A black writer for The New York Times, apparently incensed that other blacks might not support the move toward reparations for American slavery, ripped the black witnesses testifying against reparations, tweeting that the witnesses “have no apparent qualifications other than being black.”
As The College Fix notes, New York Times writer Jamelle Bouie, formerly chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine, was infuriated by the idea of former NFL player Burgess Owens and Columbia University philosophy major Coleman Hughes testifying, writing on Twitter:
so will the republican members of the subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties have anyone serious speaking against reparations or will they just invite candace owens again to do her thing? according to @emarvelous it looks like they’ll have this guy who wrote an op-ed and a college sophomore up against [checks notes] economists, experts, a US senator, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who brought this all into the mainstream. it is indicative of the fundamental contempt republicans have for this conversation that their speakers have no apparent qualifications other than being black.
Owens recently wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled, “I Didn’t Earn Slavery Reparations, and I Don’t Want Them.” In the op-ed, Owens spoke of his great-great-grandfather Silas Burgess, who “came to America shackled in the belly of a slave ship” and was sold on an auction block. Silas Burgess escaped via the Underground Railroad as a child. Owens continued:
Silas became a risk-taking entrepreneur and the owner of 102 acres of farmland, which he cultivated and paid off within two years. I proudly carry the name of my first American ancestor—who, like millions of others drawn or brought to our country, struggled past overwhelming obstacles to live the American Dream. Silas founded the first black church and first black elementary school in his town. He was a proud Republican, a devout Christian, the patriarch of a large family, and a pillar of his community.
Owens then launched into his impassioned argument:
At the core of the reparation movement is a divisive and demeaning view of both races. It grants to the white race a wicked superiority, treating them as an oppressive people too powerful for black Americans to overcome. It brands blacks as hapless victims devoid of the ability, which every other culture possesses, to assimilate and progress. Neither label is earned.
The reparations movement conveniently forgets the 150 years of legal, social and economic progress attained by millions of American minorities. It also minimizes the sacrifice that hundreds of thousands of white Americans and a Republican president made laying down their lives to eradicate slavery.
Hughes is a college sophomore at Columbia University whose Twitter bio states his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, City Journal, National Review and The Spectator. On Tuesday, he excitedly announced that he would appear before the House Judiciary Subcommittee.
As The College Fix noted, in an article for Quillette, Hughes stated, “ … it defies belief to think that we can serve justice for crimes committed between entire groups of people before living memory.”