He states that “adherents (of CRT) believe that the legacy of slavery is baked into American society and culture to such a degree that African-Americans continue to suffer long-term, systemic economic harm. It (CRT) suggests that discussing reparations should be on the national agenda…” He says that Jewish tradition supports this thesis.
No it doesn’t. He must certainly know that the Book of Exodus, chapter XX, verse 5, states that “the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and even fourth generation.” That is God’s own statute of limitations.
Well, we are now in the seventh generation since slavery was abolished. Jewish culture, and plain common sense, says that attributing current problems to something that ended over a century and a half earlier is absurd. Not only that, most of our ancestors emigrated to America well after the Civil War, and the same is true of most Americans.
How are those whose ancestors weren’t even here possibly be held responsible for anything that happened before they even arrived?
If, as alleged by CRT, America is irredeemably racist from inception, why was there a Civil War? Why did the South even feel the need to secede? Given the position of CRT, why did nearly 400,000 white men die to free blacks from slavery? Why did the coal miner from Pennsylvania, the mill worker from Massachusetts, the farmer from Iowa, the railway worker from Ohio, lay down his life for black freedom? What skin was it off their noses if blacks were enslaved?
The Civil War was one of the noblest events in human history. These brave men perished, not for conquest, not for wealth, but to free others from bondage. And Dean Abramson has the gall to talk about reparations?
History is full of ironies.
What if the czars had been kind to Jews? Nearly all of our families, mine included, would have stayed in Russia. Hitler would have killed us all. The czars, definitely unintentionally, saved us.
Similarly, would the black population of America be better off if their distant ancestors had not been enslaved and brought here? Nearly all would now be citizens of Nigeria, or Chad, or Zambia, or the Congo. I’m sure most would vastly prefer their life in America, whatever its faults.
To those trying to shove CRT down the throats of our children, none of the above matters. We are convicted by them of a crime neither we nor our ancestors ever committed.
But wait. They are actually, by their own argument, destroying their own thesis.
If slavery is evil, and it absolutely is,why are only whites guilty? What about the sellers? Are not the ancestors of today’s blacks every bit as guilty? After all, they sold their own kinsmen into bondage. In fact, before whites came to sub-Saharan Africa, over half of all blacks were enslaved by other blacks. By their own reasoning, this would make whites and blacks equally guilty of the same crime.
Advocates of CRT never have a good word for America. They never mention civil rights laws, affirmative action, preferential hiring treatment, preferential college admission, or any other advances that have been made. They claim that systemic racism is irrevocably baked into American culture. Not so. It is their claim that is half-baked, and indigestible.
Lee Levin
Leawood, KS
