History

 Scenario: You own a $9000 bike. You have treated your bike so well, it's not over used, it is not scuffed up, it's a great bike and you love it. Then one day it's stolen. This guy on the street sees it and just grabs it and runs. You immediately call the cops. They find the bike a few hours later. The man who stole it is gone, but he sold it to a guy on the street for $5. You can't believe he was so dumb that he sold the bike for five dollars. It's worth thousands! But ok the cops have found the bike the guy knows he bought a stolen bike and you think this is about to be resolved.

What do you think should happen? There are a few answers. 

I think the natural answer is the guy gives you your stolen bike back. You can't own something that was never yours afterall. This would be the best scenario particularly since the theif is long gone. Instead what you get is "Finders keepers douche nozzle" says the guy who bought the stolen bike. 

He goes on further "I earned this bike and you will never get it back, but here I'll do you a solid. You can borrow MY bike to go pick up MY groceries whenever I want you to. But as a caveat I can punch you around. And your kids. Sound good?"

It does not sound good and you are not pleased. But the cop says yea that's fair. So you carry on and actually pick up his groceries and get punched around. Then your kids have to pick up groceries for the bike buyer guys kids. And those twits beat up your kids on a regualar basis. Then you have grandkids and they stop picking up the groceries, but the bike buyers guys grand kids still beat up your grandkids.

 And one day your great great grandchild is out and he sees a monument honoring the hard work of stealing a bike and having other people pick up his groceries in the town square and oh boy that kid is angry at the site. But he does nothing, he's just keeping it together. He goes and picks up a soda from the bodega shop on the corner where he is shot and killed by a cop because the soda can in his pocket looked like a gun to the cop and the cop got scared. Then people protest and a bunch of cousins of the guy who bought the stolen bike are outraged that people would get so fucking uppity about one kid shot with a soda can. Clearly it was an accident. 

So. That is what I was thinking seeing all the momuments in Savannah honoring confederate soldiers and generals. You know, men who lost a war to protect the enslavement of stolen people. Men who lived on the stolen land from Native Americans. Men who had slaves work their plantations to the levels of success that allowed their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren to have money that just grows and grows and property that they'd never be able to afford in places they don't deserve to be. 

And all this made me think well yes I do support reparations. And yes I wish there was a way to give Natives their land back. Because it was really shitty their bike was stolen and never returned. And it was really shitty that this country honored those shitty people who stole the bike and the shitty people who took the valuable bike and pretended they earned it. I get it. We can't change the past. There are barely any Native Americans left in the U.S. afterall. Hardly any to give land back to. And what price do you put on paying the people who were enslaved and worked the plantations and the jobs and did all that "free" labor that made all these white people so successful?

But I don't care if there are no American slaves left today and I don't care that there are none of the original Native Americans from the 1600's left. I don't care. Those people were screwed over and they've continued to be screwed over. They were beaten up by bike thieves and purchasers of bike thieves and have been treated like they ever earned the punishments that have been thrown at them for hundreds of years. 

And don't say "oh well some have been successful when they just worked really hard." Sure that's great. And some slaves got to live inside and had nice masters. Some slaves weren't beaten and got to learn to read. And some Native Americans are on a coin that no one ever uses. But I don't care. There was a massive wrong done here and we still have statues up supporting the bike stealing jerks and the jerks who kept the bike knowing it was never theirs to buy or be "granted." It wasn't theirs, it wasn't England's, it was not theirs to steal or give away. 

So until every statue comes down or is at least replaced with an accurate plaque detailing these "heros" real stories then we must do something good for the people who were wronged. And since they don't exist anymore then we do it for their great great great grandkids. And until there are no more brochures that say things like "Savannah seemed unihabited so Noble Jones took 500 acres of waterfront property and his lineage still owns the beautiful waterfront acreage and the plantation that ran there was a success" but it says something to the tune of "Noble Jones settled on the Natives land which he kept in his family for centuries to come. The land was cleared and maintained by enslaved people, but in the 1890's some of those people started getting paid, probably far below what they deserved" then I say I am for reparations.

In the words of Rick and Morty "Dear America, Get your shit together. Get it all together and put it in a backpack. All your shit. So it's together. And if you gotta take it somewhere, take it somewhere ya know. Take it somewhere and sell it. Take it to the shit store and sell it. Or put it in a shit museum. I don't care what you do. You just gotta get it together. ... Get your shit together."