Upsetting thought of the day

Amazing, the priorities. What has been particularly distressing about this bailout is the racially tinged accusations of how low-income people and their greed for a home, caused the blowout.
A blowout that has been in the makings for MANY decades. And had more to do with hedge funds, derivatives, NO investments in manufacturing and infrastructure AND major GREED among our financial and political leaders - across party lines.

This is troubling - this issue of reparations and priorities. We are expected to have moved on, forgiven all, yet there continues to be evidence of systemic racism. Even a formal statement of apology is yet to be made...some have dabbled...

And of course we do have to move on, we do have to forgive, if we have any hope of maintaining our potency and moral leadership. We have to fight the fight with a clear head and open heart. If we hope to have lasting impact.

On the one hand there is no doubt that there has been systematic and continuing discrimination since emancipation, and the conditions of slavery were beyond horrific, any sense of justice demands that something be done.

On the other, what would be enough? Is there anyway to make up for what the slaves our country held went through?

More troubling is how you would give some reparation without stoking the thinly vailed racism that still exists? Let's face it, there are a ton of morons out there that have zero empathy for what the slaves went through and what African Americans (and other Americans of color) go through today. To them it would be some kind of unfair bonus that seems unearned.

These are exactly the kind of asshats that would use it as a further justification of their bigotry.

I just don't know, what the best course forward is, but that does not excuse us from trying to find one.

My ancestors were Irish and got crapped on pretty bad also. Where do I sign up for reparations for their inhumane treatment? Oh, that's right, I just remembered, they were the wrong color to be considered for any type of reparations. All I can say is get over it because it's not going to happen.

What makes slavery of blacks so much more immediately horrible---not sorry, I agree with Morgan Freeman on the term African American; blacks are just as American as anyone else---is that it occurred in a country that built itself up as the land of the free. Jim Crowe is a more recent far -reaching legacy of it.

But I get tired of hearing how all whites have it made. Tell that to the coal miners and the hill dwellers living off pot and moon shine money, who never owned slaves. Those people deserve help, too. I rarely hear or read of black activists advocating help for them or for people who are not black. That makes them just as bad as the white fuckers that try to keep them down. I also hear little about the great accomplishments of early black scholars and inventors from modern black rights activists or from many white activists. It is like they are overlooked in a poor me /poor them way.

Instead of reparations, we should make sure that each public school gains access to the same EXCEPTIONAL books, programs, and food. The money could be used to buy clothes for students and to fund field trips, arts, and sports for children in public schools across the country. Give them annual check-ups, too.

On an interesting side note, read up on the slave trade that existed in Portland until the 1940's. You can tour the tunnels where men and women of all colors were kept drugged until they were shipped off to work in foreign lands. It will horrify you and it will also make you realize that in many corners of the world, this still happens.

But I think the author of this piece makes a valid point. I would rather my money go to reparations than this bailout, even though I do not agree with reparations based on color.