"Sorry I burned down your village. Here's some gold."

Once again, I'm revel in my own geek-dom -- the quote is actually from a old magic card called Reparations. I chose that because reparations is part of what I want to talk about in this post.

But more generally, the topic today is the big R-word... that's right, kids, it's racism.

Now, being mulatto, I've never really classified myself as white or black. Having grown up in an all-white neighborhood, with an all-white family and all-white friends, race wasn't really an issue for me. Despite living in a rural, small-town area, racism never really had much of an effect on my life. I remember, on the playground one time when I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade, one kid called me a nigger for reasons I can't remember. I cried, but I don't think I really understood why at that time. I remember another guy calling me the same on the bus one time. I thought I was smart, so I was like "Oh, you must be talking about Nigeria, the African country." Not a very good comeback, but what do you expect when you're like 9? Besides, the ass-hole sixth-grader probably didn't even know what I was talking about, so I hereby declare myself winner of that exchange.

But I digress. I get the feeling that, if I were ever a teacher, I'd be the sort who spends half of any given class just talking about random shit and never really getting to the lessons. See what I mean...? Anyawy, the point is, racism, to me was little more than a handful of isolated events, and I never really thought about my racial identity. Hell, I still don't really think about it.

Lately a few things have been keying me into the whole race issue. A lot probably had a lot to do with my newfound respect for rap's finer specimens, like (as mentioned before) Talib Kweli, Mos Def et al. More recently though, someone posted the question "Should black people get reparations for slavery?" on the World of Warcraft Off-topic message boards. An odd place to have an intellectual discussion, perhaps, but it really was quite a good one. If it still existed (which I was sad to discover that it doesn't), I'd link to it.

Reparations is a horrible idea for a number of reasons.

#1: Many believe it is just a "ploy" to get free money. Their money. Everyone likes getting money, no one likes giving it up. This is what we call conflict. I'm certain there are some people who would support the movement just to collect a check. I'm certain there are plenty. But even if there weren't any, this basic idea compromises the whole movement. The worst part is that people who deserve to pay the most (racists) will obviously be the most likely to rebel against it. Reparations would, simply put, be a civil rights disaster.

#2: Who's gonna pay? Who is to blame? Should it be a mandatory "white people" tax? Should my adoptive parents, who raised me and clearly have no racial bias have to pay for something that people 400 miles south of here did 200 years ago? Fact is, slavery is dead and prejudice is, in a legal sense, invisible. Some supporters or reparations seem to have a "guilty by association" view. Even if you weren't a slaver (or in this case, your great grandparents weren't, or whatever), then you knew someone who was and you didn't stop it. Therefore, you must pay. No, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

#3: Who's gonna get the money? Should every black person get a check? I think that Dave Chappelle did a great sketch on what would happen if that were to occur ("I just bought this baby -- cash!"; "KFC and Fubu have merged to form the largest corporation in the world."; "They're just tripping over themselves to give the money right back to us!")
The general idea for reparations movements is to put the money into non-profit organizations -- an idea that I can get behind. But again, where's the money coming from? It's got to come from the (white) people, and the (white) people will not stand for it.

Some arguments for reparations are very compelling. Was there a crime committed? Yes, clearly -- one of humanity's greater tragedies. Furthermore, slavery and its aftermath has had an effect on black people to this day. The thing is, I'm not sure that there's any amount of money that can undo all the damage. I mean, infrastructure is key -- the shitty ghettos that are like 90% black need new and better schools, homes... better everything. But more than anything, it needs time. We can't just plop some new schools down and everything will be nice-nice... it'll take decades to heal. And even then, who knows?

I'm speaking as an outsider here, but believe the problem with black people today is this terrible cycle that they are locked into. A lot of people will say that if you want to escape from the Ghetto, you work hard and you get educated and you do it. Now, if you believe in nature over nurture, this argument works. Well, sometimes. But if you believe the opposite it just falls apart. If no one arounds you values learning, why would you? If the richest people around you are pimps and dealers, why go to school? If your parents can't provide for you but a gang can, why not run with them? Does it essentially come down to a lack of education? Yes -- but not the sort of thing that school's can fix.

The state of race relations in this country is bad enough without reparations making everyone even more pissed off. What's always disheartened me, though, is that black people are just as racist, if not moreso, than white people. I think that it must be human nature. In my time in Geneseo (which is mostly a white campus), I'd often see blacks with blacks, asians with asians, etc. That's just how people are. It's fucked up. Or is it? I dunno, I don't fully understand it... I mean, I understand why people do it on a fundamental level, but at what point when meeting a new person does your mind say "This person shares my race, I should be friends with them" (or vice versa)?

What I'm getting at is that people don't seem to want to be unified. Not on a personal level. People are content with just looking "not racist." They may not see people of other races as inferior... but they see them as still "different." And in ways, we are -- but not so much so that we can't all just treat each other like "normal" humans.

For what it's worth, though... I think things are getting better. I think we're just now starting to reap the benefits of the civil rights movement. Our generation is gradually coming into power, and things seem to be moving in the right direction. We can only hope.

Note: I only touched on reverse-racism this post... I do want to revisit that topic again soon.