by Jocelyn Pearce

Created on: February 11, 2009

Restitution doesn't advantage the disadvantaged; it only assuages our guilty consciences. When we pay restitution to those who are descended from people who were wronged by our own ancestors, we are only keeping the eyes of our society on the past, rather than the future.

The past is over and done with, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to change that. If we continue to dwell on the wrongs that have been done, and the wrongs that have divided us, we will never be able to turn fully forward and look into a hopeful future of equality and unity. We need to remember the past, certainly, but only in order not to repeat it. Remembrance doesn't mean bringing it with us into the future. We must remember the wrongs that have been done, or history is doomed to repeat itself, but we are not saved from the possibility of repetition if we insist on keeping the divides between us.

Rather than focusing on the past, we must look to the future. We must focus on eliminating the divisions of race, class, and religion, while keeping our individuality. We must be able to look past what divides us, and, instead see what unifies us, what makes us one people, one human race rather than the individual races we mark down on census forms and standardized tests. What does it matter if we're black or white or straight or gay or Muslim or atheist or Christian? What's important isn't that my great-great-great-grandfather enslaved your great-great-great grandfather, people neither of us ever knew. What matters is that we are human, every one of us.

This is not a question about the descendants of slaves; this is a question much, much bigger than that. This is a question about the principles on which we live our lives, the foundations of our society. If the foundations of our society as the twenty-first century dawns are apologetic and accusatory, if they are based on a past that is long forgotten in living memory, we will enter this new era fractured, when now, more than ever, we need to be unified as one human race. We face huge obstacles of the present and the future, and these fights are much more important than the fights of the past. Why worry about paying restitution to the descendants of those who were slaves two hundred years ago, when there are people in the world who are slaves right now and who deserve freedom? Why worry about past wrongs when there are so many current wrongs to direct our energy and money towards?

What is done, while certainly regrettable to say the least, is done, and we can't dwell on it.We can't look ahead to a bright future if we dwell on the turbulent relationships of our ancestors.We need instead to unify and move forward to confront the huge obstacles facing our world today, to look towards hope and freedom and equality.

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