Reparations Debate Explodes in Dems' Faces as People Suggest They Should Be the Ones Paying
For years, those within the Democratic Party have advocated for reparations — the act of giving money to current and future generations of lineages affected by slavery.
However, activists for this controversial program may have finally met their match in former NFL player and Fox News contributor Burgess Owens.
On Wednesday, Owens turned the tables on Democrats during a congressional hearing on reparations, saying that progressives are the ones who would be responsible for compensating descendants of slaves.
“Let’s point to the party that was part of slavery, KKK, Jim Crow, that has killed over 40 percent of our black babies, 20 million of them,” Owens said. “State of California: 75 percent of our black boys can’t pass a standard reading and writing test. A Democratic state. So, yes, let’s pay restitution. How about a Democratic Party pay for all the misery brought to my race and those — after we learn our history — who decide to stay there, they should pay also.”
Ouch, that’s going to leave a mark.
But Owens didn’t stop there. He brought up the racially diverse panel to which he was speaking and noted that its demands for reparations might negatively affect the next generation of Americans.
“Look at this panel,” Owens said. “Doesn’t matter how we think. Doesn’t matter our color. We have become successful in this country like no other because of this great opportunity to live the American dream. Let’s not steal that from our kids by telling them they can’t do it.”
Watch Burgess Owens’ testimony in the video below.
According to The Blaze, the congressional hearing was centered around new legislation that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced, in which “appropriate remedies” for reparations would be studied by the government. The bill in question is HR 40, titled “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spearheaded the first wave of criticism over Lee’s bill, said he doesn’t “think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago when none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea.”
The Kentucky senator’s comment did not sit well with some.
Far-left author Ta-Nehisi Coates lashed out against McConnell, saying that, “For a century after the Civil War, black people were subjected to a relentless campaign of terror. A campaign that extended well into the lifetime of Majority Leader McConnell.”
American Thinker reported that Quillette writer Coleman Hughes also testified at the hearing and explained that reparations would involuntarily make black Americans victims.
Interestingly enough, Coates interviewed former President Barack Obama about the issue of reparations in 2016, but the 44th commander in chief said that reparations just aren’t practical.
“And what makes America complicated as well is the degree to which this is not just a black/white society, and it is becoming less so every year,” Obama told Coates.
“So, how do Latinos feel if there’s a big investment just in the African American community, and they’re looking around and saying, ‘We’re poor as well. What kind of help are we getting?’ Or Asian Americans who say, ‘Look, I’m a first-generation immigrant, and clearly I didn’t have anything to do with what was taking place.’”
For once, it seems Obama was right about a cultural issue — reparations would be overkill and would have a divisive effect on the melting pot that is America.
America isn’t black and white, and its politics shouldn’t be, either.
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