Opening a can of worms

My, but isn't the Congress busy these days? In addition to trying to ram through a massive (1000+ page) "stimulus bill" without giving representatives--or the public--more than a few hours to read it, they've decided to consider yet another impractical, but no doubt expensive proposition:

A BILL

To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes...

(C) Whether, in consideration of the Commission’s findings, any form of compensation to the descendants of African slaves is warranted...

The bill allots an initial $8 million, ostensibly for the Commission to research the history of slavery and its effects. Given that historians have pretty well established those, I imagine most of that money will be spent whipping the public into a frenzy over old news in order to build a climate that allows Congress to, yet again, become a money-dispensing machine.

Reparations have been kicked around for some time, but the practical considerations should give anyone pause. Will someone have to prove their lineage from a slave? Will "one-eighth" heritage be enough? Will "African Americans" whose family arrived after 1865 be eligible? If so, why? If not, then are we saying broadly that no darker-skinned Americans have ever succeeded in America? I'm sure that's news to Bill Cosby, Will Smith, Walter Williams, Colin Powell and Barack Obama. Would any of them be entitled to compensation? If not, then who determines whether people have been 'sufficiently disadvantaged' by forces beyond their control to deserve reparation? Can government ever be competent enough to determine this level of 'entitlement?'

Our nation--like every other--is guilty of terrible past prejudices, but has also worked diligently, if imperfectly, for decades to make amends (affirmative action, anyone??). The idea of taking tax dollars from people who were not alive to own slaves or mistreat their descendants under Jim Crow, and giving that money to people who were neither slaves nor barred from "white only" public facilities, will only restoke the fires of racial antagonism we've worked so hard to tamp down.

But then, given the principle of "divide and rule," could that be exactly what some in power have in mind?

"We fight over an offense we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended..." - Balian, Kingdom of Heaven