Phil Brennan
Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2002

My Irish ancestors fled Ireland after 700 years of brutality and persecution under British rule. Shouldn't Irish-Americans be demanding reparations from the Brits? Aren't all of us refugees from British tyranny entitled to be compensated for hundreds of years of mistreatment, and for being driven out of our homeland?

I mean, after all, if some so-called black leaders think African-Americans are entitled to a payoff from Uncle Sam for their ancestors' enslavement, why shouldn't Irish-Americans make similar demands of Mr. John Bull for his egregious exploitation of our glorious and sainted race?

Let me tell you why we shouldn't.

To begin with, none of my fellow Irish-Americans suffered at the hands of the Brits (except in my case, where certain British editors endeavored to make my life miserable, even trying to force me to drink warm beer and iceless highballs ("Drink yer beer before it gets cold.").

Moreover, if it hadn't been for my ancestors' flight from British tyranny, neither I nor a number of generations of my forebears would have had the blessing of living and prospering in this land of the free and home of the brave. Thank you, John Bull!

The same thing can be said for African-Americans. As a black friend of mine in Washington told me years ago, "I thank God for slavery - if it hadn't been for that I'd be living in a hut in Africa and probably going hungry all the time." No other blacks, anywhere in the world, live as well as today's African-Americans, and the idea of forcing me and all U.S. taxpayers, black and white, to cough up trillions of dollars in reparations for slavery borders on the insane.

To begin with, I never owned a slave. Not one. Neither did my father nor his father. My maternal great-grandfather, Patrick Carlin, was wounded at Bull Run fighting in the Irish Brigade to free the slaves, and he never recovered from his wounds, eventually dying from them 10 years after the Civil War.

That's my family's reparation payment. Hundreds of thousands of my fellow Americans can make the same claim on behalf of ancestors who were killed in that war fighting against the sin of slavery.

The other day they had a rally in Washington demanding reparations for America's black descendants of slaves. What the organizers wanted to be a huge gathering of African-Americans turned out to be a mere corporal's guard, much to the dismay of the demagogues running the show.

What that tells me is that the vast majority of African-Americans couldn't care less about the reparations scam. They're too busy going about their business to waste their time listening to a lot of ranting and raving from the self-styled black leaders who would probably end up with the lion's share of the hoped-for reparations, which, by the way would simply drive this nation into the poor house and ruin the lives of all Americans, black and white.

But what really galls me is this latest attempt to drive a wedge between white and black Americans. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of whites in this country simply won't sit still for this attempt at extortion by a few black demagogues. Unfortunately, many will unjustly react with hostility to their black brothers and sisters at a time when America desperately needs to be unified.

And the issue will inevitably create hostility among blacks for their white brothers and sisters. It's a no-win situation – except for the demagogues – who'll make a lot of bucks pushing this pie-in-the-sky scam.

Blame this on these so-called members of the self-appointed black leadership who make a splendid living creating divisiveness between the white and black races. It's their stock-in-trade. They're in it for bucks, and in the case of reparations, there are quite a few trillion bucks involved.

This is a very dangerous situation, and I would hope that all Americans, black and white, will shout NO to this thinly disguised attempt to provoke racial hatred.

Somehow I think that the demagogues may have overreached themselves this time. I hope and pray that the great mass of African-Americans will treat this thing for what it is, a scam designed to exploit them for the gain of its proponents, who know it will never happen but who will pocket a lot of money convincing their fellow blacks it can be made to happen.

It can't be, but they'll play it for as long as they can get away with it.

Let there be peace.

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute.

He can be reached at phil@newsmax.com

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"Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery"