Though he’s in doubt that this check will ever come his way, television mogul Robert L. Johnson claims that the “new rendition” of reparations sweeping across the country is a mere ploy, coming in the form of education rather than spreading the wealth around and making up for decades upon decades of unjust.
According to Johnson’s interview with Vice, these reparations come in countless forms: critical race theory being taught at numerous campuses, the housing program in Evanston, every corporation under the sun making donations in light of the murder of George Floyd, and so much more. In light of this, he says “That’s what’s happening to the reparations—it’s been cut up into small pieces of things that look and feel like, ‘We want to end systemic racism, we want to end police brutality and shootings and to provide financing to Black small business owners,’”.
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The BET owner pins what’s going on at the moment as “placebo paternalism,” meaning it’s only meant to look good and hope to make you feel good. To quote Johnson, he says, “Reparations had two components: The first was atonement, and the other was monetary,” “With no doubt whatsoever, it was supposed to come from the government representing the people of the country. It was reimbursement, or recompense if you will, for the harm.”
He goes on to say that whatever the country is currently doing as form of repayment is merely an attempt to fix the racist foundation that the States lie upon. On the other hand, how he and anyone in their right mind view reparations is as follows: “Reparations would require the entire country to … admit that the result of slavery has been 200 years of systemic racism and for that reason Black folks have been denied $13-15 trillion of wealth.”
Of course, Johnson is far from the first to mention this, as countless celebrities and citizens have voiced their opinions as well. In the meantime, the state of California is ramping up their one-of-a-kind slavery reparation task force, and people can only hope nothing but good arises from it.
[Via]