With the growing push to pass reparations legislation, laying the foundation for both the support and opposition to such a move becomes increasingly necessary.
Florida State Senator Blaise Ingoglia introduced SB 1248, "the Ultimate Cancel Act" that would require the Fla. Division of Elections to cancel the filings "of any political party that has ever endorsed slavery in its official party platform."
This comes on the heels of a cancel culture movement to tear down statues, ban confederate flags, remove portraits of slave owners from the U.S. Capitol and rename thousands of public buildings across the country that carried the name of slave owners. It is often overlooked that the names being changed or images being removed were all slave-holding Democrats.
When you talk about reparations, who should receive a check? Should only those whose families fought to end slavery and lost their lives be given a check? What about those successful northern black businessmen whose families never experienced slavery or the first 23 black members of the US Congress who were all former slaves? Their election out of slavery to positions of great power should serve as their progenies' reparations. What price could you put on this honor, treating it as a slight?
I believe when talking about reparations, it is important to understand both the Republican and Democrat origins. The Republican party was founded in 1854 as an abolitionist party with six of the nine planks in their platform, dealing with abolishing slavery, equal rights, civil rights and voting rights in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, respectively.
The Democrats, on the other hand had in their platforms in 1844, 1848, 1852 and 1856 that they proudly supported and defended slavery and the right of a person to own another person. The Democrats fought so hard to keep slavery and believed it was their right to own another person that if reparations were to be paid, shouldn't they be the ones paying? Slavery had been outlawed, and it was illegal for U.S. citizens to engage in or be involved with the slave trade, but the Democrats found several workarounds until newly introduced states were either pro-slavery or anti-slavery, and it caused great division in the country.
So, when Democrats talk about reparations, taking down monuments and removing portraits, are they trying to erase the scar? A leader in the KKK, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, was called "The conscience of the Senate" by Democrat Chris Dodd. He was lauded as being Democrat Hillary Clinton's mentor and dear friend. He was eulogized by the President and Vice President of the United States, the latter being the current President, Joe Biden. That's not ancient history. That was in modern days.
If the move to pay reparations has any legs at all, it is necessary for people to have all the facts, understand the history and not allow the Democrats to literally get away with murder.
Nina May is the founder and chairman of the Renaissance Women which is an educational non-profit foundation with international and production training programs and opportunities for internships on media projects.
She also wrote and directed the documentary Who Should Pay?
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