John, I'm afraid that you can't discuss this topic rationally with Bobert. He feels that all white people are evil and lazy and all black people are poor, hardworking and hated. It's a variation of the "noble savage" theme, and I'm afraid it shows more bias than Bobert would like to admit.

Of course the issue of reparations is complex and deserves discussion, but I've yet to find anyone who can have a rational discussion about it or has any ideas beyond a mass communist-inspired redistribution of wealth, which would harm a lot of innocent people on the fiction that black people are the only ones who ever did any work in this country and white people are the only ones who ever benefitted.

They don't have any functional ideas because there isn't a remotely fair way to do it. The government doesn't have any money to give away, it all comes from taxes. I find it ironic that certain activists (with whom I agree) who bitterly complain about the regressive nature of our tax system, which disproportionately impacts poorer people, should then suggest a huge tax increase to spread around the same money in the middle and lower classes without affecting the richer tax brackets much at all -- which defeats the whole redistribution of wealth scheme.

But like affirmative action, certain groups don't care who else might be trampled upon (usually equally poor members of other ethinicities), as long as their particular group gets preference, be it women or blacks or hispanics, or whichever is the cause nearest and dearest their heart. All rhetoric aside, what the Supreme Court did was insist that colleges must review all applicants individually, and can use judgement for creating an effective freshman body, but can't arbitraily show preference based on skin color of any shade. That's good news for everyone except admissions counselors, because it moves away from blind scores and quotas and statistics and judge candidates on the relative merit of their achievements vs. their background. Halleleuia!

Hey, I have some black slave ancestors, can I claim that big theorectical reparations check? Is it "one drop" and you're a 'negro'? (Oh yeah, that's a step forward.) Or shall we just assume that this pale skin is white enough, and measure darkness of skin tone? Who decides how dark? Who measures it to prove the claims? (I'm sorry, you aren't dark enough to qualify!) Or do you have to prove your ancestors were slaves? Hmmm... what about those white slaves some of us are descended from? And who do we collect the taxes from for these reparations -- only white people? What about poor white people -- do we take their money away and give it to equally poor black people? Do we tax rich black people, too? What about hispanic and asian immigrants, and those of their descent? If a black person has white blood in them, does that disqualify them from both the tax and the payment? Or does it just even out?

Damn this is complicated. But I keep seeing all these ficticious numbers like $40,000 per black person will fix everything!

Hey, WAIT! I want reparations for being female! After all, I have far more centuries of oppression and repression behind me -- even black people got the vote in the US first. Let's tax all the evil male descendants of ancestors who oppressed all the innocent women in history and give the money to women like me.

So let's say we citizens cough up $40,000 per black person based on some sort of set of undetermined criteria, and in the process nearly bankrupt local economic systems because of the debt load incurred by those undetermined people who are taxed to provide this benefit -- including schools, emergency services, local arts program, etc. Is that going to "fix" the problem? Will that make racism go away? Or will another generation come along and still insist things are the way they want them, and they want another round of reparations?

I'll be damned if I can come up with any functional ideas for reparations either. Everything I can think of is stuff I think we should do anyway because it's the right thing to do NOW -- and that's almost as insulting as suggesting that a fat check will make the suffering of generations of slaves conveniently go away.

{rant off}