Most Americans and virtually all Christians, were taught not to mistreat others, that God is the father of all and we demonstrate our love for God by how we treat and serve others. The vast majority of whites, including police, are not unkind to blacks or racist. So don’t tell us that all whites, and only whites, have some kind of systemic racism because of the color of their skin. That belief is very racist and a lie.
I, like most Americans, have never participated in any activity harmful to blacks. In fact, most Americans have ancestors who fought in the Civil War to help rid this nation of slavery—360,222 northerners dying for that cause. And it was largely whites that gave America their first black president. If whites were systemic racists that would have never happened. In America race baiting to perpetuate racism is a vastly bigger problem than actual racism.
So Antifa, Black Lives Matter and other groups, media outlets included, looking to incite blacks to riot and blame all whites, cease the fake narrative. Today blacks have the same rights as any other race, no less, nor more. If whites are systemically racist then Barack Obama’s white mother would be racist and Barack himself, half white, thus half racist. Nonsense!
Americans who have never contributed to racism should have no white guilt. But, for the sake of argument, let us assume that my ancestors were slave owners and / or racists. Should I then have guilt or owe reparations to them? Certainly not to the living, and the dead are dead. Then, to their posterity generations later? Of course not! How would it be quantified? Most blacks are mixed black and many without slave history—like Obama in both respects. Racism that existed in the past must be left in the past. A just God will judge between the offender and the offended. Otherwise the offense, given new life, passes to the next generation.
Since, in America, nobody came through the birth canal a slave since 1865—155 years ago—no one now living is responsible. So if you force me to pay reparations for harm an ancestor may have done to someone dead generations ago, why should I not expect the same from their posterity for the damages done to me by making me pay for offenses I never did? And thus it passes to the third, fourth or tenth generation each alternately offending the other over justices that can never be resolved without continual offense. Somebody has to let it go, whether they ever forgive or not.
For many years I taught this philosophy as the only remedy possible to end the offense of slavery with only one dissenter; a male black student from an inner city back east who had so much hatred for alleged white behavior long before that he almost could not express himself. I asked him if he had been personally offended. He could not identify a single personal offense, but still hated. The thought of letting it go, or not hating because of it, he could not breach. Generational hatred was just too strong.
Critics may argue, “Whites have never felt racism as we have. It is easy for them. They have never been beat up for their skin color.” Perhaps, but some whites do know what it is like to be unmercifully beat up for no other reason than the color of their skin.
Forty-four years ago I knew a white California college professor that experienced just that. While grading final exam papers at the end of his first semester in California, he was subjected to loud and offensive language just outside his office bordering an open quad. It looked as if two fights were going on outside and, being the nearest authority on campus, he asked them to stop. When they didn’t he reached down to pull one of the combatants off another. He was the black leader of a gang of more than a dozen fellow Mexican gang members. They all attacked him. The two whites being beaten took the moment to run.
He had never seen any of these assailants before; one standing in front kicking him unmercifully with full force to the head every time he lifted it, his friends hitting and kicking him from every direction. His mind, very blurred from the blows, silently uttered to God his dangerous situation, “I will shortly be with Thee if you do not intervene in my behalf.” Almost immediately another white male faculty member entered the quad. The gang immediately attacked him also allowing the professor to get to his feet. They encircled both then pulled off their belts with large belt buckles, for which this gang was known, whipping them from all sides. In time they were able to ease to the door of the building and slip inside to safety.
Police later arrived and, mauled as he was, the professor was escorted to a police car with the restrained black gang leader inside snarling oaths of hatred and threats to kill him, if identified, as he approached. Identified the gang leader was incarcerated for six months for the beating and soon after serving killed a child and reincarcerated ending the immediate threat to the professor. Eventually the professor moved and never heard from, or of, the assailant again, Fear does not dissipate easily. He carried a can of maze with him the next many years. No one was going to beat him like that again. The victim professor was me.
Have I forgotten this injustice to me. No, nor do I blame all blacks and/or Mexicans for the scum of a few. Nor did I teach my children to do so. But isn’t that what race baiters want blacks to do to the whites?
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit http://www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
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