That woman defines entitlement mentality. She feels entitled to reparations for something that happened to someone else, from someone that had absolutley nothing to do with it. I would have booted her fat *** out of the store.
Let me begin by saying that I am not on favor of reparations being paid to descendants of slaves, or any other race or group for that matter, because of stuff that happened in the distant past. The main reason being is that if you start down that road, where do you stop? How far back do you go? How do you tell descendants of the native American that he or she isn't entitled to them also? If anybody deserved them it would be them. How do you tell anyone who is the direct descendants of any group that was negatively affected by any policy that they don't deserve them also? Slavery is by far the most egregious of those policies, but it certainly isn't the only one that affected people's lives for years to come. The idea of reparations, howver, isn't just about giving money to people even though the abomination of slavery " happened to someone else, from someone who had absolutely nothing to do with it". The thinking behind the idea is that the descendants of the slaves and the rampant discrimination African Americans endured for a century afterward still feel the affects from those times economically. Many believe the reason that African Americans are disproportionately behind in terms of economic stability, incarceration, etc. isn't because they are lazy or predisposed to criminal activity. They believe, as do I, that the 150-200? years of enslavement followed by a century of being treated like second... and many times third or fourth... class citizens has had a very direct impact on the African Amertican population today.
It's easy to see a man in front of you in the checkout line at the grocery store using food stamps to pay for his food and assume that person is lazy and doesn't want to work. maybe you think to yourself.." I work for my money to buy my food, why can't he?" Using my own life as an example, maybe his grandfather wasn't able to get a good job in the mill the way mine did. My grandfather, in turn, got my father a good job in that same mill. The money he, my father, earned working in that mill help pay for the education that ultimately enabled me to get the good paying job I have today. That is an example of how discrimination 100 years ago can still affect people today. Am I saying that this is always the case? Of course not... Just try to remember we're all running the same race, but the starting line is much further back for some than it is for others.