Editorial on slavery simply not logical

Snyder graduated from Bowling Green State University in
1974.

By James Snyder

I read The Bruin’s enlightened position on reparations for
slavery, including the comments from former state Senator Tom
Hayden in the BG News of Bowling Green State University
(“U.S.
must give slave reparations for justice,” Viewpoint, Feb.
4).

Let’s celebrate diversity. Celebrate achievement.
Celebrate freedom. But we could never celebrate justice in America
if the views expressed in The Bruin’s editorial were
embraced. I found myself searching for an appropriate
academic response, which I think was in some notes from the College
of Agriculture’s School for Animal Husbandry ““
bullshit.

When my great-great-grandfather came to this country, slavery
was already illegal and, in any event, he never lived or traveled
south of the Mason-Dixon line. Discrimination against Irish
Catholics caused his brothers to return to Ireland. I know this
because it has been passed down to me. I’m glad he had
the courage to stay in America. All he left me was his faith
and citizenship ““ but they are both priceless.

If you can identify the legitimate descendants of both slaves
and slave-owners ““ for there are many blacks and other
Americans today who are not descendants of either ““ and if
you can limit the costs and spoils of this reparations movement to
them alone, The Bruin may have some thread of logic. But is it
just to penalize even these descendants for the sins of not their
fathers, but their great-great- and even greater-grandfathers? Is
this justice in America? And, be advised, when it comes to any
reparations, Confederate dollars, legal tender in the slavery
states, have lost more value than Enron’s 401(k) plan.

However, if The Bruin’s intent is to burden today’s
U.S. taxpayer, many of whose ancestors were not even in America
during the slavery years, and many others who are most certainly
related to those God-fearing Americans who funded and fought the
war against slavery, it would be guilty of a gross
injustice. There can be no thread of logic in that.

During the Civil War, members of my home town and several
surrounding communities not only volunteered for the war against
slavery but were the first recipients of the Congressional Medal of
Honor, for heroism deep behind enemy lines. Half of their unit was
executed by Rebel soldiers after they were captured. Taxing the
descendants of these heroes for a system their ancestors fought
personally and valiantly to change makes no sense whatsoever and
would certainly be a further injustice.

But that is, in large part, what “reparations for
justice” seems bent upon achieving: extracting tribute from
everyone, the descendants of those who fought against slavery and
whose ancestors weren’t even in America yet. Two wrongs
don’t make a right ““ even for those who think, sleep,
breathe and live on the left.

The Bruin appears to be interested in the welfare of the
descendants of slaves, yet instead of helping them chase the
American dream, the Editorial Board wants to steal their energies
for efforts that have no future, except for perpetual
divisiveness.

And the empty charge of selfishness is exceeded only by the
false and non-sequitur conclusion on the cause of prosperity in
today’s America. Nearly everyone in this melting pot and
all their ancestors has had a hand in making this nation
prosperous. This happened in spite of the huge cost and loss of
life that occurred during the Civil War and, contrary to The
Bruin’s loose use of the facts, the nearly complete
destruction of the South’s infrastructure.

Further, most of this prosperity has been the result of the
industrial revolution and, even more recently, the information age
for which all participants have been free, be they black, brown,
white or other. Little of today’s prosperity can be
attributed to ownership in existence before the crash of ’29,
let alone the 1850s and before. If all debts of generations passed
were to be held valid and due, we’d all quickly need to learn
Spanish, French or the Queen’s English.

Hayden and the Editorial Board, who seem to have too much time
on their hands and too little logic in their brains, might more
appropriately think of ways he and his ex-wife, Hanoi Jane Fonda,
could make restitution, or at least an apology, to the American
Soldiers alive in the 1960s and ’70s (and the families and
survivors of those lost).

They should apologize to the American soldiers of black, white,
Latino, Italian, Chinese, Korean, German, Scandinavian and even
Irish ““ and all other combinations of ancestry from
America’s great melting pot ““ whose lives were put in
greater peril due to the Haydens’ own proactive complicity
with the Communist enemies of the United States during the Vietnam
War. You see, this isn’t the first time a Hayden has sought
notoriety by making pawns of one group of Americans and fools of
another.

Maybe, my great-great-great- great-grandson or granddaughter can
make an editorial case for it 140 years from now.