Saturday, May 31, 2014

Race, Reparations, and the Idea of America


Seth Mandel, writing for Commentary, offers an interesting center-right perspective on Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic essay making the case for reparations.

He writes:

 "It may not be intended as such, but this is, in reality, a stern rebuke to the leftist tendency to hijack the black struggle and tether African Americans to their preferred policy aims. The left does this with regard to women and other minorities as well–the old joke about the New York Times reporting the apocalypse: World Ends, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit. But the struggle of African Americans was and is different; the left’s insistence that the issue of the day–climate change, inequality, environmental regulations–can or should be reduced to a “black issue” is precisely the act of ignoring African Americans’ history in the service of white liberals’ power."

Read complete article here.