Forgive
Us Our Debts
Alright, I’m guilty.
For the past three or four years, I’ve been carrying
around a grudge because one client has owed me a $20 debt he hadn’t paid.
$20. No big deal. That will hardly buy the family a Big Mac
and fries at the Golden Arches, these days. It’s certainly not something
that should keep me from practicing my faith, as the Master instructed.
As of this moment, the debt is loosed and forgiven. In fact,
I really have no choice in the matter because this message points a finger
at others who do the very same thing I’ve been practicing.
There’s another message here to consider…about a spec in
another man’s eye and a log in my own.
That personal confession made, we can all see and probably
agree just how deeply ingrained it is in human nature to expect another
person to set things right with us if he or she is guilty of the offense.
I’ve been waiting for a man of the cloth, the Reverend
Jesse Jackson to offer the same words of confession and absolution that I
have just uttered.
I think I’ll be waiting for that day until hell freezes
over.
It seems the Reverend Jackson is angry with the entire Caucasian race for actions done at least 150 years ago by slave traders and
owners. On behalf of his clientele of enraged Afro-American descendents who
demand the score be settled, Ombudsman Jackson has shed his Christian
convictions and decided to exact his putrid "pound of flesh."
According to Jackson, U.S. whites will have to pay for the
sins of their fathers…uh… grandfathers…uh…great-grandfathers. Well,
he can’t quite figure out exactly how many generations the blame game
should travel through time but if you look back far enough, somebody sure
enough is to blame and it looks like somebody with a fat wallet.
Isn’t that what it’s all about?
That’s the real motivation behind the increasingly popular
issue of black reparations for slavery. It’s the Monte Hall version of
equal opportunity. Would you trade your affirmative action advantage for all
the cash in my pocket?
"Show us the cash, Monte!"
Of course, the irony of this entire exercise in
institutionalized greed is that some of the individuals who captured enemy
tribesmen in Africa for sale to the slavers were themselves men of color. A
little known secret shared with me by a friend in my now native state of
Virginia was that the first slave holder in this beautiful Commonwealth was
himself black.
Ooops.
I don’t think we’re likely to hear too much about that
from the offices of Operation Push.
Never mind the fact that some Americans of color and their
ancestors arrived in this country long after slavery was being practiced
here. Forget the history of one half of the United States, the northern tier
linked to Mr. Mason of Mason and Dixon fame. The legend on his map read that
no slavery would be allowed in that portion of the country.
Come to think of it, my Dad told me that, as a boy combing
through the attic at his suburban Chicago home, he had found an old Union
Cavalry saber and Wisconsin battle flag. The ensign was riddled with
confederate bullet holes obviously put there by "rebels with a
cause" during the Civil War. My ancestors and their compatriots were
Caucasians but they risked their lives to help free the slaves. Many of them
paid with their lives.
Should their descendents be forced to pay again?
Hmmm…now the issue gets a bit more complicated, doesn’t
it, Reverend?
Finally, let’s consider that only six percent of the
slaves that were brought to the New World from Africa actually settled in
the American south. The other 94 percent were sold throughout the Caribbean,
Central and South America.
So, if fair is fair…if we must pay anything at all,
shouldn’t we fork over just six percent of the judgement and that only
when Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and the like are willing to
pony up their fair shares?
Why are the whites in America the only ones being hit up
for the cash? Because somebody saw that bulge in our collective wallets and
figured it was the easiest and safest way to semi-legally transfer the
wealth. Pure and simple.
Some folks have taken other routes to pad their pockets. The
crime rates in this country can attest to that. Sad to say, compared to
whites…four times as many blacks have been convicted of crimes and sent to
prisons in America. And compared to Latinos…twice the number of blacks are
serving time. And every convict in America, no matter what his or her race,
costs U.S. taxpayers $25,000 per year. Could we consider these lopsided
payments, reparations?
Haven’t we all paid enough?
What’s particularly difficult to digest is the amount of
barrio and ghetto crime directed against their own people, perpetrated by
selfish individuals who never listened to Sister Sledge long enough to
realize that "We are Family."
You know what? Black, white, brown, yellow…we are
family. The last name of that family is humanity. And we should be past the
point of petty sibling rivalries and pecuniary jealousy.
It was funny decades ago when Tommy Smothers told Dick and
their TV audience that, "Mom always liked you best." Maybe we’d
all be better off if we learned to laugh at ourselves and let go of the
past.
It is more blessed to give…and to forgive…than to
receive.