whole idea behind slavery is manual labor and that kind of work lends itself to the biggest and strongest so the last thing we want is for Africa to take a bunch of black guys back. Sort of defeats the whole purpose and would put a major dent in the NFL and NBA. It would be a PR nightmare. A bunch of black guys in shackles at the docks with a variety of “You’ve got to be kidding me” and “Not again” looks on their faces.

Nope. They have to take white people and they have to just take whoever loses the great slavery draft. Tickets, bouncing balls, however you want to imagine it. One minute you’re in your 3rd story walk up in Soho and the next you’re being loaded onto a ship bound for Senegal. Make sure to bring your sunscreen, Nigel.

TO BE SOLD: a cargo of ninety-four prime, healthy CRACKERS just arrived from Manhattan.

If black slaves came up with ribs and blues music just imagine what nearly a half million white people will come up with given a few centuries toiling in the fields. In the end this might really work out well for everyone involved.

Any questions on whether these newly-minted slaves could get time off for good behavior is strictly up to their masters. Any associations you made between a term used frequently when talking about the incarcerated and the high number of former-Africans currently locked up in North America is strictly your issue. Don’t put that on my doorstep. This story has enough wrong with it without adding to the list of people I’m going to offend.

Just trying to help here.