Gov. Hochul, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and state Senate President Andrea Stewart-Cousins last week named appointees to the state’s “reparations” commission, beginning a process that is certain to worsen race relations in New York state.
The nine-member commission, officially named the Community Reparations and Redress Commission, said: “The legacy of slavery, the subsequent discrimination against people of African descent, and the continuing impact of these forces today… It is supposed to be investigated. It would hold public hearings and produce a report within a year with recommendations for reparations and racial justice remedies.
This comes less than a year after California’s reparations commission sought payments of between $360,000 and $1.2 million to eligible “victims,” which Gov. Gavin Newsom promptly rejected ( (As total spending could reach $800 billion). rage.
And since the “reparations” debate has centered on cash payments since Tenehish Coates revived the idea a decade ago, a similar exercise in New York state will inevitably follow the same path. about In keeping with Coates’ harsh and radical worldview, he distills an entire messy and complex topic into a single number.
It’s perfectly fine to study our history, warts and all, and highlight its injustices, but the idea that we can achieve Justice that makes all past evils good is madness, as Aeschylus and Sophocles pointed out in the 5th century BC.
It does not bring about civil peace and is a recipe for a never-ending cycle of grievance and revenge. Can not Not only can no mortal act correct it, but society cannot function by dwelling on the past rather than building a better future.
Rep. Michael Solages (D-Hicksville), the sponsor of the bill creating the commission, insists that racial justice, not the amount of reparations, will be the focus of the New York commission’s recommendations, so why not? Did they put “reparations” in the title?
And at least one of the nine commissioners is Dr. Ron Daniels, a champion of the right to comprehensive reparations for all people of African descent in the United States.
In fact, the all-Black panel included people on the left who tended to have (at least) a great deal of deference to Mr. Coates’ hopelessly divisive views, including deep skepticism about whether racial reconciliation is possible. There appear to be many defenders.
For the record, New York State abolished slavery in the early 19th century. It is clearly an absurd task to uncover the wide range of costs for previous crimes.
Just as we have since come up with a recipe for “justice” against all forms of racism. And how do we explain the recent decades of efforts to heal the effects of past discrimination through affirmative action, minority lending, subsidies, reserves, and countless other programs?
And what about everything other A past illness? History is full of injustice.
But the state has not even been able to address the pain inflicted by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2020 order ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients to appease hospital lobbyist donors.
This committee is complete nonsense.
As Coleman Hughes wrote in the Post last month, “Before 2013, most blacks and whites in America thought race relations were good.” The rise of Coatesism (including Black Lives Matter extremism and the madness of DEI) will only worsen these relationships.
In his book, The End of Racial Politics: The Argument for a Colorblind America, Hughes makes a powerful case for abandoning the harmful cycle of alienation, division, and hatred.
If lawmakers want to help the state’s Black communities, they can start by rolling back criminal justice reforms that expose Black communities to higher crime rates.
At the very least, focus on concrete steps rather than harmful actions that only fuel resentment. That’s all this committee can bring to the table.
