You’re already paying reparations, but the money’s not going to black America
In the wake of BLM riots, politicians, activists and opportunists are demanding the white man pay reparations for the evils of his slave-owning ancestors. But he’s already paying, and it’s not his black neighbors getting rich.
From the Seattle activists asking that whites give 10 dollars to their black friends, to Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson demanding the government hand over $14 trillion in the “affirmative action program of all time,” to rapper Pharrell Williams calling this week for a paid ‘Juneteenth’ holiday to atone for slavery, reparations are in vogue. Even the California State Assembly passed a reparations bill last month. Seemingly, it’s not a question of if black America will get its payday, but when.
However, it’s already happening. Now, African Americans aren’t getting quarter-million dollar federal checks, like Johnson wants. Their crumbling schools aren’t being replaced with free universities. Instead, money is being lifted from the middle classes and sucked up by the elite, who preach the gospel of anti-racism while enriching only themselves.
By mid-June this year, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and its local chapters had taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in donations. Asked by the New York Times, the Black Lives Matter Global Network refused to comment on its haul, but a spokesperson said that one local petition alone had raised $5 million, while another said it had raised $10 million in 24 hours on ‘Blackout Tuesday.’ Cash bail funds – raised to release rioters from jail – pulled in similar amounts, while ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising organization, saw its busiest period in history.
As for where the money goes, that’s anyone’s guess. But between 2017 and 2019, 83 percent of the Black Lives Matter Global Network’s spending went on salaries, bonuses, travel and consulting. Only six percent went to local chapters and community organizations.
One can forgive the archetypal guilty white liberal for donating to a shady charity amid a national reckoning on race. But corporate America too has opened its checkbook to BLM without a thought for its own workers.
Walmart, whose 1.4 million American employees often rely on food stamps to survive, pledged a whopping $100 million last month to setting up a “center focused on racial equity.” Apple, whose products are manufactured in near-slavery conditions in China, dedicated the same amount to a “holistic...and company-wide” effort to eradicate racism. And Nike, whose products are stitched together in Asian sweatshops, announced $40 million for black charities.
The list is endless, with more than 200 global brands vowing to chip in and support the BLM cause. Some of that money, at least, may find its way to black people living in inner cities. Not so the fortune that white-collar companies are prepared to drop on “anti-racist” seminars and diversity training sessions.
Robin DiAngelo, a screeching harridan whose bestselling ‘White Fragility’ claims that “racism is the foundation of Western society,” charged the University of Kentucky $12,000 for a “Racial justice keynote and breakout session” last year. She’s a corporate consultant, whose three-day struggle sessions force white employees dumb or unfortunate enough to attend to engage in “self-inquiry,” to “go deeper in the dismantling of whiteness.” Chairman Mao would be proud.
And those CEOs who don’t hire DiAngelo to berate their workers can call any number of professional race-hustlers to do her job. Tim Wise, author of ‘White Like Me,’ charges between $10,000 and $20,000 for a speech. Ditto with BLM founder Opal Tometi and activist DeRay Mckesson, among a panoply of campaigners, authors and “educators” currently touring the boardrooms of America.
This is more than just performative wokeness. That much can be achieved with a sanctimonious tweet or Facebook post. This is instead another salvo in the American oligarchy’s war on the middle class.
Also on rt.com Slavoj Zizek: Politically correct white people who practise self-contempt are contributing NOTHING in the fight to end racismBLM carries out some of this work itself. In Boston, the organization is demanding the city allocate $15 million toward the hiring of illegal immigrants, despite the fact that illegal immigration suppresses black wages.
Corporate America does the rest. Walmart’s $100 million pledge to end systemic racism, for example, involves hiring “those exiting” the criminal justice system. Walmart’s existing employees will surely be thrilled to learn that their bosses are hiring convicts – who have no bargaining power on the job market – over paying them a few dollars more per hour.
The mostly white middle class still holds more than double the wealth of the top one percent of America. Funding an organization whose explicit goal is the redistribution of this group’s wealth suits the corporate class just fine. Venom-spewing preachers such as DiAngelo wage a non-stop propaganda war on these whites, calls to defund police leave them unprotected and afraid, and money that could better their standing gets sucked away into the bottomless pit of anti-racism organizations and hoovered up by the grifters who staff them.
Anyone who complains can be labeled a “racist” – a term worse than “pedophile” for the social stigma it carries.
Moreover, any “luxuries” the worker demands from his employer or the state can be deemed the trappings of white supremacy. Academics and lawmakers have already argued that the single-family home, a steak for dinner, the privilege of calling the police, even the notion of comfort itself, are all racist.
When the worker of the near future asks for a week’s vacation, he’ll be marched to HR, where a Robin DiAngelo clone will remind him that the notion of vacation is a white-supremacist construct, and reprimanded for his unconscious bigotry. When he gets home, he’d better hope nobody tries to break in, because the police will be defunded and he can’t afford the private security his boss can. As for defending himself, we saw how that worked out for the Missouri couple who pulled guns on a mob swarming their home this week. Even after declaring support for BLM, they’re under investigation by the city and could face charges.
Trickle-up reparations are the latest and greatest con of America’s ruling class. Neither poor blacks nor middle-class whites benefit from this scheme – only those at the very top of the pyramid and their handmaidens stand to gain.
Against the dogma of BLM and the machinations of corporate America, will anyone speak out?
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
