"(Edward) Ball investigated his own family’s slave-owning heritage in "Slaves in the Family," his first book. In his acceptance speech, Ball said he would set aside one-quarter of his income from the book to help set up restitution programs for relatives of former slaves."

From MSNBC’s 11/19/98 story on the National Book Awards

Once again, boys and girls, it’s time to say, "What the Fuck?!"

Let me first throw out the politically correct disclaimer. Slavery was a bad thing that did a lot of damage. I think we can all agree on that.

Still, I reiterate: What the Fuck?!

I have always taken it as a fact of life that the sins of the father are not the sins of the son. Individuals are responsible for what they do. Not society. Not family. Not the devil. Individuals.

As a result, the sons of slave owners owe the sons of slaves exactly nothing. Jack shit. Didn’t profit from it; not going to pay it back a debt that doesn’t exist.

Of course, I realize that a segment of the American population feels the nation owes Americans of African descent some kind of karmic debt. Our ancestors (or foreign nationals who were never part of the American culture other than as merchants) dragged their ancestors here in chains, etc. The fact that their ancestors in other parts of the continent captured and sold them to these Europeans and Americans never seems to get brought up for some reason. Do you think it might be because that would show somebody other than Whitey the Blue-Eyed Devil as one of the multiple sources of this evil? Just a thought.

I come from a proud Southern family. I know a lot of you (assuming anybody reads this damn page. Jason, what are my stats?) are seeing Tara and cotillions and all that shit now that I’ve used that phrase, but for the most part my family is pretty poor. The only thing that keeps them from being white trash is the fact that they’re riddled with pride, individuality, honor and a work ethic you would not believe.

My Granddaddy worked whatever was available his entire life. In the 20s, he and my Uncle Cecil were ridge runners. If you don’t know what that is, during Prohibition the ridge runners were the guys who drove whiskey from one area to another in souped up cars at night at high speed with no headlights. These were usually rural southerners who knew every inch of road in the three or so counties closest to their house. Eventually, Uncle Cecil got his own still and sold his own stuff, which Granddaddy transported. Last time I saw Cecil in 1992, that 90-somehting year old SOB was still running his own still, having lost his taste for mass production whiskey 65 years before.

For 20 odd years before my Granddaddy died, he was a subsistence farmer and did a few odd jobs here and there. He was never rich, but he was also never beholden to anyone. He made a good enough life to raise and educate eight kids, all of whom turned out to be good people in their own right.

That’s just an example of the kind of people I’m talking about. People who are proud of who they are and what they’ve done. People who take responsibility for providing for themselves. People who earn their due and ask for nothing beyond what they themselves can achieve.

Now, my mother’s generation is a little different. Growing up as children of the Depression, a good few of Granddaddy’s kids turned out (through no fault of his) to be Roosevelt Democrats. It makes me shudder that there are so many socialists in my familial closet, but they were at an impressionable age when FDR was raping the country and believed his promises that taking it up the ass was good for them and everybody else.

Still, even though they think that the government should help the disadvantaged at everybody else’s expense, they do everything in their power to use their intelligence, honor and work ethic to make damn sure they are not among those disadvantaged. The thought of life on the dole was not an appealing one. They figure they were born with brains and bodies and that those two features, combined with a little luck, were all they needed to carve out a place for themselves. For the most part, they’ve been right.

Unfortunately, lots of people see blacks in America as some kind of inferior substratum of society, in large part because of the fact that we’ve never let ourselves get over slavery. After slavery was abolished, places across the country, North and South, passed all kinds of restrictive legislation to keep the black population under control.

It took time, too much time, but white people as a subculture eventually realized that this was wrong. Here’s the thing, though: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark of civil rights protection in America to hear some tell it, didn’t do a damn thing to help blacks or other minorities. All that law did was codify what was becoming a trend in consciousness anyway: that people are created equal and should have access to equal opportunity (note, that’s not the same a equal outcomes, which is how these damn laws are often enforced). That’s all any law is, a documentation of a cultural thought process.

What Civil 1964 and every other law of its kind, from the Civil Rights Act of 1990 to the Americans with Disabilities Act and all their evil ilk have done, is to divide the American people up farther and farther into smaller and smaller groups. This makes for some problems. First, it increases tension between every social subgroup because we’re forced, as a culture, to think in racial and other demographic terms. Second, it creates a victim mentality within every subgroup. Blacks think whites are keeping them down and that they should be compensated for it. Whites think blacks are taking their opportunities and that they should be compensated for it. Hispanics and Asians think everybody spends so much time thinking about blacks and whites and that they get overlooked.

(Hell, I’m thinking of declaring myself a victim of long hair discrimination. Who knows how many jobs and other opportunities I was turned down for because I had a ponytail for a few years? This could be lucrative. Or maybe, since I had a few relatives who lost property during Sherman’s March somebody ought to pay me for the current value of the land.)

The idea of restitution for slavery is one of the things that brought us the evil of Civil 64. Like we owed the children of victims something for actions our forefathers took. This makes about as much sense to me as the Japanese demand that Clinton apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read: None whatsoever.

The only thing owed any demographic in America or anywhere else is that every individual have equal opportunity for success. The American culture has sufficiently evolved to the point that skin color is not much of a consideration for a job. Attitude, ability and determination are. I’m not saying there aren’t still a good number of racist idiots out there, but at least they’ve become the minority (so to speak).

I personally don’t get racism. If I spend five minutes with someone, I can find a hell of a lot better reason to hate them that their genetic makeup.

Getting this digression back on track requires me to discuss another of my ancestors, the pirate Jean Lafitte. By way of connection, one of Lafitte’s bastard children became a trader and married into my family clan in Tennessee, although I am not certain of the lineage to me. He could have been an uncle or a direct linesman. Like I said, ain’t certain.

Lafitte was one of the last of the real pirates. He was a brilliant organizer, a master tactician, and the main reason the United States won against the British navy at the Battle of New Orleans. He was offered citizenship and amnesty if he’d lend a hand in the cause. Since New Orleans was his primary port of call and custom, he joined in.

Gentleman. Pirate. American hero. Inspirer of legend (no one knows where he was born or where or when he died). Slave trader.

In addition to the booty Lafitte scored from all the Spanish ships he plundered sailing under the flag of Cartegena, Columbia (long story), the old boy also traded slaves by the boat full. Do I feel guilty about this? Are you out of your fucking mind? I’ve done enough shit in my life to assemble a goodly collection of baggage. I sure as hell don’t need to go totally stupid and start lugging around detritus I have no control over that happened 200 years ago.

By any account I’ve read, the slaves Lafitte traded were treated well while in his charge. Unlike many traders, Lafitte realized that the more slaves he brought to dock alive, the more money he made.

Was my ancestor’s trading in human freedom wrong? You bet your ass. I would not wish slavery on anyone who was not an elected official. Is it my fault or my problem. No way. Am I legally, culturally or morally responsible for any kind of restitution to the descendants of M. Lafitte’s merchandise? Get a grip. He did what he did. I do what I do. You do what you do. We all do what we all do. Nobody owes anybody anything for something someone else did. Ever. Not legally. Not culturally. Not morally.

Getting back to the story referenced at the beginning of this tirade, if this Edward Ball idiot feels guilty about the fact that some of his ancestors owned slaves, he’s obviously never done anything interesting in his own life to fill his genetically programmed guilt quotient.

If he really wants to help the oppressed, he should blow a quarter of his income from the book to enter into an exclusive one year contract with a young, healthy whore. At the end of the year, she’d have a nest egg to start over fresh, he’d have a lot of wonderful physical experiences and probably enough material to do a new book. Of course, his great grandchildren might also write about it and feel the need to set aside a quarter of the book’s proceeds to set up restitution programs for the relatives of former call girls. Get the hell over it, folks.

M_