Just today I learned that again another place has arranged for “reparations” to be paid to certain of their citizens. I refer to California. As you know, this is a desirable place regarding the climate and beautiful scenes—with the Pacific Ocean, the deserts, and other venues. But we know that this past summer has changed this somewhat. This state has been affected by numerous storms, rain, wind, fires, drought, heat, and cold, and further we learned that nearly a million of the citizens have departed for more desirable locations, such as Florida, Texas, Arizona, and elsewhere. Further, we understand that this state is the place for an overwhelming number of illegal immigrants and forbidden drugs to enter and be disseminated. We wonder how Californians can survive this!

We have also learned that California is suggesting (or shall I say “demanding”) that citizens of that state and even the country should “donate” or “pay” a certain sum of money (was it $1,000,000 or $2,000,000?) for every man, woman, and child who lived there in past couple of hundred years—persons of a certain ethnicity. Just how this is to be done is questionable. By the way, “reparations” means paying a certain group of people for past wrongs, whether one or 100 or 300 years ago! But, as most would now say, we are all “equal” under the law, there are many injustices in the world, and it is impossible for people today to undo the past. Further, as we all know, people today are on a completely different footing than in the past.

This is what I mean: Not everyone was alive in the past or even 100 years ago, or 173 years ago. How is it possible for someone today to “pay” for injustice done years ago? Secondly, there has been so much amalgamation that it would seem impossible to even find those who were guilty in the past! For example, there has been so much intermarriage that it would not be realistic for one to locate and be accountable for by-gone days. (This intermarriage is called “miscegenation.”).

Further, we know that people are not of one racial background—but many. What about non-blacks, such as American Indians? They were mistreated, weren’t they? Or Asians? They too were mistreated. Then there were the islanders and others. Especially, we think of the Japanese who were placed in interment camps. Yes, the Japanese did horrible things to America and many other countries—but today is a different age. We must also about those who are totally black but partial in some way. Some blacks have married whites—and had offspring. What about those who are 90%, 80%’ or 70% blacks—and those of other ethnicities?

We must remember that there is only one single “race” and not more. Everyone came from Adam and Eve, then Noah and Mrs. Noah. People didn’t come from multiple families and numerous stocks. Thus, can we even imply that there were different “races”? Further, what about the history of certain peoples? Consider the “blacks” (as they have been called, at least in the past)? (We think of the book by Nathaniel T. Jeanson, entitled Traced.)

Some were field workers. Others were from other backgrounds: craftworkers, messengers, cooks, shippers, workers on trading ships (World Book Encylopedia, p. 136e, A). Some were from the North but most were from the South. Many were unskilled laborers, but others were from factories or household slaves. They might have raised tobacco and eventually may have harvested cotton. Some came to America at the time of the Civil War (1863) and some a hundred years before. Of the 5% who were in America, the majority were from the South. And, others came from Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere. (See World Book Encyclopedia, page A-136f).

Further, it is important to remember that from the early 1800s, there was the decided effort to transport some back to Africa, especially Liberia (on the African coast, toward the West) but only about 12,000 blacks went. We think of the American Colonization Society, begun about 1816. As we suggested, by 1850, most blacks refused to leave, with the thought that America was their “home.” It would be good to remember this. Although the plight of blacks in the early 1800s was bad, but it was not utterly bad.

We know that most blacks came from Western Africa (from such countries as Ghana) but from other places as well. We wonder if there was an effort to find the French, British, Italian, and Dutch slave traders who brought them to America. Further, where was the effort to find the Muslim perpetrators who captured them? Further, we know that most of the ones who captured them were Animists, Muslims, and others—and the receivers introduced them to a form of Christianity in America (sadly, the form that they inherited was a defective and perverted form).

We should also remember that most of the slaves were under evil masters in America and even many Southern whites were not directly involved. Some of the people in the South, for instances, were poor themselves. We wonder where is the effort to locate the small number of Southern whites who had plantations and owned blacks.

By 1862, Lincoln initiated a plan to free the slaves—and to pay a certain amount to the slave-owners. In April of that year, he approved a plan to move liberated slaves to Haiti or Liberia. (World Book Encyclopedia, p. 136h).  By January 1863 the president freed the slaves (on paper) in the “Emancipation Proclamation” that freed all slaves, saying that they would be “forever free.” This extended to those states that remained loyal to the Union. Blacks celebrated this day as “the Day of Jubilee” (using the OT terminology). Therefore, the 13th Amendment officially ended slavery. But there were many issues to be worked out and this took time.

For all of these considerations we must say that it would be nearly impossible for “reparations” to be made for all of any of these people. In other own area, many blacks work hard and own more and have more than me! Granted, we have mentioned elsewhere in another article, if other people (blacks, as well as those from other ethnicities), if women (for example) were not feminists—if they were full-time homemakers and house-wives, if they had not one or two but perhaps 6 or 8 or more children, if they taught their own children and didn’t send them to the government schools, and if these women were totally submissive to their husbands (for example), and if they were married to one single spouse (and not divorced and remarried), and if they refused to kill (abort) their own babies, we know that things would be different—far different!

One thing this should teach us is that holding slavery was not only sinful (cf. 1 Timothy 1:10), but one sin begets another! We think of the sinful and greedy white slave-holders in 1700 or 1750 who held human slaves against their will, took them from their families and loved ones, and brought them to a far-way country in North and South America and Central America and the Caribbean islands. Little did they think of the disaster that would come to America in the 2020s! (And, of course, other nations—where 95% of African slaves went (especially from Ghana)! One sin begets another, as we say! Greed brought a host of problems!

For some of these reasons, we must say that “reparations” just would not work at all! Reparation would be entirely wrong, non-sensical, and evil. Those liberals and “left-wingers” (and some Republicans and Independents) who imagine that it would work, just haven’t done their homework, don’t know history, are totally unrealistic, or refuse to accept the Biblical agenda. We must conclude that they really are not true followers of Christ!