The Slaughter Bench Of History

Reparations for Ferguson - Atlantic Mobile:

I wonder what percentage of the black population thinks as this man? The Atlantic seems to find him representative enough to be "not a kook".

There have been young people fighting outside my window for as long as I can remember. I was no older than five sitting on the steps of my parents' home on Woodbrook Avenue watching the older boys knock shoulders in the street—"bucking" as we called it then—daring each other to fire off. From that point on I knew that among my people fisticuffs had their own ritual and script. The script was in effect that evening: show cause "some niggas jumped me in the park" "I ain't no punk" "wait right here son, I'm bout to get my shit"

"My people" . There is always going to be scripted violence among "my people". I'll admit to ignorance on "get my shit" ... too cultural for me, but maybe gun? After all, 10's of young black men die by gunfire at each other each month in Chicago alone, and nobody is writing lamentations in the Atlantic for them. That is acceptable scripted cultural violence I guess -- better to call out the extremely exceptional cases of white on black killing.

Then we come to the money quote -- the idea that maybe we could escape "the slaughter-bench of history", soon to be rebutted,

We know that America is exceptional in one key respect—we came to democracy without much bloodshed. Around the world, from Hungary and Russia to Iraq and Nigeria, we see the dream of peaceful democratization dragged again and again to what the philosopher Hegel called the slaughter-bench of history. Racial strife and murderous governments, not liberty and democracy, are the rule in history, the established pattern. We know that, mercifully, democratization scourged us only once in ferociously modern style: during the Civil War.

This is a quote from another author, James Poulos -- and the author if the column is not in the mood to accept that a mere 600K dead is sufficient blood to cover the sin of slavery.

So he ends with the not subtle at all threat that "his people" are going to visit "the slaughter bench of history" onto the US at some point -- at which I assume we will have the same sort of "justice" found in vast swaths of Africa today. His position seems to be that such is proudly part of the legacy of "his people".

This is not the singular, special fault of the police. The police are but the tip of the sword wielded by American society itself. Something bigger than Stand Your Ground, the drug war, mass incarceration or any other policy is haunting us. And as long we cower from it, the events of this week are as certain as math. The question is not "if," but "when."

'via Blog this'