The word that keeps coming up with issues of race, justice, crime, and poverty, is CHOICE - and I’ve found it to be the worst possible way to explain away these ongoing problems. Right Wing professional plutocrats like Bill O’Reilly insist that when it comes to intra-racial issues, “no one forces” marginalized People of Color to engage in criminal activity, or join a gang, or sign up for welfare, or go to underserved schools, or live in the projects…you get the idea. O’Reilly assumes that because these actions are, technically, arbitrary decisions made on the part of Black & Brown Americans, that they have fully weighed the consequences of their choices, and have decided this was the best course of action to take. Immediately, this presumes, as so many Supremacist sympathizers presume, a blatant moral, ethical bigotry against Non-White American citizens. It is the public dismissal of a complex set of problems that far too many White Americans in the silent majority have quietly seen and ignored, choosing instead to go along with paid propaganda mongers like Mr. O’Reilly so as to quell their own self-discovery and possible empathy when it comes to difficult topics like this. It’s a cop-out.
The only argument I might find even worse than this one, the idea that individual “choice” is the only major factor when dealing with intra-racial issues, is the idea of fight or flight - specifically, flight. Far too many racist Americans love to utilize the age-old bigoted American adage: “If you don’t like us, go back to [country of origin]!” This is constantly used as the last line of defense against veritable arguments about racism, classism, misogyny, religious phobias, and orientation/gender discrimination in the US. But if we are to look at the history of this country, and as I’ve said before, it would be FAR more fitting - and factually defensible - if White Americans declaring these kinds of ultimatums took themselves back to where they're from.
This is where that pretty little word CHOICE gets problematic for American bigots and racists who don’t identify as Men and Women of Color.
A basic overview of US History shows the majority of European immigrants who traveled from their homelands did so by choice. With little variance, there was no documented ‘forcing’ of citizens from places like France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, or any of the Northern/Eastern European principalities to emigrate across the Atlantic. It was a collective, arbitrary decision by these immigrants to seek better fortunes on another continent, having heard rumors of a “Land of Opportunity” that could cultivate that fortune without harsh societal or Governmental persecution. The exception to this understanding of US immigration, of course, lies with the influx of early 17th and 18th century White indentured servants - many being Celtic in origin, sent “across the pond” via the British Imperial will as a form of Transatlantic imprisonment in the new colonies (NOTE: in my opinion, though writers and historians feel otherwise, the word ‘slave’ here is debatable, though there is no question early Whites in bondage were treated very harshly and worked under pain of violent punishment).
But there is no question that individuals such as my Celtic family - whose grandparents and great-grandparents arrived on Ellis Island in the Late 19th/Early 20th Centuries - made the harrowing journey from places like Ireland and England without any forced provocation or as part of sentencing for criminal behavior. Such is the case for countless families whose predecessors also made that journey. This is not some antiquated, debatable concept being argued at this country’s top Universities. It is a statistical fact, and since bigots and racists in this country love using numbers and so-called “facts” to defend their position of xenophobic prejudice and anti-Blackness, I think it’s high time we utilize those same citable sources to defend against Supremacy and its insidious agenda.
With all of this on the table (or at least on this blog), logic must be used to give some objectivity to what is clearly a subjective assessment of these things. Ultimately, what logic says is what most of us were taught as children and young adults; namely, that life is full of hard choices, and that sometimes we have to make terrible choices - like leaving your homeland and loved ones behind to find a better existence - in order to survive. Logic also demands that there is simply no practical way to relegate individual choice to some untouchable, monolithic failsafe when talking about any marginalized peoples, but rather that these choices are guided, if not perpetuated, by circumstance.
In the instance of the long, bloodied history of People of Color in the United States, there is little doubt that those circumstances were catalysts for the choices they made across the centuries, whether for good or ill, and such is the case today, in the 21st Century. Therefore, to simply throw away all of that history, to deny the atrocious manner in which White Supremacy in America has unquestionably forced the hand of millions of oppressed Black & Brown Americans, to insist that individual choice outside of circumstance is the ONLY factor by which the consequences of their actions should be judged, is the height and breadth of institutionalized American racism, and no free-thinking individual, in this country or abroad, should be complicit in the continued propagandized method through which this glaring logical fallacy is used to defend the violent discrimination and prosecutorial hatred of People of Color.
To close this, if only as a bon mot, I would like to point out that if racist US citizens want so badly to see the expulsion of marginalized People of Color who are seeking justice and liberation for hundreds of years of countless criminal acts against their demographics, they should take it upon themselves to provide the necessary means for said demographics to do so. Sure, at first, it sounds as if I’m talking like a racist - at first. But I’m speaking specifically to the notion of US Reparations as the means to that end. In other words, if you want to kick folks out so badly, put your money where your mouth is.
Don’t worry, I’ve provided some easy numbers for you wonderful bigots out there ;-)
Since you - the proverbial Non-PoC US racist - want marginalized Black Americans to go “back where they came from,” let’s look at the math. A very, very general overview of US expat travel to [and living expenses in] an African country with a stable Middle Class like Nigeria suggests that it’s going to take upwards of $10,000US just to renounce citizenship and move one’s belongings, taking into account legal fees and exit taxes, depending on one’s tax bracket. At LEAST. Once that’s all taken care of, again, an extremely non-specific assessment of the basic cost of renting a two-bedroom Nigerian villa plus food and amenities comes to anything upwards of $80,000US/year. Considering the irreparable damage that has been done to Millions of African slaves and their descendants in the US since the 17th Century, I’d say five years of duty-free, tax-exempt, financial assistance to cover these costs for each & every citizen who chooses to move to Nigeria with their families & loved ones is pretty anemic, but would allow for said Black expats to hopefully find work and stabilize their situation abroad. Again, this would be under the umbrella of US Reparations, thus repayment of this money would be negligible; you - proverbial racist - are just paying back what you owe to people whose very existence your predecessors tried to erase. So, more or less - reiterating for a third time that these are extremely general numbers - we’re talking roughly $500,000 for each Black American with biological ties to Africa who decides to do this.
By the way, if the cost of moving and setting up shop elsewhere is lower than this for some reason, the amount would not change, but if the cost was higher, I would say to provide more so as to ensure said stability. Also, if they decide not to move, this baseline grant would be gifted to Reparation recipients anyway to do with as they chose.
This is me LOW-BALLING, kids. Like, ridiculously low.
But hey, if US racists are willing to insert that into the national budget, by all means, I’d stay and sign up to help with the overextended administration that will come along with putting this plan into action, just to see my PoC friends & colleagues find a better life for themselves in places that don’t see them as second class or potential criminals.
Of course, if you, my dear bigoted friends, were to, for some reason, oh, I don’t know, Choose not to be complicit in this plan, then I guess we have a conflict of interest.
Funny how that little word, Choice, can be such a pain in the ass when the douchebags who like to wield it around like a baseball bat get smacked in the face with it. No, really. It’s a goddamn riot. And if you’re not laughing after all this, well, I would say that’s your choice.
To close this, if only as a bon mot, I would like to point out that if racist US citizens want so badly to see the expulsion of marginalized People of Color who are seeking justice and liberation for hundreds of years of countless criminal acts against their demographics, they should take it upon themselves to provide the necessary means for said demographics to do so. Sure, at first, it sounds as if I’m talking like a racist - at first. But I’m speaking specifically to the notion of US Reparations as the means to that end. In other words, if you want to kick folks out so badly, put your money where your mouth is.
Don’t worry, I’ve provided some easy numbers for you wonderful bigots out there ;-)
Since you - the proverbial Non-PoC US racist - want marginalized Black Americans to go “back where they came from,” let’s look at the math. A very, very general overview of US expat travel to [and living expenses in] an African country with a stable Middle Class like Nigeria suggests that it’s going to take upwards of $10,000US just to renounce citizenship and move one’s belongings, taking into account legal fees and exit taxes, depending on one’s tax bracket. At LEAST. Once that’s all taken care of, again, an extremely non-specific assessment of the basic cost of renting a two-bedroom Nigerian villa plus food and amenities comes to anything upwards of $80,000US/year. Considering the irreparable damage that has been done to Millions of African slaves and their descendants in the US since the 17th Century, I’d say five years of duty-free, tax-exempt, financial assistance to cover these costs for each & every citizen who chooses to move to Nigeria with their families & loved ones is pretty anemic, but would allow for said Black expats to hopefully find work and stabilize their situation abroad. Again, this would be under the umbrella of US Reparations, thus repayment of this money would be negligible; you - proverbial racist - are just paying back what you owe to people whose very existence your predecessors tried to erase. So, more or less - reiterating for a third time that these are extremely general numbers - we’re talking roughly $500,000 for each Black American with biological ties to Africa who decides to do this.
By the way, if the cost of moving and setting up shop elsewhere is lower than this for some reason, the amount would not change, but if the cost was higher, I would say to provide more so as to ensure said stability. Also, if they decide not to move, this baseline grant would be gifted to Reparation recipients anyway to do with as they chose.
This is me LOW-BALLING, kids. Like, ridiculously low.
But hey, if US racists are willing to insert that into the national budget, by all means, I’d stay and sign up to help with the overextended administration that will come along with putting this plan into action, just to see my PoC friends & colleagues find a better life for themselves in places that don’t see them as second class or potential criminals.
Of course, if you, my dear bigoted friends, were to, for some reason, oh, I don’t know, Choose not to be complicit in this plan, then I guess we have a conflict of interest.
Funny how that little word, Choice, can be such a pain in the ass when the douchebags who like to wield it around like a baseball bat get smacked in the face with it. No, really. It’s a goddamn riot. And if you’re not laughing after all this, well, I would say that’s your choice.
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