Right-Wing Hater Group Files Class-Action Lawsuit Against Chicago Suburb Over Reparations Program

Source: Carolyn Cole / Getty

In today’s episode of Black People Can’t Have Nice Things Because The Beneficiaries Of White Supremacy Can’t Mind Their Own Business, a Chicago suburb is being sued for becoming America’s first government-funded reparations program for Black Americans.

In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, officials announced the city’s reparations plan, which came after a city council resolution establishing a reparations fund and a reparations subcommittee was approved in 2019. Since then, the city has paid out nearly $5 million to 193 of the town’s Black residents over the past two years, but, now, a coalition of whiny haters whose bloodline did not endure two and a half centuries of slavery followed by another 100 years (at least) of government-sanctioned second class citizenship have filed a class-action lawsuit because they are really upset they aren’t also getting a check.

From the Washington Post:

Here’s the thing: Whenever white conservative individuals or groups start mounting their arguments against anything meant to correct racial inequality in America—including reparations, affirmative action, DEI programs or funds for underserved communities—their narratives never only ever address the letter of the law as it relates to their interpretation of the Constitution. Their arguments intentionally avoid the history and social structure that caused these programs to be necessary in the first place, likely, because they know that’s a losing argument for them.

Source: Universal History Archive / Getty

It is an inarguable fact that for the vast majority of America’s existence, Black people were denied equal access to education, job security, participation in the nation’s electoral process, and the ability to pass down legacies and wealth to future generations. One would have to be a delusional and privileged racist to believe it’s simply a huge coincidence that the group of people who stay on the losing end of virtually all racial disparities just so happen to be the same racial group who suffered slavery followed by Reconstruction followed by decades of legally sanctioned segregation and hatred. 

But white conservatives have proven time and time again that they only have one real agenda when it comes to dealing with race relations in America, and that is to deny the existence of all of those aforementioned racial disparities while attacking any effort to correct them. And it doesn’t stop at tax-funded programs either.

Earlier this week, we reported that, for the second time, two Donald Trump-appointed judges temporarily blocked the operations of the Fearless Fund—a private venture capital firm owned and operated by Black women that offers grants to Black woman entrepreneurs—while the firm is still facing pending lawsuits filed by conservative groups that are demanding the grants also be offered to white business owners. The Fearless Fund isn’t a government entity. The grant program isn’t a tax-funded initiative. This is a firm run by Black women that raises private funds for Black women and neither involves more takes even a dime out of the pockets of white people, but, for some reason, they just keep pretending they’re being disadvantaged by it. (“What you eat don’t make me sh*t” is clearly one of those Black idioms that a lot of white people are incapable of grasping.)

In fact, Jason Schwartz, a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who is representing the Fearless Fund, weighed in on the latest lawsuit against Evanston, which he said “is part of a larger movement to challenge race-conscious programs in all aspects of society.” Meanwhile, Evanston officials declared in a statement that they “will vehemently defend” its reparations program, according to Cynthia Vargas, the city’s communications and engagement manager.

The irony (and by “irony,” I mean “the direct effect of white supremacist caucasity”) Judicial Watch’s suit, which was filed on behalf of six non-Black Evanston residents, argues that the program’s “race-based eligibility requirement” violates the 14th Amendment, which was written to guarantee the rights of the millions of formerly enslaved Black Americans after the Civil War.

So, basically, if white conservatives can’t completely do away with any and all laws and programs designed to help Black people, they’ll center themselves in the applications of those laws and programs.

Truthfully, white people have always received the equivalent of what reparations programs would barely scratch the surface of. They’ve just always called it “the American dream.”

SEE ALSO:

For Black People, Reparations Are About More Than Slavery

‘Cotton Candy Rhetoric’: Reparations Advocates Call Out San Francisco’s Planned Apology To Black Residents

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