Should Blacks be paid slavery reparations in the form of homelands?

40 acres, bring your own mule

Many Black activists are agitating for two things.

One, they want reparations for the enslavement of some of their ancestors centuries ago, a small fraction of which is to be paid by the people whose ancestors were the enslavers, and a large fraction of which is to be paid by people like me whose ancestors back then were raiding rival clans in the Scottish Highlands without ever setting eyes on a Black person in their entire poor, nasty, brutish and short lives.

Two, they want to reinstitute racial segregation. They want Black dorm buildings in college, Black classes, Black this and Black that, all because the White man is not to be trusted. Who knows when he’ll break out a noose?

I do not think slavery reparations, standing alone, would do much good in elevating Black achievement. Trillions spent on Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, three generations of welfare, and 40 years of Black favoritism in job applications and college admissions have done little good for Blacks, and arguably a lot of harm.

And I think segregation, standing alone, is an equally bad idea. If the races are ever to get along and start to trust one another, they need to spend time together.

In short, both ideas are divisive, racist, and unconstructive. But since the Black activists brought up these ideas, maybe we should seriously consider them, not alone but in combination.

Here’s how it might look.

Blacks are about 13% of the American population (they would be several percentage points more if not for Roe v. Wade – abortion was very disproportionately a Black method of birth control).

Sooo…. Blacks would be gifted homelands roughly equal to 13% of the United States. That’s an acreage roughly the size of California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada, combined. Maybe throw in Arizona, and you’re well over 13%.

That’s prime real estate, and a lot of it. If all 40 million current American Blacks went, they would have over half a million square miles to divide amongst them – about 10 acres per person or something over 40 acres per family. Mule not included.

Maybe the new Disunited States (“D.S.”) that’s left after giving up that land would reserve a land corridor to San Diego to preserve Pacific Ocean access. Last I heard, we still had the remnants of a naval fleet out there.

Whether a Black person chooses to migrate to the Black Homelands (“B.H.”) would be entirely his or her own decision. I’m not proposing a reenactment of the travesty of Liberia where Black former slaves were involuntarily shipped off to the jungles of Africa, a place they knew nothing about and wound up one of the poorest nations on earth.

If a significant number of Blacks choose not to migrate to B.H., then in fairness the land area granted to B.H. should be proportionately reduced, maybe by enlargement of that land corridor giving D.S. access to the Pacific.

As for those Blacks who choose to stay, they will of course enjoy equal protection and non-discrimination under the 14^th Amendment and the existing Civil Rights Acts, just as everyone else does. No special treatment for them, good or bad. The landmark decisions of the Supreme Court will apply, including the recent Harvard case outlawing racial discrimination in college admissions. We’ll be a colorblind society, at last.

Free, at last.

The governance of B.H. will be up to the Blacks who migrate there. Have a Constitutional Convention, guys. Or hell, elect a dictator, appoint philosopher kings, establish a politburo, call it the People’s International Socialism State, or invent something new altogether.

It’ll be your nation to screw up, or to make great. But don’t come crying to the D.S. about it. It’s your problem, not ours.