Slave Identity
Update: https://youtube.com/shorts/DccmxWTO-s0?si=ANnFOSmcCapLg2Rw
State Senator McKinney is seeking reparations for Black Americans in proposing LB 1044 (https://nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=55386) but the bill inserts many falsehoods (https://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/108/PDF/Intro/LB1044.pdf). The Senator needs a history lesson. Slavery did not start in 1619, but in 1655. Anthony Johnson, a Black colonist from Africa, had indentured servants including John Casor, a Black man (https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/court-ruling-on-anthony-johnson-and-his-servant-1655/ and https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/dbva/items/show/126). There was a dispute over the term of service and Johnson took the matter to court. The court ruled Casor was not entitled to freedom and became a slave. To solely blame any singular race for slavery is wrong. Find fault with indentured slavery as we should but many Europeans were brought to the Americas under such terms, and many died before their end of term.
McKinney is wrong to state the US Constitution sanctioned slavery. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison used to believe this and wanted to destroy the Constitution. But Lysander Spooner proved to him the Constitution did no such thing (https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/1238/). The reason you don’t hear about this is Garrison had pushed for the secession of free states in 1857 after Fremont lost the Presidential election in 1856 (https://emergingcivilwar.com/2022/02/16/paving-the-way-to-harpers-ferry-the-disunion-convention-of-1857/). Also, Spooner would state the Civil War was not about slavery but about Yankee domination of the South and West.
I suppose McKinney could take issue with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the Reconstruction period. However, the KKK was largely the result of the US military occupation of former Confederate states and the deprivation of political rights of former Confederates. Once the occupation ended, the KKK vanished. Only fools would resurrect the KKK but Democrat President Woodrow Wilson did so anyways in airing the film Birth of a Nation in the White House. And if McKinney has problems with this, his eyeballs will pop out when he learns Nathan Bedford Forrest was an advocate for Black civil rights after the war (https://www.dnj.com/story/news/2015/07/10/remembering-rutherford-forrest-postwar-activist-black-civil-rights/29995493/).
But the Reconstruction is but a distraction from the US Indian Wars. Former Black slaves joined the US Army and were known as Buffalo Soldiers. The US Army fought many engagements with Native American tribes. The Buffalo Soldiers were stationed in Fort Robinson, in Nebraska, where Chief Crazy Horse of the Lakota Sioux tribe had been killed a few years prior. Ironic name for a Native American because the horse is not native to the Americas but is an import from Europe. So if McKinney wants to persist in pushing for reparations, he should send the bill to Africa. At the same time, he should write a check to each, and every Native American Tribe. After all, it is only fair.
But, McKinney really needs to address his own identity. Just what is it? Does he have a “slave identity” in a time when there are no slaves? Or does he suffer from a persecution complex (https://www.learning-mind.com/persecution-complex/)? He is doomed to be victim because it is the only identity he is encouraged to claim. Can he just be an American or can he take pride in the Black heroes in America such as James Forten (https://www.amrevmuseum.org/exhibits/black-founders-the-forten-family-of-philadelphia) without emboldening every negative thing and claiming racism? Instead, McKinney appears to believe Black Americans have been subjected to billions of injustices and wants a claim check for damages. But realistically, he comes off as being a fat and spoiled version of Oliver Twist asking: "Can I have some more please?" No matter how he frames reparations, it is just another way of panhandling. Sorry.
Think about this. Nebraska was never a slave state. In fact, it was settled by many Union soldiers: Republicans! If McKinney wants to have Democrats, the Party of slavery, pay for reparations, I will not object, provided Republicans are exempt as the Party which took slavery down. But even this would be unjust because no one today has owned a slave. There is no way to justly fund such reparations. People should be provided help based on their needs, not on the basis of their ancestry. Yet, those who claim the Civil War was slavery tend to cast Whites as the heroes and Blacks as liberated victims which perpetuates the slave identity, a racist outcome.
Yes, racism is wrong but judgment comes naturally to people. No matter what you do, people will judge you. So, build yourself up and make your character impeccable. This is the tradition of becoming American.
As you point our and documentb history is not McKinneys strong suit.
They are insidious racists, in fact their human ownership mentality is boldly put on display. As a member of the slavery party he shouts from the roof top he has this genetic defect thinking he owns people. He will support slave owner schools, he will support disarming the people he thinks he owns and he will support efforts to take their money away as massa has a better way for your money to be spent.
Mr. Sullivan, you're commentaries reek of consistently White-washing and "re-imagining" historical facts, and worse, your commentaries belittle the atrocities engineered by White people against people of color. Your comment, "If I was a Black teenager and subject to your line of thinking, I would become a thief," not only reeks of Whiteness, bu only validates your FAILURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE HISTORICAL FACTS, CURRENT REALITIES, AND LINEAR PROJECTIONS, which is also true of many Black people. Mr. Sullivan, where's your evidence, your proof that actually proves the robust data I've presented is false??? You have none. Your "intellectualizing" is crap (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/09/us/powerful-people-race-us.html). You're full of opinions, Mr. Sullivan, but have absolutely no FACTS to validate any of your stupid assessments.
I advocate that Black people create and sustain Black owned-controlled-operated businesses, because as factually documented, integration has NEVER improved any aspect of the Black experience in the United States of America (http://tripoetry.com/Black.htm#PERPETUAL). Conversely, you clearly advocate for people of color to remain subservient and oppressed to White people, which clearly makes you a racist. Yes, Mr. Sullivan, a racist.
Here's exactly what I've actually told Black teenagers subject to my line of thinking (for decades):
"We have the power of numbers, the power of organization, and the power of spirit. Let me explain what I mean. Sixteen million people are a force to be reckoned with, and indeed there are many nations in the U.N. whose numbers are less." Paul Robeson, Source: "Here I Stand" © 1958 by Paul Robeson (Legendary Black American athlete, bass baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, and political activist), page 92, fifth paragraph
"How long are you gonna sit around begging White people to do for us when we have the power to do for ourselves?" Minister Louis Farrakhan
Integration doesn't mean a damn thing unless you OWN it!™ Trip Reynolds
I "challenge" not only Black teenagers, but all people, to make informed decisions based on facts:
> Despite being "locked out" of a White owned and controlled film industry for more than a century, and despite being perpetually subservient to a White owned and controlled film industry that has perpetually defined the "image" of Black people, "we're" supposed to believe Black people lack the initiative, intelligence, gusto, or simply refuse to coalesce their economic, political, and creative wealth to develop, evolve, and sustain their own film industry, really?
> When White people make Black people as rich as Oprah Winfrey, or Michael Jordan, or Berry Gordy, or Robert Johnson and so many others, and these rich Black people fail to align themselves to create dynamic business enterprises to uniquely advance the socio-economic status of other Black people, then yes, these Black people are not just Uncle Tom's, egotistical, stingy, and narcissistic, they are also stupid . . . and weak . . . cowards . . . and not deserving of any respect or idolatry.
> In "Hollywood" ultimate control has been and continues to be primarily dictated by White Jewish men. As published in the LA Times article, How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? C'mon - "When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the (Jewish) Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah." Source: Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2008, by JOEL STEIN
> Don't blame White people, especially White men, for the perpetual "stupidity" of Black people, other minorities, and women to constantly feel-the-need to have White men to validate their creative and technical accomplishments.
Unlike you, Mr. Sullivan, I hold both White and all "people of color" accountable for the perpetual discrimination and oppression that's clearly racially-based. Conversely, you offer crap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewashing_in_film) and more crap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior_narrative_in_film), and ignore facts: https://youtu.be/8tEuaj4h8dw?si=R4tEBkY1OpRXGOYe
Why don't you try selling your crappy and skewed views of history to the People of Lakotah? Huh??
Mr. Sullivan, although you lack the intellectual acumen and the hands-on professional subject matter expertise in AA/EEO/DEI required to have an intelligent discussion in this area, nevertheless, I've responded to your "Andrew's Thinking Newsletter," hoping that you might actual "think" about my fact-based "responses" to the crap you write. Instead of elevating your thinking, you lock-down and cry, "How dare some one disagree with my thinking?"
Again, Mr. Sullivan, where's your evidence, your proof that actually proves the robust data I've presented is false??? You have none. Your "opinions" are crap. 'Nuff said.