More Biden Madness: Asking Black Americans On Census if They Are Slave Descendants

By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

Please note another ultra-Left mad proposal is underway: U.S. Considers Asking Black Americans on Census if They Are Slave Descendants

In a proposed update to how the government tracks Americans’ race and ethnicity, the Biden administration is asking the public for input on how it might go about differentiating Black people who are descendants of slaves in America from those whose families arrived more recently as immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean or other countries.

Supporters of the change say one reason they are pushing it is to quantify who would be eligible to receive reparations for slavery should the government ever agree to pay them.

The Biden administration has proposed combining existing race and ethnicity questions so that “Hispanic or Latino” would no longer be a separate question, but instead would be one of several choices on the race question. It has also proposed creating a new race question category for Americans of Middle Eastern or North African heritage.

In its proposed rule on those broader changes, the administration asked whether the term “American Descendants of Slavery” or “American Freedmen” would be the best terms to describe the group. Some have suggested the term “Foundational Black Americans.”

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which is spearheading the race-category overhaul, declined to comment on the idea.

Last Living Slave

Sylvester Magee (claimed May 29, 1841 – October 15, 1971) claimed to be the last living former American slave. If this claim were true, Magee would not only have been the last surviving American Civil War veteran, but the oldest recorded person to have ever lived.

Assuming the claim is true, the last slave died 52 years ago. 

More realistically, assuming a very generous average age at death of 80 and not 130 years, nearly all slaves died 100 years or more ago. That means most of the direct descendants have passed as well.

Thus, we are talking about reparations to descendants of descendants of descendants all of which had the benefit of growing up in the greatest country on earth, with all of the associated benefits. 

Questions Abound

Let’s give reparations to descendants of slaves, but let’s not even call them slaves, let’s call them “Foundational Black Americans,” muting the reason for the reparation.

And what percentage ancestry fits the bill? 5%, 10%, 50.01%? 

Does an 88% descendent get twice as much as a 44% descendent? Was he or she twice as harmed? Harmed at all? 

Do we have everyone take genetic tests or do we take people’s word for it? If a boy can proclaim to be a girl, can I proclaim to be black? 

Does the process unite or further divide the United States? 

San Francisco Board Unanimously Supports $5 Million Per Person Reparation Payments

On March 17, I noted San Francisco Board Unanimously Supports $5 Million Per Person Reparation Payments

I did the math based on the number of households in San Francisco. The price tag would be $192 billion. The city budget is $13 billion.

But note the bill did not pass. It was “supported” unanimously. 

If the board actually approved this nonsense, I suspect everyone who voted in favor would immediately be voted out of office in special elections and the bill would be quickly struck down as unconstitutional.

Slave State Analysis

The 15 slave states were Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Elsewhere, people who never owned slaves would make payments to people who never were slaves in states that never had slaves.

Political Race Baiting

One cannot undo a wrong of 200 years ago by taking money from people who had nothing to do with the problem and solve the wrong by giving money to people who were never harmed in process. 

Anyone sponsoring this idea knows reparations cannot possibly pass Congress. 

Expense bills need to garner 60 votes in the Senate. And many Democrats would not stomach a vote for it. Reparations would be  dead on arrival. 

Seriously Crazy?

The reparation idea seems seriously crazy. But is it? 

Team Biden knows reparations will never pass. The proposal is nothing but race-baiting, virtue-signaling meant to further divide the United States.

Blacks will not benefit from this. 

No one will benefit from this except perhaps the politicians who see a benefit in further dividing the county to enhance their political goals. 

This post originated at MishTalk.Com.

Addendum – Biden Declares Transgender Day of Visibility

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2023, as Transgender Day of Visibility.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/03/30/a-proclamation-on-transgender-day-of-visibility/