Those Of You Who Bet on "David Brooks" for "Which NeverTrumper Would Be the First to Embrace the Hard Left's Holy Grail of Reparations" -- Collect Your Winnings

The Case for Reparations A slow convert to the cause.

By David Brooks

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[S]in travels down society through the centuries. Lincoln was saying that sometimes the costs of repairing sin have to be borne generations after the sin was first committed.

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Slavery and the continuing pattern of discrimination aren’t only an attempt to steal labor; they are an attempt to cover over a person's soul, a whole people's soul.

That injury shows up today as geographic segregation, the gigantic wealth gap, the lack of a financial safety net, but also the lack of the psychological and moral safety net that comes when society has a history of affirming: You belong. You are us. You are equal.

Nearly five years ago I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic article "The Case for Reparations," with mild disagreement. All sorts of practical objections leapt to mind. What about the recent African immigrants? What about the poor whites who have nothing of what you would call privilege? Do we pay Oprah and LeBron?

But I have had so many experiences over the past year -- sitting, for example, with an elderly black woman in South Carolina shaking in rage because the kids in her neighborhood face greater challenges than she did growing up in 1953 -- that suggest we are at another moment of make-or-break racial reckoning.

Coates's essay seems right now, especially this part: "And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations -- by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences -- is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely.... What I'm talking about is more than recompense for past injustices -- more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I'm talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal."

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The need now is to consolidate all the different narratives and make them reconciliation and possibility narratives, in which all feel known.

Lotta talk about soul and making people "feel known." Not many answers about how much I have to pay Oprah Winfrey.

This is like where someone says "This isn't about the money, this is about healing our collective souls" and you're like "Let's heal our collective souls with meditation and prayer, they're proven methods" and then the guy goes, "Okay, I was pulling your leg, it's about the money but I figured if I came out you with this heal-the-soul bullshit maybe you wouldn't notice I'm in your pockets again."

So who's next? You know The Bulwark will have a sympathetic column which praises Brooks for his "courage" and "thoughtfulness," though they will not endorse the idea, given that they're on the brink of extinction having shown their pro-abortion asses.

I imagine AllahPundit and maybe Ed Morrissey will be similarly generous in praising Brooks, though, again, their positions aren't secure enough to endorse Ta-Naheshi Coates' demand for more money.

Noah Rothman will definitely write another one of his ponderous, gassy, empty-of-everything-but-virtue-signalling pieces for Commentary, in which he'll praise Brooks and, indirectly, himself for daring to speak so bravely on this issue.

Jen Rubin might be the next to openly endorse. She's not even pretending to be a conservative any more (except for all the pretending she does to get slots on MSNBC).

Are the NeverTrumpers still the beating heart of True Conservatism? I'm starting to wonder!

posted by Ace of Spades at 02:12 PM

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