On Monday, the public celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday commemorating the late civil rights icon whose legacy is revered by both Left and Right.
Newspapers invoked King’s memory in commentary and editorials, while politicians tended to use it to discuss issues of race relations. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, for instance, is using the holiday to try and make a splash by coming out in full support of race-based reparations, meaning financial compensation for the black descendants of slaves.
It’s perhaps understandable that Patrick, having no clear constituency and drawing almost no support in primary polling, is looking to call attention to his campaign on Martin Luther King Jr. Day — seeing as he is the only black candidate left in the race. Yet it’s disappointing nonetheless to see Patrick endorse such a foolish and divisive policy as slavery reparations, and his shift is emblematic of the Democratic Party’s toxic turn toward identity politics and economic illiteracy.
Patrick will come out today in support of a Democratic proposal to create a “commission” to study reparations. This is a move taken by many of the 2020 aspirants, a convenient virtue-signal that communicates their wokeness without actually requiring them to embrace the radical policy. But Patrick will one-up his competitors and fully embrace “explicit support for federal reparations,” according to Axios.
The shortcomings of this bold policy are both moral and practical.
Practically speaking, reparations would prove nearly impossible to implement. The idea that descendants of slaves should be compensated at the expense of those who descend from their slavers is straightforward enough in theory. But what about people of mixed race? Former 2020 candidate Kamala Harris, for instance, is of mixed race. Should she both pay and receive reparations?
Does everyone of Caucasian descent pay? Even those whose families arrived after slavery ended? This is similar to the problem posed by the many African Americans who are not descended from slaves, such as individuals whose families immigrated to the United States just a generation or two ago.
The question of who pays for reparations and who receives them is much, much more complicated in practice than in theory. So much so that it renders the entire proposal outlandish and unfeasible.
It’s also fundamentally immoral. The idea that individuals who were never slaves should be compensated at the expense of those who never chose to own slaves or personally participated in any such travesty, due to actions hundreds of years ago, is fundamentally un-American in the way it punishes people irrespective of actual individual responsibility.
And reparations are incredibly divisive.
The policy is pitched by Democrats, such as Patrick, as a way to solve the history of racial injustice in this country and finally move on from it. Yet nearly 70% of voters oppose reparations, while almost 75% of black voters support them, according to Gallup. In all likelihood, such a divisive policy would irreparably set back race relations and further inflame tensions — not heal them.
A better approach to uplifting the black community would eschew divisive, impractical solutions and instead focus on policy solutions such as school choice, which overwhelmingly benefit black students and can actually take us one step closer to the vision of equal opportunity for all that King imagined.
All in all, Patrick’s support for divisive race-based reparations betrays his promise as a moderate Democratic alternative and reeks of political desperation. It’s sad that Patrick, who is coming in at just 0.3% in the polls, has chosen to embrace identity politics madness in his desire for relevancy.
