I was thinking about reparation, collective guilt, and related things, when I realized that there is a group that is getting off scot-free despite their logical need to be included in collective guilt.

You see, the Cherokees were a very progressive group. In addition to imitating their neighbors with a legislature and newspaper and other trappings of 18th century governance and civil life, many also adopted the practice of slave holding. Yet, when we hear about reparation, or about guilt over slavery, not one group wants to impose any of this on Cherokees. Now, in some ways this is good for me, as I am a very tiny part Cherokee, and, at present, this sometimes exempts me a tiny bit from being a "white male oppressor". If we actually recognize that Cherokees owned slaves I would lose my "ethnic" exemption.

On the other hand, fair is fair, so we really should make most of those recriminations read "whites and Cherokees" rather than "whites". Or, to be more accurate "whites and Cherokees and descendants of free blacks", as for many generations free blacks also held slaves in several states. Then again, Hispanics usually come from other nations where slavery was practiced, and even more brutally than in the US. So, maybe it should read "whites and Cherokees and descendants of free blacks and Hispanics". Then again...¹

As you see, the list gets a bit tangled.

But that is the whole problem with reparations argument, they try to make everything simple, black and white, if you will, when in reality, even if the underlying logic made sense, the implementation would be nearly impossible.

Allow me to explain.

First, there is the argument made by many whites that they and their ancestors never owned slaves. To which the reparations supporters respond "but you benefit from what slavery built". But that isn't really an argument, as blacks are also benefiting from what slavery built. Everyone is. That doesn't establish guilt. We do not fine a baker for selling a bagel to a guy who uses stolen money. He may benefit, but he also has no guilt². No, if we are going to institute reparations, we need to establish ancestral guilt before we start.

Second, it is no fair paying reparations out of tax revenue. That revenue is drawn indiscriminately form whites, blacks, Asians, and everyone else. As you can see, some are the guilty, some are the victims and some are innocent bystanders. We do not assess fines against everyone who happens to be in the court room when a man is found guilty, and we can't pay reparations out of a general fund. So, if there are going to be reparations, to be fair, we must have a special assessment against those who have guilt and it should be paid out only to those who had slave ancestors.

Which brings me to my next point, establishing one's status. We cannot simply say "You are black here's a check." Haitian immigrants may have suffered from ancestral slavery in Haiti, but we are talking about slavery in the US. Likewise, those descended of Africans who came here voluntarily after slavery ended should not get anything. So, we should definitely establish that any given black citizen had slave ancestors before giving any reparations. (Also, any white, Hispanic, or other non-black citizens who had slave ancestors in the US should also receive a payment. Just because their percentage of black blood is low enough that they choose not to be black should not exempt them from getting proper reparations.)

Of course, the payments should come from those descended from slaveholders. I know the argument goes that all whites benefited from slavery, but that really spreads the net a bit wide. What about the blacks who caught and sold slaves in Africa, only to be caught and sold themselves? Are they victim or criminal? If we look at everyone who "benefited" we throw out a net so wide it becomes absurd. We will end up at war with the entirety of Europe and the Middle East trying to collect reparations payment, as both also benefited from the American slave trade, probably more than whites in the US did. So, if we accept the idea of inherited guilt, then we really need to establish that one has a slave holding ancestor before assessing a fine.

But there we run into problems. Many blacks in the US have some percentage of white blood, and, as slave holders sometimes had physical involvement with slaves, a number of blacks actually have both slaveholder and slave ancestors. Not to mention the descendants of free blacks who owned slaves. How should they be handled? If they are both criminal and victim, do we call it a wash and set their account to zero? Do we figure out the proportions of blood and then prorate the amounts they should pay and receive?

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I was going to go on farther with this absurd line of thought, but I think I have hit my first insurmountable barrier right here. So, no point in going on, this is enough to show how reparations just won't work. How, in fact the entire concept of ancestral guilt won't work.

I am going to be abused for saying it, but it is absurd to hold anyone guilty for anything he did not personally do. Yes, race relations in the US are tainted by past events, but that is meaningless in terms of individuals. Yes, blacks still feel at a disadvantage due to past injustices, and that is sad. But are we going to continue to view everything in terms of racial groups to cure that? Replace anti-black racism with pro-black racism in order to end racism? And how long will it have to continue?  And what if whites feel bad afterward, do we revert to pro-white racism for a while to fix that?

No, the only cure is to say "get over it" and move on. Eliminate any legal recognition of race and, after a while, race will cease to matter.

Now I have been told "it is easy for a white to say that". And, yes, I admit, forgetting about race will be easier for me than for those who think about it more. But that changes nothing.

The only way to get race to stop mattering is to stop recognizing it. If we continue to dwell on race, on reparations, on past injustices, we just put off the end of racism. I view my solution as sort of a statute of limitations. It is often unfair, it harms some people, but it is necessary. Just as the statute of limitations says that after a time it is necessary to put things to rest, even if justice is not done, so we can get over past wrongs, I think it is time, even if it prevents us from redressing every past wrong, to move on and stop recognizing race.

Perhaps if the state stops recognizing race, and people of good will stop thinking about race, then most people will eventually come to forget about race as well. After a generation or two maybe the idea that black and white matter will seems as silly as Hitler's obsession with blue eyed blonds³. We don't attach any traits to eye or hair color (other than blonde jokes)⁴, so it is not inevitable we should attach any value to skin color or other incidental physical traits. It is simply our refusal to put race to rest that lets that belief continue.

As it involves doing nothing, I am sure many will object to this solution. As it is not "just" I am sure others will find reasons to put it off, or make exceptions. But I just see no other solution. At some point we have to stop recognizing race if it is going to stop being an issue. So why do we keep pushing it into the future?

Perhaps racism is kept alive, is kept as an issue, because some make a good living from it? From the racial shakedown artists like Jackson and Sharpton, to the Democrat politicians who get minority voting block support, to every Reverend Wright building a multimillion dollar mansion selling separatism, a lot of people who claim to be curing racism seem to be keeping racism alive⁵.

I say it is time to ignore them, to ignore claims that every problem needs to be solved first, every past injustice redressed. If we are going to put race to bed, if we are going to get over this issue, the first step is to stop thinking in terms of race.

Yes, it is easy for me to say that, as I am white, but that does not mean it is not true.

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1. This article is solely about reparations for slavery. Jim Crow and other post-slavery abuses are another matter. But reparations argument almost always rely on slavery, even if they sometimes wrongly conflate that with Jim Crow, so I will focus solely on slavery.

2. Of course, we don't send the bank robber's son to jail either. But for purposes of this argument I am accepting the idea that distant descendants can be accused of the crimes of their ancestors. It is a stupid idea, but we will accept it for purposes of argument only.

3. I am not saying there won't be racists. There are people out there who seriously think brunettes are inferior to blondes, and others who draw conclusions based on ratios of facial features. There will be nutters with us forever. But if we stop recognizing race in government, and as a culture, they will be reduced to a shunned, tiny minority. That is the best we will ever get, and not a bad end result in my mind.

4. For those who say "yes, but hair color and race are very different", I would remind them that many cultures did associate traits with hair color, from ancient Nordic assumptions about social class based on hair color to the Egyptian attribution of evil to red heads. So, the fact that modern man thinks about race rather than hair color does not prove that hair color never mattered. It is all a matter of what we choose to recognize as significant and insignificant. Obviously skin color is much more noticeable, but that does not mean it cannot become insignificant if we choose to make it so.

5. Of course there are others who cash in on race. White and black power movements make a living on continuing racial animosities.But they are more following a trend than driving it. If society stops thinking about race, "white power" will sounds as silly as "redhead power", and will be just as popular. Society's mild racism fuels these more extreme racists. If we forget race, they will see their followers dwindle away to almost nothing.

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ADDENDUM  

As if to prove my contention, the moment I finished writing the article above my wife forwarded an article to me with the comment "What are people thinking?"

And again, we can see how, if we choose to obsess on race, anything at all can inspire controversy. On the other hand, if we all just decided to ignore race, this is just another stupid fashion magazine cover. It is only our obsession which creates half the "racial incidents" in the modern world. And those fuel the hatred which is responsible for the other half of the (real) racial incidents.

If we just forgot about race, almost all of this would go away. Not immediately, not quietly, but eventually.

On the other hand, the longer we continue to obsess on race, even if we do it to "redress past wrong", we just prolong our agony and keep everyone thinking in terms of race.

As I said in the article itself, it is time to get over it.