Actually, Italian is the least significant of my ethnic make-up and has little to do with me. The name is a movie reference. Also, it's Northern Italian, which was not the discriminated group to which you refer: Northern and Southern Italians were counted as seperate nationalities in US census data - at the insistence of the former. So I'm not likely to be descended from other victims, nor do I have much empathy or cultural identification with them, nor do I consider such a factor relevant in making an assessment of their situation.
Also, you appear to be as ignorant of idioms as you are of economics and history. I am not trying to trick or scam anyone. The hucksters and race baiters and agitators for reparations, who hint at an end to their endless lobbying for preferential treatment if we will just give them this favor or that holiday or this percentage of government jobs or elect this duskier-than-avergage man as president... they are the ones with the proverbial bridge to sell.
i don't know where you're going with this, honestly. black people are less likely than whites to get an interview for a job, and less likely to earn as much as their white counterparts (http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html) but you will proclaim that people who point this disparity out are "race baiters and agitators"?
actually, no. the article was making the case that society, specifically white-controlled society, has put up every known obstacle to advancement to prevent black people from reaping the same rewards that white America has benefited from. the reparations Ta-Nehisi Coates is calling for come in the form of an American society which does not prevent black people from climbing up the economic ladder.
when banks are actively steering middle- and upper-income blacks towards sub-prime and other higher-risk loans despite the fact that their income more than justifies the lower interest rates they deserve, that is a case for reparations. when the location of your birth no longer determines your economic outcome (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?_r=0), that would be a case for reparations. when schools stop disproportionally expelling black preschool children (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/black-preschoolers-more-likely-face-suspension-report-n58641), that is a case for reparations. if a black kid can walk home from the store at night without getting killed by a vigilante, and a Stanford graduate can make a fool of himself on TV without being called a thug, that would be the kind of progress the article is looking for. Mr. Coates did not make a case that every black person is due a check from the government, he made an argument that these forms of continuing discrimination against black people are where reparations should be made.
so, because you seem to have missed the point, the entire article is about giving black people the same respect and chance for opportunity as white people have enjoyed throughout history. this opportunity has been granted to all of the white groups who were historically discriminated against (irish, italians, etc). it is even, to some extent, granted to many asian cultures. but yet when it comes to black people, there are those like yourself who believe blacks have brought on their own misery, even after having the methods of discrimination laid out in black and white right in front of your faces. for this, you are perpetuating the myth that black people are responsible for their own place in life and society. and you are also among the people who need to face a cultural maturity before the US is even going to be capable of living up to ending the discrimination that still continues through the present day.
"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman
