Why reparations will never happen: the lie of "we'll do better next time"

Here's what I realized yesterday: it is the lie of "we"ll do better next time" that lies (no pun there) at the heart of the refusal to pay reparations or do reparative justice in America.

Let me explain.

When an inequity is laid bare, power brokers have two choices: address it and make the person who has been robbed whole, or not. When the latter choice is made, as it so often is, in an effort to blunt the edge of their moral laziness (torpitude?) power brokers may say that the organization/system recognizes its lapse, and promises to "Do better next time". But that's bullshit, straight no chaser bullshiggety. "The next time" the organization or system will shaft the oppressed in some new way, that is all.

Do not be fooled. The system of oppression does change, yes, but only minutely for the better. Mostly it changes for the slyer, the slicker, the more deceptive at oppression. The system tweaks its levers of oppression frequently, but never with a view to doing away with those levers entirely. Oh no! The goal is to lower the temperature on the boiling pot just enough that the frog forgets he is dying and remains in the water. There is no intention to turn off the heat. Nor is the intention that the frog should survive, far less thrive.

Promises of changed behavior in the future are nonsense. Do not believe them.

Here's the other thing: those promises are themselves a form of oppression. They, more than the original inequity, are how racial inequality is entrenched. By saying, "It's too late to fix this now, let's move on and do better next time", powerholders ensured that the people of Rosewood, FL and Seneca Village, NY for example never saw redress. Emmett Till's people; George Stinney's people; the hundreds of thousands who fled the south leaving everything behind, never saw redress.  None of us ever sees redress. Not one. Because we are not worthy of being made whole.

We are massacred and robbed and left to start over with zero paid to us for our injury. We are daily robbed of wages, promotions, recognition, ideas, genius, and we never see redress. Why? Because we are not worthy of being made whole.

Organizations commit (with fingers crossed behind backs) that "next time" they wil do better, but in truth that's probably not going to happen. We don't deserve it, so supremacy believes, ergo, it ain't happening. And that "next time" the organization will likely do a different harm, resist the truth of that harm, and finally, make no effort to address it claiming it'll do better the next "next time". And the bether next  next time never comes either. It's not supposed to. Consider the frog: it's still in hot water, its death is still scheduled if delayed.

African pepple, Native people, Hispanic people, are perpetually awaiting the "better next time" outcomes. This is why on a system-wide level, reparative work is never done and progress is not possible. Until the pain of the harm inflicted is felt by they who have inflicted it; until punishment is meted out, hear me well, there can be no learning, there can be no better next time. Pavlov and B. F. Skinner understood that changing behavior demanded a punishment/reward system to be effective. Consequences lead to change. America doesn't do consequences. And she doesn't do apologies either. (Ask Barack Obama).

There is no punishment in America and so there will never be any change. Changed behavior has to be rewarded for it to stick but America rewards oppression. Why the hell would we give it up?

Who's Woke?

There are non-POC who call themselves 'woke'. Can I just say I'm conflicted?

It's all well and good to be aware; it's all well and good to be actively seeking for social justice and equality, but 'woke'? I don't know. My experience is that it is sometimes those who most loudly and frequently claim 'wokedness' who are among the most oblivious to the subtle ways in which privilege and inevitable fragilismus impact their lives and others'. The problem is that wokedness is a journey not a destination but I'm starting to wonder how many woke White folk really comprehend this, and even if it is some end point that they can attain, that they ain't reached yet. Y'all need to keep walking.

There are degrees of wokedness it seems to me. Some of us are wide awake, some are just waking up, and some of us are still fast asleep, dribbling on the pillow, dreaming that we're awake and aware and acting out the dream on others' lived reality (and making a helluva mess let me just say). The reality is that in much the same way that "I am not a racist" or "I'm not a sexist" ain't yours to decide, neither is this. It is only in contact with the world and the likely victims of one's ~ism that one's level of awareness can be evaluated and that evaluation is external. One's "not ~ist" bona fides are determined in practice not in belief. It is who you are in the moment of contact that matters. Everything else is just gum-bumping.  

I'm a POC. I write about White 'supremacy'. To write I must read. I read mostly articles but sometimes books, as reference material. I've blazed my way thru more reference material in the last three years than even I care to contemplate because it adds to the writing and offers readers the data and reference material that supports my assertions. And I'm still not fully awake. So, if people like me, the actual test subjects in America's racial acceptance study lab, students of the history of bigotry aren't fully woke, how do ytppl get to claim the label? Answer: yuh don't so please stop. 

Knowing one or two (thousand even) things about your nation's history of bigotry and brutality, deciding you don't like it and want nothing further to do with it doesn't make you woke. It means that your eyes are open. Partially. Woke is what happens every waking hour thereafter. Woke is what happens when you loudly and consistently agitate, vote, agitate, teach, agitate, and model a different performance of American Whiteness every hour of every day. And then check yourself minutely in your interactions with others to see where you're falling back on ingrained habits of stereotyping and othering.

A few days ago, a friend on social media was in a back a forth with a WOC who was asserting that White people who coddle their Trump-supporting family are a serious problem. He did not agree and ended their connection raging that she didn't have the right to tell him how to love his misguided loved ones. 

Here's the thing: true wokedness cannot peacefully abide with those intent upon remaining sound asleep. Worse still, it is dangerous, life-impacting and all too often life-threatening to the very people whose cause you affirm to continue your affiliations with such people. That's just a statement of fact. If social justice is a necessary goal for this country, how do you consort with those who vote to delay or worse, deny it? Does this mean you may have to cut some people off? That's really up to you to decide, but you may have to excuse me if I stand afar off while you figure it out. 

I get it, they're your loved ones. They are people you've known and loved since you took your first breath or they took theirs. But while you're trying to love them into an understanding of history and bigotry, Jemel Roberson and Emantic Bradford were each killed by just one such; Jordan Edwards, Jordan Davis, Richard Collins III, Rekia Boyd and far too many others were killed by somebody's Trump-loving relative and far too few of them have faced, let alone been brought to justice, because of somebody else's Trump-loving relatives seated on juries. So forgive me, if I stand way over here while you figure this out.

All this makes me have to say that when it comes to White Wokeness.....it's not really a thing. There is working on it; there is really working on it; and there's "What's.woke?" Pick one, cuz 'woke' ain't your lane.