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Horowitz destroys the argument for reparations, and in a second chapter, he challenges the victimization logic that offers white racism as the excuse for any "underperformance" by the black community. There is no one alive today who held any slaves or personally was a slave. Many black Americans in the country today have no ancestors in America who were slaves. A majority of Americans are descended from people who came to the United States after the Civil War and bear no guilt for the ugly practice in one region of the United States two centuries ago. Those who are descended from people who lived in the states that did not join the Confederacy have 400,000 dead Union soldiers, plus many hundreds of thousands injured, as their sacrifice to liberating the slaves and preserving the Union. Reparations for Japanese-Americans in the United States or Holocaust survivors in Europe were paid to people who had themselves lived through specific horrors or criminal behavior by governments. Must all Americans today pay for something that ended over 150 years ago and for which a bloody war was fought? Are all African-Americans equally entitled to compensation for something that impacted some of their ancestors seven generations back?
The victimization theme – that white racism is solely responsible for the economic situation of black Americans, their higher crime rates and poor academic performance, eliminates any agency for individuals to beat the odds or take advantage of the increased opportunities that are now available, including trillions spent on social welfare programs over the past half-century, much of that designed to address the needs of African-Americans. These programs include affirmative action admissions to universities and similar approaches to hiring by corporations and other firms. Martin Luther King was aware that racism and discrimination were present in 1960s America, as was segregation in large parts of the country, but he believed that these should not be an excuse for black American behavior that only worsened their plight. Charlatans and race-hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have dominated the civil rights movement since King's death, always pushing the white racism bogeyman, while those more in line with King's legacy, including Jason Riley, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, and Glen Loury, are ignored or condemned as sell-outs. Arguing that cultural norms within a community can be damaging to the success of future generations is simply a forbidden theme – witness the recent campaign against University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax.
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