Obamessiah Claims to Oppose Slavery Reparations

Yesterday Barack Obama found himself heckled at a campaign stop for the first time by a group of people angry that he wasn't groveling to the black community enough. Today there's word that he claims to oppose slavery reparations, something that I'm sure those protesters favored.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders.

The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.

"I have said in the past - and I'll repeat again - that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.

Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations - that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supports the legislation, too. Cities around the country, including Obama's home of Chicago, have endorsed the idea, and so has a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Obama has worked to be seen as someone who will bring people together, not divide them into various interest groups with checklists of demands. Supporting reparations could undermine that image and make him appear to be pandering to black voters.

"Let's not be naive. Sen. Obama is running for president of the United States, and so he is in a constant battle to save his political life," said Kibibi Tyehimba, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. "In light of the demographics of this country, I don't think it's realistic to expect him to do anything other than what he's done."

But this is not a position Obama adopted just for the presidential campaign. He voiced the same concerns about reparations during his successful run for the Senate in 2004.

There's enough flexibility in the term "reparations" that Obama can oppose them and still have plenty of common ground with supporters.

The NAACP says reparations could take the form of government programs to help struggling people of all races. Efforts to improve schools in the inner city could also aid students in the mountains of West Virginia, said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau.

The reality is this country has been paying billions of dollars in reparations for decades but hasn't gotten any credit for it. The only thing we haven't done is actually write a check to every black person with "sorry about that slavery thing" on the memo line. The Civil Right Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the War on Poverty, all created in the 60's, have poured billions of dollars into inner city communities and rural poverty pockets with little apparent result. We're told today that it's still not enough.

Obama will never lose the black voters with opposition to reparations because they're too wrapped up in skin color to care about policy, but he might lose some of the guilty white liberal enthusiasm that he's gotten so far. They'll still probably vote for him, but they'll do it without, as Chris Matthews described it, that "shiver up their leg".