My opinions are publishable, apparently.

God dammit. I totally failed to post regularly.

I am pathetic.

But here, let me make it up to you...with the entire Flyer News opinion article I wrote.

It can be difficult to admit you’re wrong.

But now is the time.

In fact, 141 years ago would have been the perfect time.

White people of America, it’s past time to admit that we owe black Americans for years of enslavement, followed by years of segregation and discrimination.

I feel I hardly need to prove that African-Americans are disadvantaged economically. Twenty percent are without health insurance, according to 2004 statistics, compared to 11.3 percent of non-Hispanic whites. The median income of black households, $30,134, is only 62 percent that of non-Hispanic white households, $48,977. Black households own their homes 48 percent of the time, while the rate for whites is 75.7 percent.

Critics might complain that there is no way to know that slavery is the ultimate cause of this economic disparity. I would argue that the cause is not nearly as important as the solution. Don’t you help someone up, even if you didn’t cause him or her to fall?

Still, for the sake of argument, let’s find out if blacks as a race had a chance to escape the disadvantages of slavery.

Following the Civil War, outright discrimination in the laws of the South prevented the political and social advancement of African-Americans. Set free from bondage, ex-slaves were immediately cast into segregated facilities, including the often-cited path to advancement: education.

Segregated schools worked to prevent blacks from achieving equality. Without an equal education, already-poor blacks had little chance to advance compared to whites.

Those that departed for the North discovered the wage slavery of factories. An absolute lack of capital ensured a future of perpetual wage labor for these families. In the Northern cities, the pathetic urban schools reflected their Southern counterparts: rather than improving the condition of blacks following slavery, they prevented equality for blacks.

The purpose here is not to evoke pity for the ancestors of American blacks, or for modern blacks.

The purpose is to demonstrate that black people have been continually denied opportunities since they were brought here through the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

“So African-Americans deserve reparations,” a critic might say. “But why should I have to pay them? I never owned slaves.”

My answer to this problem is a dangerous one.

Forget yourself.

Individualism is extremely important in America. It can be extremely difficult to think of oneself as a member of a larger movement or group.

But the fact is, white people should recognize that if blacks today suffer from the effects of slavery, we still enjoy the benefits of slavery.

Of course, I don’t mean we live on Southern plantations or accumulate wealth from our cotton crops.

I mean that, speaking generally, we don’t go to inner-city public schools. We don’t have the same problems with home ownership or health insurance.

When black families were set free with no wealth and no way to get it, our families had something – perhaps not much, but something. And this inequality was never rectified.

The final objection I can imagine is this: “Here in America, we believe in economic freedom. We don’t have time to right every wrong in our history. The government has no right to tax me for past injustice, because we are a free-market nation.”

Perhaps all that is true, from the white perspective. It might be a free market to white people. But to blacks, it’s still in chains.

Dominated.

In other news, not a lot is happening.

Oh, I got a "No" from Vonnegut's publisher. That's okay. It's what I expected. They did wish me luck in the class, which indicates that they read my e-mail.

I applied for a passport for my trip to Chile. Hahahahahahaha I'll tell you about it in person.

Jason took out the trash Wednesday night, marking the first time in three weeks that the trash was removed from our property. Hooray, Jason.

And I think that's all. Please comment and tell me what to review next. Maybe it'll be the latest issue of Flyer News.

Love,

Steve