A Post On Reparations [updated]

You’re invited over to someone’s house for a turkey diner. Maybe it’s your grandparents who are inviting you.

Maybe it’s those nice neighbors.

Maybe you’re coming empty handed, maybe you’re bringing a side dish.

Doesn’t matter.

You come, you gorge yourself on turkey.

You have a great time.

You feel full.

But then, as you’re leaving, you learn your hosts -- be they your grandparents or just nice neighbors -- stole the turkey from someone else.

And the person they stole the turkey from, they and their family have gone hungry.

Oh, maybe not starvation hungry, but hungry.

And what was once theirs was taken from them.

And you benefited from that theft, even if you didn’t know it at the time.

Now, do you seek justice for the victimized family?

Do you demand your hosts pay for the turkey?

Do you at least dig into your own pocket and pay your share of what the turkey was worth?

Or do you say it’s not your fault?

Not your responsibility?

The victims should have done a better job of looking after their poultry?

That other people steal turkeys all the time, and until those thieves are brought to justice the nice people who invited you shouldn’t have to pay?

One answer makes you a mensch, one answer makes you a shit.

And you damn well know which is which.

© Buzz Dixon