La Shawn Barber, saying what we’re thinking…

Blacks already receive reparations with every lowered standard, every welfare check, every skin color-entitlement government contract, every race-based program subsidized by taxpayers, and every politically correct doctrine that seeks to suppress honest discussions on race and encourage others to apply different standards to black Americans in just about every area of American life.

If only reparations would stop the complaints, excuse-making, pandering, envy, and hostility! I would be the loudest proponent, donating my share to the poorest of the poor, shouting from the rooftop, “Thank God for this cash, for now my people are free, satiated by the ultimate government check!” (Emphasis added)

Articulate perfection.

[Edit History]

2006.07.19

Cobb has a perspective on how things could be. Writing on African American achievements, he observes:

I percieve a kind of checkboxification going on and a reflexive statement about ‘race relations’ etc. Everybody plays this game. My token is more representative than your token. But I don’t think it is fair to the achiever, the achievement or to the audiences.

And concludes…

So here’s to hope that African American acheivement remains apolitical.

I’ve witnessed remarkable achievements done by many people out of necessity or for the simple thrill of it. I’ve then watched as some of those people and their achievements were snatched by less ambitious folk along the sidelines and spirited away to serve some political agenda as an “aggrieved out-group” icon. I echo Cobb’s hope and look for the day when personal achievements are regarded, pure and simple, as human, unencumbered by qualifiers or tokenization, and therefore available to any of us with the desire and will to succeed. That is a day I would dearly love to see.