Dear Speaker
of the Assembly Anthony Rendon,
Recently, you folks passed AB 3121 a
bill creating a task force to study and Develop Reparation Proposals for
African Americans. Regarding slavery
reparations Fred Reed, a police reporter, said it best in a 2002 open letter to
Henry Louis Gates:
"On the Web I
find that Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Afro- American Studies at
Harvard, is demanding that whites pay reparations to blacks. It's because of
slavery, see. He is joined in this endeavor by a gaggle of other professional
blacks. I guess he'll send me a bill, huh?
I feel like saying, "Let me get
this straight, Hank. I'm slow. Be patient. You want free money because of
slavery, right? I don't blame you."
I'd like
free money too. Tell you what. I believe in justice. I'll give you a million
dollars for every slave I own, and another million for every year you were a
slave. Fair enough? But tell me, how
many slaves do you suppose I have? In
round numbers, I mean ... say to the nearest dozen. And how long were you a
slave?
Oh. In other words, I owe you
reparations for something that I didn't do and didn't happen to you. That makes
sense. Like lug nuts on a birthday cake.
Personally, I think you owe me reparations for things you
didn't do and never happened to me. I've never been coated in Dutch chocolate
and thrown from the Eiffel Tower. I'll bet you've never done it to anyone. I
want reparations. Kind of silly, isn't it?"
The coronavirus epidemic has decimated
California's economy resulting in a declared budget deficit of $54 billion - so
who gets to pay for the cost of this task force study, if approved, who gets to
receive it and how much reparation money is necessary to assuage the guilty
conscience of those concerned with this issue?
The real question is where is this money coming from?
One has to
wonder why any legislative body would pass a spending bill when our state is
clearly suffering financially - let alone a study to spend an unknown
additional amount toward a very questionable give away!
Piper's Papers