The left’s push for reparations has been ongoing for years, with President Joe Biden refusing to take a hardline stance on the matter, instead leaving the issue up to lawmakers in Congress. That, though, hasn’t quieted the loud voices demanding repayments for America’s past.
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Earlier this month, the California Reparations Task Force advanced a series of recommendations, including cash payments, a formal apology, and policy reforms for black residents, Axios reported. To qualify, those seeking compensation must first trace their lineage to chattel slavery in the U.S.
Many, though, are not convinced reparations are possible or even productive.
Bob Woodson, a civil rights activist and the former head of the National Urban League Department of Criminal Justice, is one of those people. He appeared on “Dr. Phil” to offer his perspective. His thoughts were both bold and insightful.
In addition to pointing out a handful of the myriad complexities that make fair and equitable reparations seemingly unfeasible, Woodson spoke to what he sees as the root cause of America’s cultural decay.
He spoke specifically to the victim mentality pervading much of American society, as well as the divisiveness and spiritual upheaval he believes is at the center of many of the country’s problems.
“We’ve got to look beyond saying that every solution has to have a winner and a loser — that blacks can only benefit if whites lose,” Woodson explained. “We have to be defined as more than just victims of oppression. … We have to communicate to our people the history of how they achieved in the face of oppression. But if we continue to sit back and say, ‘All of the challenges that we face … that somehow the control of that is in the hands of white America and, therefore, until white people change, there’s nothing that we can do,’ this sets up a terrible situation for this nation.”
He then turned to the spiritual issues under the surface.
“The big crisis facing America is not racial,” Woodson declared boldly. “It is a moral and spiritual freefall that is consuming our children. … If we are to address this crisis that is causing our children to lack a sense of personal responsibility or value for their own life — they will take their own life or someone else’s — so in order to address that, we must come together and look beyond race and realize America’s drowning because it’s in a moral and spiritual freefall.”
The civil rights leader’s comments come amid recently released survey data from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, showing only 4% of Americans hold to a biblical worldview.
As the audience listened in, clearly focused on what Woodson was saying, he outlined what he believes is the best way to heal, to stop focusing on past sins and instead chart a better way forward.
“None of us should be defined by the worst of what we were in the past,” Woodson said. “But we should be defined by what we want to become in the future and that people are motivated to change when you give them a vision of victories that are possible, not constantly reminding them of injuries to be avoided.”
You can watch Woodson’s full remarks in the video above.
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