As Compared to What Utopia?
The left is incessantly complaining about "fairness" without asking the question "Fair, as compared to what?"
Clarity of language is important because it helps humans settle on a mutual understanding of the world.
Take the word “dog.” There is some form of that word in every language and when it is used, everyone understands what that means.
But even “dog” is a relative term because it describes the same grouping of animal that spans the gamut from a tiny pocket Poodle to a Great Dane.
Anytime someone tells us they have a dog, typically our next question is “What breed?”
That is how we drill down to a specific type of dog to satisfy our brains need for completing the puzzle, to better understand what to expect. Is it a Pittie or a Poodle? That degree of clarity tells us something about the pup.
My best buddy, Murph, is half Pittie, half Lab.
Why is it that people cannot do the same thing with terms like “fair”?
The ginned-up kerfuffle about Caitlin Clark’s WNBA contract got me thinking about the word “fair” because so many people are using it and very few people are asking the question behind the question, which is “Fair as compared to what?”
You hear Joe Biden (the only president to evet have an uncle eaten by the Fine Young Cannibals) claiming the rich “don’t pay their fair share of taxes” when the hard data shows the top 20% of income earners pay almost all of the income tax (the irony is that America, a capitalist nation, has the steepest progressive income tax of any country in the developed world).
Think about how the left screams about CEO pay in companies that turn a profit and then argue that Caitlin Clark “deserves” millions of dollars from a league that must be subsidized by the NBA just to survive.
What is fair?
In general, we all have a concept of what is fair but in specific, not so much.
To answer that question, the “as compared to what?” question must be asked - and answered.
But avoiding that answer is a common tactic to propagandize the public. The American left wants you to know they have a dog; they just do not want you to know what kind.
Just consider how we keep hearing that America is a horrible, racist place - and according to some, owes reparations because the very founding of America was a racist act, I know of only one way to measure what America has truly become – and that is to compare (in today’s terms) America to the countries in Africa from which slaves came.
I do not a claim slavery was a positive situation – but it happened, and the past cannot be changed – all we can do now is to compare the progress – both social and economic – since slavery ended in America to the same elements of progress in those origin countries.
According to research, most of the slaves in America came from what are now the African countries of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali; and west-central Africa, including what is now Angola, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
Assume that there had been no slave trade, and no Africans were brought to the US. Compare the economic and social conditions of those nine African countries to the conditions of slave descendants in America today.
In the period since slavery was exterminated in America, slavery in these countries continued to exist, frequent coups and war continued, corruption and poverty has reigned, and tribal conflicts and genocide have continued.
Let us also keep in mind that while we are constantly lectured about how much more enlightened Europe is than Americans, many of these African countries remained colonies of those same “enlightened” Europeans, not gaining independence until the 1960’s and 1970’s.
America is generally thought of as the driving force in the slave trade – but America accounted for roughly 3.6% of the slaves transported to the New World (about 388,000 people).
That is not an excuse for the institution of slavery. If I could go back in time and change American history, that would be one of the things I would change – but when I hear people complain that America is bad, my first thought is “Bad as compared to what?”
However, I do think it is disingenuous to compare contemporary America to some mythical Utopia or hypothetical standard that has never existed – it is much more legitimate to compare it to the best objective standards that exist in historical reality.
To be objective, we must ask the painful, uncomfortable, and politically incorrect question, “What would be the status of any given contemporary American black citizen if they were still resident in the origin country of their ancestors?”
And since that is a question of evaluation, not one of excuses, we need to ask that question of every racial and ethnic group in America today.
If we honestly answer those questions, today’s America looks rather good.
Fair as compared to what?
One of the better books to describe the reality of Africa past and present was written by Keith Richburg shortly after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 during the civil war that resulted in the deaths of upwards of one million Tutsis . Keith Richburg was criticized for his on-scene reporting of seeing countless bodies floating down the river and saying he was thankful that his black ancestors had been sold to black slave traders who had been sold to European slavers instead of Arab ones since he could have been one of the floating bodies below.
His book "Out of America" is still controversial today even though he continues to write for the Washington Post from a position on the Washington Post editorial board instead of the correspondent he was in the 90's. His current travels back to Africa and Asia bring rare insights into the realities of politics and culture there vs. the nonsense peddled by DEI "experts" who have never seen the real world and spew nonsense that does nothing but create social divisions that has been the hallmark of the racist Democrat Party since its founding.
This is exactly what I have thought all along. While slavery was terrible and their ancestors might have suffered terribly, instead of hating America, etc. they should be honoring these ancestors for what they suffered and being thankful of them. For without those folks these folks would still be beating bush somewhere in Africa and in many places living with no running water etc., etc., etc. Those who have made it should be trying to make life better for those who are struggling. I know there are many who already do. It is done quietly and behind the scenes.