Thabiti's Sad Little Argument

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Reparations as Restitution and the Initial Biblical Case

All right, well, I wanted to respond to this, this article here, a lot of people sent it to me, I appreciate you sending me articles and things like this that you'd like me to respond to. It is an article about reparations, which if you remember, I did a whole week of videos on reparations, including some reparations content, specifically responding and refuting Thabiti Anya Wheelie.

And so I'm going to read this article, I'm probably not going to do as thorough as a job as I did there. In fact, the video I would recommend, I'll put it in the link of the description of this video.

It's called the Thabiti Two Step. Thabiti Two Step. It is a rocking video, a little bit of humor, a little bit of seriousness, but a lot of information refuting Thabiti's little thesis about why reparations are biblical.

But here he is again, taking another whack at it to see if maybe this time reparations are biblical. Reparations are very easy to refute. So let's read this and talk about the case that he is making here for something that is clearly unbiblical, actually being biblical.

Here is October 10 2019 Thabiti Anya Wheelie. Reparations are biblical. It begins, I first heard the word reparations in the late 1980s. Calling for reparations was the typical stock and trade of Afrocentric speakers visiting college campuses in those days.

In the 1980s, nobody actually thought reparations would ever be taken seriously. The word was hardly ever used beyond those heady revisionist and romantic lectures. Fast forward 30 years and things have changed dramatically.

Democratic presidential hopefuls now speak largely as if reparations are an obvious policy response to the country's original sin of slavery, and exploitation of African Americans. The subject has suddenly rushed into primetime national discourse from the deep six of unpopular house bills.

With the past couple years, some Christian writers and speakers have cited reparations as one of the telltale signs of cultural Marxism and other godless ideologies wreaking havoc on society on the society and entering the church.

These opponents declare in sweeping terms that reparations itself is an injustice and unbiblical. Today I want to continue my series on justice with the defense of reparations. This ought to be very interesting, because it is quite easy to refute reparations from a biblical perspective.

Now the concept of reparations is based on the concept of restitution. And that is something that I've said very many times in my YouTube channel is entirely biblical. Restitution is biblical. So if you steal, you know, someone's ox, you need to pay that person back with an ox and then some and actually gives you a penalty.

So you don't just give back what you took, you actually have to give more than what you took to make up for the fact that you stole from that person. So restitution is the foundation of biblical justice.

However, reparations is beyond restitution. So in other words, it's based on restitution, but it's actually talking about penalizing people that were the great great grandkids of those who actually did the stealing reparations is punishing the sons for the sins of the father.

Because the people who did you know, the the abuse in the African slave trade, the people that that's that did the man stealing the people that stole the labor from the slaves, they're long dead. And so the only people that could possibly pay for this are people that didn't do that.

And that is quite easy to refute. This is another biblical principle, the book of Deuteronomy, this is the book of the law, the book, that God shows us what morality is that God shows us what justice is.

So you if you're going to talk about justice as a Christian, you best be quoting from Deuteronomy. I mean, it's it's a big book of justice is what it is. And here's what Deuteronomy chapter 24, verse 16 says, I'm going to read from the authorized version, because that's been my habit lately.

It says, the fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers, every man should be put to death for his own sins. And this is a principle, it's not just talking about death penalty offenses, it's talking about punishment.

And so one of the things they used to do back in the old days was if if if a father was guilty of a crime or things like that, sometimes the whole family would pay the penalty, the whole family would be put to death for what the father did, or vice versa.

And God is saying that the principle here is no, everyone pays for their own crime. Their sons don't pay for their crime, their family doesn't pay for their crime, they pay for their crime. And so the time for biblical restitution in the in the issue of slavery was back when the slaves were first set free.

That's what the that's what the time was for that. Let's see what how how the BD and yab Willie gets around this. All right, he continues, he says, Before laying out a case for reparations, let me try to state what I mean and what I do not mean.

In this post, when I refer to quote reparations, I'm arguing for a principle rather than a policy or program. There are many ways reparations might be enacted from baby bonds to cash transfers. I'm not here addressing those policies or programs.

Debating the pros and cons of any proposal is certainly necessary. And I assume any policy or program will have both positives and negatives, some of which would only discover later as policy is implemented, weighing all those issues just beyond my knowledge and ability.

So I am limiting my concern to the principle. This is something that I addressed in my at that 82 step video. He did the same thing in that and so we'll leave that as it to stand there. How might we define reparations in principle, I would define reparations as quote material and social repayment, made as acknowledgement and restitution by an offending party to an aggrieved party for wrongs done in order to repair the injuries, losses and or disadvantages caused by the wrong.

Though, though these are my own words, I have in mind the work of William Sandy Darity at Duke University who argues that reparations should have three aims, acknowledgement of the wrongs done payment for the wrongs done and closure for both parties.

In any discussion of reparations is necessary to identify the wrongs being addressed. In other words, one has to answer the questions reparations for what usually people immediately think of slavery, but as tonight he see coats has shown we could update the case to focus on 20th century housing discriminations, predatory practices, merely for the purpose of illustration, I will limit my concern here to slavery as practice from 1619 to 1865.

Were this an actual proposal for a program of reparations, I would add much more to the record and request, but I'm simple simply, but I am simply to defend the principle. So a commonly accepted period should suffice.

One last argument for clarity's sake in this post, I am focusing on the state as the actor owing reparations to the African-Americans as a class of injured persons. So here's how he's going to try to get around this.

He's going to say the state is the person who owes restitution. In other words, the state is the criminal. Okay, that's very interesting. So I do that because the state enacted expanded and protected laws that empowered citizens to exploit African-Americans, the state derived in estimate it's inestimable, minimal, inestimable benefit from those laws, both economically and socially.

So the state, in my view, is the appropriate target for reparations advocacy. I'll tell you something right now. This is his whole point. His whole point is that the state is the entity that has committed this crime.

And the state exists today existed back then it existed today. So therefore, according to Thabiti Anyabwili, the state can be held is not privy to this protection from Deuteronomy. In other words, Deuteronomy protects the sons from paying for the sins of the fathers.

Well, he just sidesteps that whole issue. Because now he's saying it's the state that's responsible. So the state must pay. The state must pay. Okay, so let's see how far he carries this logic because this logic is very interesting.

And it actually could be sound very convincing to you. So yeah, Deuteronomy 24. It's right. Yeah, we can't make the sons pay for the sins of the father, but we can make the state accountable for it. Let's see how far he's willing to go with this.

Here's what he says. He said shares agreed shared agreement. It's also important to state some basic areas of agreement among people on all sides of the issue in general, most people agree that restitution is biblical.

Okay, that's fair. All grievous wrong was done in the American practice. A grievous wrong was done in the American practice. Okay, great. Reparations was owed at some point. I agree with all those things.

That's a good point. Okay, here's the objections that he I'm not going to read the whole thing. I don't have time for that. Here's the objections that he's going to consider. Okay. As I've listened to the discussions and debates, it seems to me that a couple of objections reoccur.

Opponents of reparations argue that it would be an injustice today to make one person or group who committed no crime pay for the crimes of others. Let's call this the innocence objection. That's what I just stated.

Deuteronomy 24. In other words, objection number two, pay to one person's group who were not directly injured by the crime restitution owed to those who actually suffered. Let's call this the unharmed objection.

Okay, that's something I've said as well. The crime was done to somebody else, not you. So why do you get the cash? All right, number three, it would be unjust to tax today's citizens in order to pay for the atrocities committed by earlier generations.

Let's call this a generational tax objection. This is also true, it would be unjust to take taxes for the purposes of reparations from citizens who had nothing to do with reparations. Taxes in general are unjust, most of them anyway.

Yeah, that's a very fair objection as well. So he says, as best I understand the objections raised by some Christians, a biblical case for reparations would not only have to make claim to restitution and agreed upon principle, but also demonstrate the fairness or justness of having later generations at the coercion of the state transfer payment from a group of people who did not commit the injustice to another group of people who did not suffer the injustice.

That's pretty fair. That's, that is a good biblical argument against what's known as reparations. Here's what he says, he's gonna, he's gonna make the case for this being just based from a historical incident.

I might put my briefcase in one sentence, if the Lord God himself caused a state head through taxation to require later generations of people who committed no crime to pay monies to their contemporaries who did not suffer the original crime, then it cannot be unjust, quite the opposite for state actors to do the same today.

So I don't, I'm not going to go any further here because, because here's the reality here. So what he's going to do is he's going to talk about an example in the Bible where this happened and God was the one who inspired this to happen.

Right? So, so, so let's talk about some consistency theory of Thabiti because actually I did address this in my Thabiti two-step video. Again, I recommend you watch it. It's a great video. It's rocking, but it's a full chock full of information.

And what I said was this, I said that God and man have different standards. So what God does is good, right? And God can judge generations. In fact, we have in the script, in the book, in the book of Deuteronomy.

So, so, so this is from the same book of law. So this is totally consistent with what we just read from Deuteronomy 24, where it says the sons do not pay for the sins of the fathers and vice versa. Here's what Deuteronomy five says.

This is in the 10 commandments. This is common knowledge for all Christians. It says this, you shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

And so God operates differently than men. God can do things differently than men. And so if you're going to say, well, God inspired this thing that kind of seems like reparations. And so men can do it too.

Well, you got to understand that God also commanded the Israelites to slaughter people, to slaughter pagans for doing pagan things, slaughter them, man, woman, child, animal, all of this stuff, livestock, the whole thing, complete destruction.

And so we're going to be consistent here, Thabiti, with this argument, which is kind of embarrassing to call this an argument. It's embarrassing to call this an argument, Thabiti. If we're going to be consistent, then it should be totally fine.

If Donald Trump tomorrow says we're going to go to Saudi Arabia and slaughter the pagans, man, woman, child, livestock, dog, cat, the whole nine yards, because God did it. And so if God did it, then it has to be just, right?

People can do it too. This is what you're literally saying here. He's saying, look, if the Lord God caused the head of state to do this, then it cannot be unjust, quite the opposite for a state actor to do the same today.

So if God does it, then a state actor can do it today. I'm sorry, but you know what, Thabiti, what you've just done here is made the state and the state is not God. You see that here's the reality. We've been talking about this.

And guys, if you haven't watched Reform Jellicle, this is the show I'm doing with Matt Williams from How to Build a Tent podcast. It's a great show because we talk a lot about the spheres of authority, right?

And so God does give the state a certain authority to execute justice. It's called the sword, right? He gives it the authority of the sword. And so the state is a servant of God. But you see, God is very specific about the authority he gives the state.

The state is not God. The state does not replace God. The state cannot make up laws and just decide what justice is and what it looks like and what it isn't. No, he wrote in his law, in the book of Deuteronomy, for example, he wrote specific guidelines, we can apply that to general equity of that law.

And so the fact that he's done something differently in history, God himself has done something differently in history does not change the authority that he ultimately gives the civil government. And they gave the authority of the civil government a law.

And that law says, father shall not be put to death because of their children nor shall children for the sins of their parents, those deserving, I'm sorry, let me read the authorized version again, father shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers, a person shall be put to death for his own sin.

That is the principle that God has given the civil government. And so we cannot look to a situation in the Old Testament where God does visit the sins of the parents on the children, because he says he does that God's prerogative is different.

God's prerogative is completely different. And he gives he does delegate authority to the civil government, but the civil government can't do all things that God can do. He didn't he didn't give them that authority.

And so the concept of restitution see, I think that God did visit and will visit the sins of the fathers on the children of those who hate him that were involved in the slave trade. I think that that does happen in God's economy and God's prerogative.

That does not mean that we can break his very clear law about children paying for the sins of the father, humans, civil government, state actors, we have a law that we have from God that we must follow.

And and the reality is that just because God's authorized the slaughter of pagans in the past does not mean that we have the authority to decide when to and where to slaughter pagans in the future, or in the present.

It doesn't give us that authority, and neither does it do it with reparations. The other thing is here is I again, I wonder how consistent the BD is, I wonder how consistent the BD is, because here's the reality.

What does he say here, he says, that the state is going to be the actor owing reparations. So the state committed the crime, therefore, the state should do the time the state stole, and so they should make restitution, right.

So he's trying to make a division between the state and the people, which I don't think you really can do. Because again, we fund the state, the state has no resources of their own. If the state was going to sell all their buildings and give the money to blacks, I'd have no problem with that the state should sell their buildings right now.

But here's the reality. Is the state the criminal in slavery? Well, if it is, the BD, is the state also the criminal when it comes to abortion? And if so, what is the biblical penalty for abortion? If we're going to follow your logic, which I think we potentially could in this situation, right?

So, so, so the state was the criminal and restitution. Okay, let's let's just go with you. Let's just see how consistent you are. Okay, so the state is also guilty for abortion. And what is the penalty for abortion in in the Old Testament times?

Well, it's death. And so it's the BD, can we count on you to be calling for the death of the state actors? These people? Is that what you're going to start doing now? No, you're not because you're completely inconsistent.

You are inconsistent. You're you have there's there's no there's no consistency to this argument whatsoever. You have to pick and choose you have to, you know, cherry pick situations from the Bible. And the reality is, you do a very poor job of it the BD a very poor job indeed.

Because you would know if you I mean, if you were trying to be consistent with this law, you would know that because God told the Israelites or, or another nation to do something to make restitution or to slaughter pagans or things like that.

And the Old Testament does not mean that we need to go and do that today without God speaking to us to do it. Instead, what you're doing here is you're cherry picking to serve your idol. You want money, you want money given to you and your people.

And for whatever, God only knows reason, in your mind, your people is according to skin color, and not according to the body of Christ. That's who your people are. And it's sick. And it's disgusting. And I mean, that's all there is to it.

Selective Use of Deuteronomy and the Civil Government

So if you want more details about the arguments of reparation that he kind of just pretends like he addresses here, which really he doesn't watch my other video, it's much more informative than this one.

This one's just kind of a quick one. But at the end of the day, I mean, it's kind of sad that that a guy who's so good at at at the scriptures here and all that kind of stuff in general is so terrible about it when it comes to his idols.

It's just really sad. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless. You know, I principle from principle from biblical law, I stand against reparations. Clearly, I said that in this video, I said that the other video, no question about it.

Whether He Would Accept Reparations

But some people have asked, since I do have slave ancestors, you know, I'm Puerto Rican, you know, 40 native and African. Would I collect reparations if we did get it? I don't think it's ever gonna happen.

First of all, I don't I think reparations is used to convince dumb people to vote for Democrats is really what it's for. But so you'll never get reparations clearly. And if you do, it'll be like 20 bucks, you know.

But anyway, so it'll never happen. But if it did, would I collect it? And the answer is yes, I would collect it even though I stand against it, even though I think it's unjust. I would take the money that the government gave me to make up for the trauma that I suffer from slavery and my ancestry, I would definitely do it.

But now before you say I'm inconsistent, remember, I just because I'm part African and people were my people were brought over in the slave trade. Don't forget, also part European. So they were also doing the bringing over so I have to kind of pay myself reparations and so of course I would take it just paying myself here.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful. God bless.