LAL #005 — Reparations? Not In My Constitution

The reparations bandwagon is gathering steam.  Are you ready to pay race-based transfer payments or to allocate public goods on the basis of race? What about equal protection of the law? The Age of Reparations is upon us. More than 150 years after the abolition of slavery, a century after the dismantling of Jim Crow, and 60 years after comprehensive state and federal civil rights legislation was passed in the United States, we are now told it's time to pay people of color for the sins of our fathers.  My immigrant parents arrived long after the drama of slavery ended. No one gave them anything on account of their skin color. I am just not buying the reparations rhetoric. Neither should you. What do you say we try to amend the Constitution to make sure it never happens? Think it cannot? Recent events suggest otherwise. Evanston, Illinois, passed an ordinance to permit race-based housing assistance grants. State legislators in California and New York are studying reparations. On April 2nd, Vermont announced that access to COVID-19 vaccines can be restricted on the basis of race. If you are white and object, you are labelled a white supremacist. Reject the narrative. Equality before the law means just that.  As Chief Justice John Roberts put it in the context of a school desecration case: "The only way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/norm-pattis/support