How Long Before We Pay the “Rent,” After the Voice? By James Reed
Here is some material dealing with the US and Canadian situation, where the first steps have been made for people, white people, we suppose, for reparations to Blacks and American Indians. The Chicago suburb of Evanston, is already tossing out $ 25,000 to 140 Black residents, the first payment of $ 10 million that was approved. And people in British Columbia, as part of a voluntary initiative set up by the non-profit initiative, Reciprocity Trusts, is encouraging homeowners to pay $ 400 annually to First nation people. Surveys have shown that many working people go from pay-to-pay, and do not have $ 400 spare even for medical and dental expenses.
The idea of reparations lurks around the Voice in Australia, and is a pet idea of the neo-Marxists who see the Voice as the first stepping stone to a treaty, and then, all of the above.
“At long last, justice has come: the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill., has begun paying reparations to black residents. So now that historic wrongs have been righted, a new era of racial harmony will dawn in northern Illinois, right? Wrong: one local “civil rights activist” is already complaining that the payouts are too meager and more money is needed. Despite the discontent, however, supporters of the scheme are optimistic, with one even terming it “a test run for the whole country.” Yeah, that’s the problem.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Evanston will shell out $25,000 to around 140 black residents of Evanston by the end of this year. This is just a small part of $10 million in reparations payments that the city approved in 2019, so lots more free money is coming. Meanwhile, the party has already begun for sixteen Evanston residents who have already received their dough and are now experiencing the bliss of ancient injustices redressed. These people have been suffering from the racism of the white supremacists in Evanston for a long time; a Thursday report in Slay noted that “individuals must have been at least 18 years old and resided in the city between 1919 and 1969 to qualify for the payments.”
One would think that Evanston would be ringing with hosannas for this dawning of Democrat vote bribery, uh, that is, racial justice, but somehow the joy of equity is still proving to be elusive, at least for some Evanstonians. Alleged civil rights activist Bennett Johnson, according to Slay, is not satisfied at all. He complained about the fact that the city set 1969 as the cutoff year, saying it was “totally arbitrary”; however, that was the year that Evanston passed a fair housing law. The righteous Johnson claimed that black Americans in Evanston continued to be “discriminated” against and “hurt,” and so presumably the payments should extend far beyond 1969.
Slay noted that Johnson “also contended that the payments were not enough.” He said angrily: “I believe that [Evanston is] doing the same thing that we’ve done in the past, downgrading the ability of black people to do things for themselves.” Now wait a minute, Mr. Johnson. Isn’t that exactly what reparations do: downgrade the ability of black people to do things for themselves? Isn’t the very premise of the reparations frenzy the idea that black people have been simply unable to overcome all the racist roadblocks that Whitey has fiendishly put in their way?
Doesn’t the idea of reparations also assume that these roadblocks have remained in place long after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, via innumerable structures of systemic racism that are so insidiously subtle that they can only be discerned by highly-paid instructors in Critical Race Theory? Isn’t the idea of reparations predicated on the assumption that black people can’t do things for themselves and that this is Whitey’s fault, and so Whitey needs to give black people a special boost in the form of a generous cash payout?
Yet Johnson insists: “We could realize that if we don’t let black people control this, we [are] still doing the same thing that we’ve done in the past.” Well, in a certain sense, we are indeed doing the same thing we’ve done in the past, or at least Evanston is. By paying money to black residents, Evanston is paternalistically assuming that they can’t make it on their own. That’s the same sort of assumption that justified slavery and a host of other ills. But this time, Democrats are calling their racism and paternalism “racial justice,” and that makes it all okay.
And where is the money coming from for all this? From taxes, of course. The initial payouts were “supposed to come from marijuana and real estate transfer taxes,” but “marijuana sales tax revenue slowed after the opening of a second dispensary in the city was delayed,” so a non-stoner solution had to be found: “City officials anticipate that the entire program will be funded, in part, due to Evanston’s graduated real estate transfer tax.”
That’s great, but what happens when white taxpayers begin leaving Evanston in order to avoid being penalized for a crime they did not commit for the benefit of those who were not victimized? If Evanston housing laws were unfair until 1969, that’s a terrible shame, but an Evanston resident who is 65 years old now was all of eleven years old in 1969 and so unlikely to be responsible for all the racism that the racist rednecks of Chicago, the parents and grandparents of those who attacked Jussie Smollett, inflicted upon the area’s black population.
Justin Hansford of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University was nevertheless happy, saying that Evanston’s reparations scheme was “a test run for the whole country.” Yeah, that’s what’s wrong with it. Reparations efforts are the prelude to wealth redistribution on a larger scale, with money confiscated from those considered undeserving and transferred to those whom the all-knowing, all-powerful state decides ought to have it. Every society where this has been implemented has become impoverished, as wealth producers either flee or stop producing. Evanston, Illinois, and America in general, will be no different.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvay7/program-allows-canadians-pay-rent-to-indigenous-communities
“A nonprofit agency set up the program encouraging average homeowners to pay about $400 annually to First Nations on whose territory they live or work.
People in British Columbia may soon be able to pay “rent” to Indigenous communities as part of a new initiative that encourages people to “decolonize their backyards.”
The nonprofit initiative, Reciprocity Trusts, encourages homeowners, renters, and business owners to make payments to First Nations on whose territory they live or work.
“The idea for Reciprocity really came from conversations with Indigenous colleagues and friends over many years,” said Sarah Reid, Reciprocity Trust’s program director. “We were hearing from Indigenous people who are impacted by ongoing colonialism in their day-to-day lives. So we asked, ‘Well, what can I do in my own life as a settler in these lands?’”
Payments are calculated based on property value or monthly rent: renters are encouraged to pay the equivalent of 1 percent their monthly rent, while homeowners can opt to pay the equivalent of 1 percent of their property taxes per month. Businesses can pledge 1 percent of their profit.
According to Naomi Devine, Reciprocity Trust’s strategic advisor, an average homeowner in Victoria would pay about $400 per year.
The initiative comes in the wake of a reckoning in Canada following the confirmation of more than 200 unmarked graves at a former residential school site in Kamloops, British Columbia. As more and more unmarked graves are confirmed across Canada, many non-Indigenous people have had to face Canada’s horrific legacy of displacing, forcibly assimilating, and abusing Indigenous peoples, at residential schools and beyond. Now, people are asking, “What can I do to help?”
According to Reciprocity Trust’s website, “British Columbians can start saying thank you for over 150 years of rent-free living by paying a little back each year.” (It’s been a little over 150 years since Canada’s confederation.)
The point, Reid said, is to create room for non-Indigenous people to recognize Indigenous land rights and title in a concrete way. It’s money that residents and businesses can pay directly to Indigenous nations, who then control where the money goes and how it’s spent.
The payment is neither a charity nor a tax, Reid said.
At the start, about 85 percent of proceeds will go directly to independent trusts run by the First Nations themselves, while the remaining chunk will cover operating costs at Reciprocity Trusts.
Many ostensibly progressive initiatives have turned out to be problematic in Canada. In one example, many Canadians rushed to buy orange “Every Child Matters” T-shirts over the summer, which prompted white sellers to produce and make a profit off of their own designs, as opposed to amplifying Indigenous designers.
Devine said her team is trying to avoid “white saviour complex-style solutions.”
“Our solution is a solution beneficial to nations themselves; it’s coming from them as well as from us,” she said.
Reid and Devine are not Indigenous themselves. They said the Reciprocity Trusts team currently has one Indigenous member. The agency has also reached out to 10 First Nations so far, with T’Sou-ke and Songhees First Nations voicing interest.
VICE World News asked to speak with Indigenous representatives currently in conversation with Reciprocity Trusts, but did not hear back. However, Chief Gordon Planes of T’sou-ke Nation is quoted in Reciprocity Trust’s media package.
“My first response to this idea was, ‘It’s about time.’ We have lots of work to do, but I’m looking forward to what Reciprocity could represent for our people: grassroots recognition, regular and independent revenue we can use to support our land, language, and culture, and also a way to connect with residents and businesses within our territory who care and can help us with things like environmental restoration and invasive species,” Planes said.
The initiative is currently in a “pledge phase,” Reid said. That means the agency is collecting commitments from people saying they want to participate in the initiative when it launches, and passing those pledges along to First Nations. There were 325 pledges as of last week.
The hope is to start paying Indigenous communities in and around Victoria, B.C., in early 2022, with possible expansion across Canada in the future.”
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