Michael Eric Dyson, a Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University and a genius at self-promotion, argues in his latest book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” subtitled “A Sermon to White America, that white Americans should start an “Individual Reparations Account,” from which they would make donations to black institutions and black individuals. In particular, he argues that whites should pay black service providers more than they pay non-blacks. Double the fees, double the tips: “paying “the black person who cuts your grass double what you might ordinarily pay.”
“Look,” Dyson argues in a recent New York Times Magazine interview, “if it doesn’t cost you anything, you’re not really engaging in change; you’re engaging in convenience. You’re engaged in the overflow. I’m asking you to do stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’m asking you to think more seriously and strategically about why you possess what you possess….That is what I meant by an I.R.A.: an individual reparations account. You ain’t got to ask the government, you don’t have to ask your local politician — this is what you, an individual, conscientious, “woke” citizen can do.”
I swear that I’ll put aside my biases against any college professor who uses “ain’t” to be folksy, as well as anyone period who uses the term “woke,” and present this Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz Of The Day: