Detroit Reparations: Good Graft If You Can Get It

 The Detroit News:  Detroit Reparations Task Force gets to work: 'We are stewards of this process'

 So, Detroit is now spending $350,000 for a committee to begin exploring reparations for Black residents of Detroit. That $350,000 could surely be put to better use.

Reparations will be for slavery, even as Michigan was not a slave state (at least not since the time of the French and there seems to be no demand being made to France to cough up) and not a single surviving slave nor slaveholder lives in this state today.  

But "reparations" will also be for a litany of other grievances:

the razing of the Black Bottom neighborhood to build a freeway , the millions of dollars in over-assessments in property taxes, the thousands of homes lost to foreclosures, and the deep personal injustice their families endured and rose above.

Let's note that at the time Black Bottom was in decline, had a multi-ethnic population and the freeway needed to be put somewhere - and notice how no reparations are being proposed for the demolition of Poletown and Democrat and Black Mayor Coleman Young's displacing of Americans of Polish descent to make way for an automotive factory.  Funny, that.

So let's recap.  What party has exclusively held the mayor-ship in Detroit since 1962?  I'll give you one guess, and the answer is not Republicans.

In addition, for just about the last 50 years, from the 1974-2013, the mayors of Detroit have been uniformly Black, as has the majority of the city council.

So then, in short, this is reparations for acts of "racism" committed by Black Democrats upon Black Detroiters - namely the "over-assessments in property taxes, the thousands of homes lost to foreclosures, and the deep personal injustice their families endured and rose above" not to mention the corruption and decline under that leadership.  The non-Black Detroiters who have suffered along with them from these crappy policies apparently are counting for nought in this reparations drive.

Reparations in Detroit is quite simply a bad joke.   I'm sure the punchline will be taxes on businesses or a demand for the region or the state to hand over money yet again.

The Detroit Reparations Push Silliness Continues

The Detroit News:  Advocates for reparative policy argue 'we can do better' at Mackinac Island conference

The panel talk centered on policy decisions and discriminatory practices that contribute to the racial wealth gap and comes ahead of a Nov. 2 ballot question in Detroit over whether a reparations committee should be formed to study ways to boost opportunities for Black residents. 

Reparations is just another word for money transfer to Democrat favored constituencies.   Typically with such transfer enriching Democrat bureaucrats and consultants in the process.

Now Detroit, if I may remind you, is a city that has been run by Democrats, and specifically Black Democrats for the majority if not the totality of the lifespan of most of its current residents, and with said residents having suffered under the corruption and misrule of said Black Democrats,  not from slavery.  Now apparently said City should pay slavery reparations to its Black residents - said residents who have never been slaves in their entire lives.

Does that make sense to anyone?  At all.

Basically it is a quest for free stuff:

Hamilton said during the Tuesday talk that society will never move forward from racism until reparations are addressed. 

"If we want to have solutions, we need to honestly grapple with reparations," said Hamilton, adding that alone "is not enough."

"...we need a government that promotes anti-racist economic rights that ensures that people have a birthright to capital, quality housing, quality health care," he said.

There is no such thing as a "birthright to capital, quality housing, quality health care"  you earn each of those things by virtue of work, savings, and effort.  It's not given to you.  Assuming such a birthright is absolute magical thinking and part of the problem here.  Also, assuming Blacks cannot achieve any of these things on their own is also part of the problem here.

But the article and the statements made by these race hustlers get even funnier:

Note the subtle anti-white racism among the "anti-racists":

Goss added she finds it "disturbing" only six of Detroit's 11 middle-class neighborhoods grew in the most recent U.S. Census and "only because upper, middle-class white families moved in." 

. . .

For the rest of the city, opportunities for middle-class families where housing can be stabilized and where small businesses can grow are needed "without that gentrifying factor," she said.

Yep, curse those gentrifying white people and their (checks notes) increasing of property valuers and increased small business presence in a city rather bereft of them.

On top of that, the hilarity that one can say something with a straight face and then argue for the exact opposite is rather funny.

[Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics and founding director of Institute on Race and Police Economy] Hamilton said change will begin when "somebody's race or ethnicity no longer has transactional value."

Wait a sec, transactional value of someone's race is exactly what he himself is advocating for: Blacks, by virtue of Being Black should get these "reparations"  - If that's not race having "transactional value" one wonders what is so in his book.

The next funny bit in the article:

Perry has conducted research on housing and authored the book "Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities."

Through his work, he found homes in Black neighborhoods are underpriced by 23%, about $48,000 per home, "cumulatively, that's about $156 billion in lost equity," he said.

Wait just a minute here.  

Let's note that the City of Detroit which again is majority Black and at the time was completely Black-run, has been properly castigated for overvaluing Black (and everyone else's homes) to the tune of over $600 million in overvaluation - causing residents to pay higher and in some cases ridiculous taxes on their properties - leading to foreclosure of (you guessed it) Black-owned properties due to non-payment of the improperly high taxes.

You really can't have it both ways, unless you're a Democrat or progressive "thinker" apparently.

Having the City of Detroit vote to pay reparations to its residents is a joke.  Having the State of Michigan which was not a slave state pay any reparations is a joke when the last slave here was before the civil war is similarly a joke.  Pushing reparations for people who have never been slaves is a joke. But, it's apparently a very profitable and politically popular joke to Democrat race hustlers and consultants and for their constituents looking for money for nothing.

More Woke Ridiculousness - Detroit To Put Reparations On The Ballot

Detroit, a majority Black city, through it's majority Black city council is going to put reparations on the city's next ballot.

The Detroit News: Detroit City Council votes to add reparations committee question to November ballot

Of course the details are fuzzy, as the opportunities for graft from such a vaguely worded proposition offering free money (from whom is not exactly explained) to the gullible on account of their skin color is rather limitless.

Let's point out there's no one alive in the city of Detroit that has been a slave in America and thus eligible to receive reparations.

Let's also point out that Detroit is in Michigan, a state that has never a slave holding state,  unless for example one counts slavery by the Indians, the French and indentured servants, as the attached article does.  The last recorded slave in Detroit, if one includes indentured servants ended was freed at the latest in 1815.  There are no living people from 1815 in existence in Michigan, even if some of the deceased still vote Democrat in Presidential election in Wayne County.

Indeed Michigan sent its sons to end slavery in the United States and at least 14,790 of them gave their lives doing so which pays off any "reparations" for slavery in full.

Of course they're wanting to expand the concept of reparations to anyone who has been discriminated against in Detroit - although one wonders if they will cover the Poles who had lived in Hamtramck who had their properties seized under Coleman Yong to build a GM factory.  Somehow I doubt that's the target recipients of such reparations as they tie it all to slavery in their statements for the proposal.

In short, the proposal is for Democrats to give money to those in Detroit allegedly historically discriminated against by Democrats in Detroit.

The Democrats' Cognitive Dissonance On Reparations

Democrats in Congress and elsewhere demanding reparations for slavery, to be paid from people who never owned slaves, indeed whose parents never owned slaves, and in almost al cases whose granparents never owned slaves, to be paid to people who were never slaves because history.

Nevermind the reparations would go, as reported by Sultan Knish to millionaires who aren't exactly in need of "reparations", the rationale for such is incredibly eak but makes a great campaign talking point to get some votes in exchange for the promise of other people's money .

Yet, these very same progressives in Congress and elsewhere argue the DACA kids should not be blamed neither for themselves being here illegally, nor should they be blamed for their parents immediate illegal actions in bringing them here illegally. Verily they should not be blamed nor accountable for their own acts and indeed should be awarded citizenship for illegally crossing the border, but for reparations, everyone else should be held collectively responsible for the acts of others long ago.

The cognitive dissonance is most impressive.