In my profession, we are often put into a position to challenge the norm – to ask questions that others may not feel comfortable asking. With everything that’s occurred over the last couple of years, I wanted to take a hard look at our relationship with our past – what did it mean at the time and how does it still impact us today? Specifically, when does the past end and the present begin; and when does our future start?
The question of reparations is a continuing scab picking of old wounds endured by the ancestors of slavery. All the moans and groans caused by the continuous scab picking of self appointed moralists (people who think they are important but aren’t) makes the wound deeper and more and more infected. These ignorant and naive moralists spit-out the unrealistic and delusional theories like vectors which infect the mind of innocent and uneducated and troubled populations churning up fear, anger and resentment in our communities. African-American, White, Asian, Hispanic, naive moralists have a way of driving a wedge between us. Minority communities are provoked into resentment and anger against social and economic values which they see have caused the disparity in the system – one in which they have to endure every day. Is it the government administrations and programs of the past that allowed this extreme imbalance of quality-of-life? Social and economic injustices have been perpetuated throughout history. And who collectively created these injustices to begin with. You have to start at the beginning. Why did our elected officials and leaders set up these unequal yokes for communities predominately inhabited by minorities ? Where does the guilt lie? Did this [current] endless-cycle of ignorance, violence and generational-hatred begin with the racists and fascists who were able to take advantage of the benefits, directly putting their neighbors at a disadvantage? My thoughts on this will continue in part two.