{"id":551412,"date":"2021-06-03T17:21:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T21:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=551412"},"modified":"2021-06-03T17:21:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T21:21:21","slug":"reparations-for-black-america-already-happened-black-scholar-tells-don-lemon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/reparations-for-black-america-already-happened-black-scholar-tells-don-lemon\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Reparations For Black America Already Happened,\u2019 Black Scholar Tells Don Lemon"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Freparations-for-black-america-already-happened-black-scholar-tells-don-lemon%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=551412&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-528771668.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Current discussions about \u201csystemic racism\u201d and \u201cequity\u201d ignore the fact that U.S. taxpayers already financed several multi-trillion-dollar programs of reparations beginning more than 50 years ago, an expert on civil rights told Don Lemon on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>The bill for \u201cslavery and Jim Crow\u201d has already been paid, Columbia University English Professor <a href=\"https:\/\/americanstudies.columbia.edu\/people\/john-h-mcwhorter\">John McWhorter<\/a> told Lemon, a hardcore believer in \u201cdiversity, equity, and inclusion.\u201d But that continuing payment makes up a part of U.S. social history \u201cthat we\u2019re beginning to forget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CNN\u2019s \u201cDon Lemon Tonight\u201d covered President Joe Biden\u2019s speech on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre Tuesday night, noting that the Biden administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/biden-visits-tulsa-to-commemorate-1921-race-massacre-sidesteps-question-of-reparations-for-survivors\">refused to answer<\/a> whether it supports reparations for its survivors.<\/p>\n<p>Lemon put that question to his guest, who said identifiable survivors and their families should receive funding.<\/p>\n<p>McWhorter, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnyc.org\/story\/96753-bullhorn-narrow-debate-race-distorts-political-labels\/\">describes<\/a> himself as a \u201ccranky liberal,\u201d said that \u201cmaking up for slavery and Jim Crow,\u201d and the practice of redlining, is \u201ca great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But he added, \u201cI\u2019m a little weary of the idea that we should think of [Tulsa-style reparations] as a microcosm for what should happen for black America, not because I\u2019m against reparations, but because reparations for black America already happened starting in the late \u201860s.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although Americans today do not think of these programs as reparations, McWhorter named three of the many Great Society programs specifically enacted to reverse the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow by assuring black citizens access to a social safety net, quality education, dignified employment, and property ownership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAffirmative action was reparations. People didn\u2019t use that word, but that\u2019s precisely what it was,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that forced banks to invest in inner cities \u2026 that was reparation,\u201d although \u201cnobody makes a movie about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWelfare was reformed to be easier to get in the late \u201860s \u2014 another untold story. It was reparations,\u201d McWhorter continued.<\/p>\n<p>Don Lemon objected, \u201cThat certainly doesn\u2019t make up for the people who farmed lands for free while the slave master got all the wealth and you got nothing and no education and no right to vote. Even affirmative action, do you think, was reparations for all of that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI very much do,\u201d McWhorter replied, \u201cbecause if affirmative action didn\u2019t help to turn black America upside down [socioeconomically], then why do we fight with tooth, claw, and nail whenever anybody threatens it? It created a huge black middle class, and it created black success of all kinds that wouldn\u2019t have happened without it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think affirmative action was a great thing, but I do think that it was a reparation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s very much how Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/228199544_Affirmative_Action_as_Reparations_for_Slavery_and_Legal_Discrimination_Amicus_Brief_in_Support_of_Respondents\">saw<\/a> the expansion of social welfare programs in the 1960s, taken up at the same time as Congress passed two landmark civil rights bills.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after launching the War on Poverty, President Lyndon Johnson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/commencement-address-howard-university-fulfill-these-rights\">told<\/a> the 1965 graduating class of Howard University that, while the black American \u201cwill have to rely mostly upon his own efforts\u201d to escape poverty, \u201che just cannot do it alone.\u201d The government will have to pass laws to erase \u201cthe consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, \u2018you are free to compete with all the others,\u2019 and still justly believe that you have been completely fair,\u201d President Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite LBJ\u2019s good intentions, the programs did not always have their intended effect. \u201cSome of it worked, some of it didn\u2019t,\u201d McWhorter said.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has spent more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/commentary\/whats-missing-war-poverty\">$23 trillion<\/a> on the War on Poverty since 1965, but poverty has barely budged in 56 years.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, in the 15 years before the new government spending, the black poverty rate had been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/poverty-and-inequality\/report\/the-war-poverty-after-50-years\">cut in half<\/a>. Black poverty fell from 32% in 1950 to 17% in 1965. Since then, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/despite-what-you-may-think-the-war-on-poverty-worked\">official<\/a> poverty measure has stayed more-or-less constant.<\/p>\n<p>But Johnson intended to root out the \u201ccauses\u201d of poverty by giving \u201cthe forgotten fifth of our people opportunity not doles.\u201d That part hasn\u2019t worked out so well.<\/p>\n<p>The Community Action Program organized welfare recipients to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/html\/war-poverty-40-12809.html?wallit_nosession=1\">lobby<\/a> for \u201cwelfare rights\u201d and more generous benefits, while the taxpayer-funded Legal Services Corporation sued the government to swell the ranks of welfare recipients. Both increased generational welfare dependence instead of empowering citizens to self-sufficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Welfare programs reduced payments to married families, giving couples an incentive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/welfare\/report\/how-welfare-undermines-marriage-and-what-do-about-it\">not to get married<\/a>. \u201cIn 1938, 11 percent of black children were born to single mothers,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.creators.com\/read\/walter-williams\/09\/15\/wasnt-always-this-way\">wrote<\/a> the late Walter Williams in 2015. \u201cToday it is close to 75 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Out-of-wedlock births have a devastating long-term impact on\u00a0 poverty, including the ability of black Americans to obtain wealth. \u201cChildren who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2008\/06\/text-of-obamas-fatherhood-speech-011094\">said<\/a> Barack Obama in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Affirmative action, in the form of preferential hiring for people of minority backgrounds, continues to this day, even though the Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/443\/193\/#tab-opinion-1953274\">authorized<\/a> only \u201ctemporary, voluntary, affirmative action measures undertaken to eliminate manifest racial imbalance in traditionally segregated job categories.\u201d In 2003, the court ruled that \u201crace-conscious [college] admissions policies must be limited in time.\u201d Although the court did not specify a time, \u201cwe expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today\u201d the justices <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/02-241.ZO.html\">wrote<\/a>\u00a018 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>As for the Community Reinvestment Act, economists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/econresdata\/notes\/feds-notes\/2015\/assessing-the-community-reinvestment-acts-role-in-the-financial-crisis-20150526.html\">debate<\/a> how important a role the CRA played in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investors.com\/politics\/commentary\/faults-community-reinvestment-act-cra-mortgage-defaults\/\">triggering<\/a> the 2008 subprime mortgage crash and, in turn, the Great Recession.<\/p>\n<p>McWhorter said that all of the ongoing anti-poverty programs were \u201cpart of a program of reparations, which is part of a national mood in the \u201860s and \u201870s. So that it isn\u2019t true that white America or the powers-that-be never acknowledged the horrors that we went through,\u201d McWhorter said. \u201cIt is just not true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething happened in the \u201860s and \u201870s that we\u2019re beginning to forget,\u201d McWhorter said.<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Current discussions about \u201csystemic racism\u201d and \u201cequity\u201d ignore the fact that U.S. taxpayers already financed several multi-trillion-dollar programs of reparations beginning more than 50 years ago, an expert on civil &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2279133,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-528771668.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018Reparations For Black America Already Happened,\u2019 Black Scholar Tells Don Lemon","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-528771668.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018Reparations For Black America Already Happened,\u2019 Black Scholar Tells Don Lemon","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}