On the subject of victims' compensation, I've actually seen one person who made some sense. A couple of months ago they discussed the subject early one Sunday morning in a roundtable on the local NBC station. There were a variety of panelists, each more "victimized" than the next. But one older man, I never got his name, said that reparations needn't be in the form of direct compensation but rather a commitment from the Federal government to assure that all black kids (and all the rest of the kids as well) got a top notch education, which, of course, is something that should be happening anyway. If, for political reasons, it would be useful in settling the perceived grievance to do something like that and frame it as reparations, I could go along with it. Otherwise, f'getaboutit.
OTOH, it would be an interesting exercise to draw up a b balance sheet of who owes what to whom, including the things you mentioned, and try to cost it out. You know how I love interesting exercises...
Karen |
