The Road to Reparations

In the process of getting to know the Green Party, sooner or later you realize that we favor African Americans to the point of calling for reparations for over 200 years of discrimination. This is ultimately what it will take to heal race relations in our country, but rather than diving headfirst into what would quickly become a major bone of contention, we should practice the art of the possible by going for a series of small wins. Black women have it particularly hard, as detailed in a report put out this week by The National Domestic Workers Alliance. One of their priority recommendations is:

Policymakers and workforce development leaders should adopt

Photo by Jake Kitchener

strategies to promote gender and racial/ethnic equity in access to higher-paid career training opportunities. Workforce development programs that recruit and train Black women in specific skills can help them gain access to career ladders and upward mobility and can reduce their concentration in lower-paying jobs.

The Green Party prioritizes women's rights and racial equality in their platform section dealing with Civil Rights and Equal Rights. It also puts an emphasis on poor mothers of all races, though Black mothers are more than twice as likely to be under the poverty line than White mothers.

The Green Party supports real reforms to end poverty and return dignity and opportunity to all mothers. We call for implementing innovative programs that work with the particular and special needs of motherhood. 

and, under Livable Income, the platform calls for helping all impoverished citizens:

Workforce development programs must aim at moving people out of poverty.

It is very hard to accept one's own diminution while watching another group's ascension. Such acceptance disappoints both our expectancy and sense of equity. By taking small steps, such as reducing poverty among the most downtrodden by enabling them to become more employable, we can temper the resentment felt by both sides. At the same time, we must continue to press for many more measures such as the recommendations in the NDWA report and the 2014 Black Women in the United States report in order to make it over the high bar of granting reparations, thus upholding our values pertaining to social justice, gender equality, and diversity.

The Greatest

The richest man in the world may be Vladimir Putin, according to financial executive Bill Browder. While the wealth of their country is siphoned off to secret Swiss bank accounts, everyone but the oligarchs struggle to scratch out a living, just as the Russians have throughout history.

Donald Trump would naturally admire the richest man in the world and, since he is taking over leadership of the richest country in the world, would naturally consider it quite appropriate that he would be the rightful recipient of that honor, given enough time to exact all of the tribute possible from his loyal subjects. Until he was elected President, all he had to work with were a smattering of resorts, hotels, a school, sundry consumer product lines, and the Trump Foundation. It turns out that he used the foundation to support anything Trump, just as the name implies.

If he is anything like his pal, Putin, the Trump Foundation was just a warm-up. At 71, he really needs to kick it into high gear in order to exceed $200 billion, but he seems unencumbered by scruples and has brought so many tycoons into his inner circle that his chances look pretty good. This is what making America great again means to Trump - great for him and his coterie of oligarchs.

We didn't think we'd end up like Russia after two centuries of democracy. Perhaps we won't if Trump can be forestalled by legalities like the proposed Presidential Accountability Act. Laws, however, don't seem to count for much in Trump's calculations, so we might all end up as subjects of the throne eventually.

In Laudato Si, Pope Francis pointed out the error in this pattern of governance:

This vision of “might is right” has engendered immense inequality, injustice and acts of violence against the majority of humanity, since resources end up in the hands of the first comer or the most powerful: the winner takes all. Completely at odds with this model are the ideals of harmony, justice, fraternity and peace as proposed by Jesus. As he said of the powers of his own age: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (Mt 20:25-26).

A glimmer of the Christmas story shines through this passage: despite all the Caesars, Putins, and Trumps of the world, Jesus tells us, "It shall not be so among you." While they go high, we go low, and so become great in his kingdom.

Photo by Sampo Sikiö