The vindication of Booker T. Washington



Christopher Wolfe’s thoughtful essay at the American Mind on Booker T. Washington, leisure, and work stirred some fond memories from years ago of making a friend by reading a book.

He was an old black man, and I was an old white man. We were both native Angelenos and had been just about old enough to drive when the Watts riots broke out in 1965. But that was half a century and a lifetime ago, and we hadn’t known each another.

If you read ‘Up from Slavery,’ you will be reading an American classic and will be getting to know a man who ranks among the greatest Americans of all time.

Los Angeles is a big place, a home to many worlds. Now we were white-haired professors, reading a book together, and we became friends. His name was Kimasi, and he has since gone to a better world.

We were spending a week with a dozen other academics reading Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, “Up from Slavery.” Washington was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia, just a few years before the Civil War began. He gained his freedom through Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory in the war. With heroic determination, he got himself an education and went on to found the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, where he remained principal for the rest of his life.

After Frederick Douglass died in 1895, Washington became, without comparison, the most well-known and influential black American living. By the beginning of the 20th century, as John Hope Franklin would write, he was “one of the most powerful men in the United States.” “Up from Slavery,” published in 1901, sold 100,000 copies before Washington died in 1915.

It is a great American book. Modern Library ranks it third on its list of the best nonfiction books in the English language of the 20th century. But there was a reason why Kimasi and I were reading this great book when we were old men rather than when we were young men back in the riotous 1960s.

Even before Washington died, and while he was still the most famous and influential black man in America, other black leaders began to discredit him and question his way of dealing with the plight and aspirations of black Americans. These critics, whom Washington sometimes called “the intellectuals,” were led by W.E.B. Du Bois, the first black American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

So successful was this criticism that by the time Kimasi and I were in high school or heading off to college, the most fashionable opinion among intellectuals — black or white — was that Booker T. Washington was the worst of things for a black man. He was an “Uncle Tom.” (How “Uncle Tom” became a term of derision rather than the name of a heroic character is a story for another time.) And so, if Washington’s great book was mentioned at all to young Kimasi or me, it was mentioned in this negative light.

But fashions change, and, as Washington himself taught, merit is hard to resist. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address were dismissed and scoffed at by some “intellectuals” in his day; they are now generally recognized by informed and intelligent people around the world as the great speeches they are.

“Huckleberry Finn” scandalized polite opinion when it came out, because it was about an illiterate vagrant and other lowlifes and contained a lot of ungrammatical talk and bad spelling. A couple of generations later, Ernest Hemingway himself declared that “all modern American literature comes from one book” — Huckleberry Finn.

A couple of generations later still, in our own times, skittish librarians started removing the book from their shelves because it used language too dangerous for children.

The study of the past should shed light on what deserves praise, what deserves blame, and the grounds on which such judgments should be made. Americans being as fallible as the rest of mankind, as long as we are free to air opinions, there will be different opinions among us. Some of them may actually be true. And they will change from time to time, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for no reason at all.

RELATED: Why can't Americans talk honestly about race? Blame the 'Civil Rights Baby Boomers'

Photo by Graphic House/Getty Images

In recent years, several scholars have helped bring back to light the greatness and goodness of Booker T. Washington. Even fashionable opinion is capable of justice, and no one wants to be deceived about what is truly good and great, so I hazard to predict that it will sometime become fashionable again to recognize Booker T. Washington as one of the greatest Americans ever.

Washington never held political office. But his life and work demonstrated that you don’t have to hold political office to be a statesman and that the noblest work of the statesman is to teach. The soul of what Washington sought to teach was that we, too, can rise up from slavery. It is an eternal possibility.

This was the central purpose of Booker T. Washington’s life and work: to liberate souls from enslavement to ignorance, prejudice, and degrading passions, the kind of slavery that makes us tyrants to those around us in the world we live in.

Washington saw that this freedom of the soul cannot be given to us by others. Good teachers and good parents and friends, through precept and example, can help us see this freedom and understand it, but we have to achieve it for ourselves. When we do, our souls are liberated to rule themselves by reflection and choice, with malice toward none, with charity for all.

If you read “Up from Slavery,” you will be reading an American classic. You will be getting to know a man who, in the quality of his mind and character, and in the significance of what he did in and with his life, ranks among the greatest Americans of all time — even with the man whose name he chose for himself. When we read this great book together in the ripeness of our years, Kimasi, who always winningly wore his heart on his sleeve, wept frequently and repeated, shaking his head, “I lived a life not knowing this man.”

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

What’s REALLY behind MSM’s false reporting on Trump’s Smithsonian initiative? Glenn Beck has a theory.



“It's one thing to get a story wrong; it's one thing to misunderstand … but it's an entirely other thing to intentionally take things out of context, intentionally leave things off the table, intentionally paint a picture that you know is not true,” says Glenn Beck.

If you didn’t already guess, Glenn is talking about the mainstream media — specifically its reporting on President Trump’s recent initiatives targeting the Smithsonian Institution, which has long insisted on portraying slavery as America’s defining story.

On August 12, the White House, in accordance with President Trump's vision of American exceptionalism, initiated a comprehensive review of eight Smithsonian museums, focusing on exhibition content, curation, and operations. A few days later, President Trump followed up the directive with a Truth Social post, explaining the need for reform in Smithsonian museums.

Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media cherry-picked from Trump’s words and published stories implying that he thinks slavery wasn’t so bad. The New York Times ran a piece titled, “Trump Says Smithsonian Focuses Too Much on ‘How Bad Slavery Was.’”

The Washington Post, NPR, and Reuters, among many other outlets, published similar pieces.

Despite the fact that President Trump has repeatedly and publicly condemned slavery, the media is pushing the narrative that Trump’s desire to highlight the whole picture — America’s failures and her accomplishments — equates to whitewashing slavery.

Glenn, a history lover and the founder of the American Journey Experience, a state-of-the-art museum and research library, knows the importance of studying the darkest parts of human history. “If we don't teach our kids that these dark things happened in this country, two things happen,” he says. “One, they don't believe us on the good things. … The second reason it is really important is if you don't teach [the bad stuff], you will repeat it.”

But the problem with the Smithsonian and other historical institutions, he says, is that they’re only telling the dark parts of American history. They’re trying to “make history about now,” examining it through the lens of modern ideas, cultural trends, and political agendas.

“Well, history is about the past,” says Glenn, adding that if we are to view history rightly, we need to ask questions, such as, “How did people think back then? Why did they think that way back then? Who fought against that at that time? What was the real argument?”

When we fail to ask these honest questions and instead view history as a means to accomplish an agenda, we get academics and scholars pushing information that is “absolutely dishonest” — like the idea that “Frederick Douglass never, never said a good word about the Constitution,” when in fact he called it “the greatest freedom document of all time.”

Why do they push false narratives like this?

Because “their goal is to get rid of the Constitution,” says Glenn. From academics and liberal politicians to progressive activist groups and, of course, the mainstream media, the overarching agenda is to convince Americans that the United States is “a bad nation and communism is neat.”

President Trump’s insistence that the Smithsonian put more focus on America’s long list of incredible accomplishments is a bold and necessary effort to reverse this insidious anti-American agenda.

“You want to [talk about] slavery? Tell both sides of slavery — not just the horrors of slavery, but the miracle of those who were white who stood up and tried to stop it,” Glenn pleads.

“I absolutely want the story of slavery told, but I want it to be told in context. And it's not the story of America. It is one of the stories of America that, thank God, we fought.”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis and commentary, watch the clip above.

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Joy Reid gives ‘history’ lesson claiming white people stole all of black people’s ideas



Joy Reid is convinced that white people have stolen all of black people’s inventions, and she’s not being shy about it.

During a recent interview titled “How Mediocre White Men and Their Fragility Are Destroying America” with Wajahat Ali for his Left Hook substack, Reid criticized Trump’s review of the Smithsonian and took aim at all white people.

Even Elvis wasn’t spared.

“They can’t fix the history they did. Their ancestors made this country into a slave hell, but they can clean it up now because they got the Smithsonian. They can get rid of all the slavery stuff. They got PragerU that can lie about the history to the children,” Reid said.

“They can’t originally invent anything more than they ever were able to invent good music. We black folk gave y’all country music, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, rock and roll. They couldn’t even invent that. But they have to call a white man ‘the King’ because they couldn’t make rock and roll,” she continued.


“So, they have to stamp ‘the King’ on a man whose main song was stolen from an overweight black woman,” she added.

“Wow, really going after Elvis Presley on that. What is all that?” BlazeTV host Alex Stein comments on “Prime Time with Alex Stein.”

Stein has noticed that Reid’s grievances are already being addressed at the highest levels of government.

“I went on a tour of the Capitol, and it was actually very, you know, they kind of use trauma-based mind control like what she wants the Smithsonian to be. They make you go into this big room before you get your official tour, and they play a video,” Stein explains.

“It’s like, ‘These hallowed halls were built by slaves.’ ... And they show, like, black men, like, building stuff and, like, a cartoon of it, and you know, it’s just like everything you see was built on the backs of slaves, which is true,” he continues.

“Wall Street New York was built by black people,” Stein jokes. “The pyramids, built by black people, right? I mean, probably Egyptians or whatever.”

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In the shadow of legends, ordinary lives tell a bigger truth



I take a weekly walk in Sleepy Hollow, New York, through its historic cemetery, where many captains of industry rest. William Rockefeller lies in a grand mausoleum. So do Walter Chrysler, Leona Helmsley, and Elizabeth Arden. Andrew Carnegie’s grave is marked only by a simple Celtic cross.

Washington Irving is buried there, too, in a sprawling family plot on a hill just behind the Old Dutch Church he made famous in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

In the present, our responsibility is to live with honor, blessing and serving those we know and influence today.

But among the monuments to those who built billion-dollar corporations or wrote legendary tales, you’ll also find the graves of “ordinary folks” — men and women of humble means and obscure backgrounds. Walking among these modest headstones, you begin to see the nobility in even a simple life well lived.

One headstone I saw recently brought that home — and made me think about the left’s ongoing push for “reparations.”

Repayment for injustice

On the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, I came across the grave of a man who died in 1912. That August morning in 1945, an estimated 70,000 people perished when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city — a calculated gamble to end World War II quickly.

In the years before the bombing, Japanese Americans — U.S. citizens — were herded into internment camps. Many likely had close relatives and friends who died in Hiroshima that day. In 1988, the federal government agreed to pay monetary reparations to surviving internees.

The Conversation, a website that claims to blend “academic rigor” with “journalistic flair,” offers a comparison between reparations for Japanese Americans and those sought for African Americans. One logistical distinction, the site notes, is that the injustice against the Japanese occurred over a defined period — from 1942, when internment began, to 1945, when the war ended.

The tombstone that started the gears turning in my head along that cemetery walk had an interesting dedication carved into it. A man named John C.L. Hamilton shared the gravesite with his wife, who died a few years after he did, but for his part, the inscription read:

Photo by Albin Sadar

JOHN C.L. HAMILTON
1842–1912
Soldier and Patriot
He Served His Country with Valor
and Distinction During the
Tragic Years of Our Civil War

Many other Civil War veterans reside in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and, standing prominently among them, is a fitting monument:

Photo by Albin Sadar

PATRIA CARIOR QUAM VITA.
[Country Dearer Than Life]
OUR
UNION SOLDIERS.

While Freedom's name
is understood,
They shall delight the
wise and good;
They dared to set their
country free,
And gave her laws
equality.


Another notable person who has found her final resting place in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is Amanda Foster, who passed away at the age of 97. She used her freedom helping others through the Underground Railroad:

Photo by Albin Sadar

(By the way, if you would like to watch a short but fun 2-1/2-minute “video tour” of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I made one about eight years ago.)

Moving on and moving up

Many men and women — black and white — pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to rid the young nation of slavery. If the United States ever pursued true reparations based on an honest review of historical records, the line of claimants who lost family and treasure — black and white — would stretch long.

Punishment for those who engaged in the slave trade or owned slaves ended long ago. The best way to close that dark chapter is not to blame or “correct” the past, but to leave those people and events where they belong — in history.

In the present, our responsibility is to live with honor, blessing and serving those we know and influence today.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.

The Senator Will Not Yield

A time traveler to the quarter-century of Charles Sumner’s service in the U.S. Senate—from the early 1850s to the mid-1870s—would return to the 21st century with good news and bad news. The good news is that America experienced politics more bitter than anything we witness today, and survived. The bad news is that the surviving entailed a civil war.

The post The Senator Will Not Yield appeared first on .

Stop trying to segregate the American founding



Race relations in the United States have unraveled in recent years, not only because of genuine disagreement, but because many Americans now grow up believing the nation is fundamentally unjust — racist to the core, perhaps even irredeemable.

This idea, once fringe, now enjoys institutional backing. Critical race theory and DEI ideology assert that the U.S. was founded on slavery and white supremacy. And they dominate schools, corporations, and government agencies alike.

Don’t displace the Fourth of July. Don’t divide what should unite us.

As a result, America has seen a quiet comeback of sanctioned segregation. Colleges increasingly host race-based graduation ceremonies. Society encourages people to define themselves first by racial identity, not shared citizenship. That should alarm anyone who once marched for equal rights in the 1950s and ’60s.

When Americans stop thinking of each other as fellow citizens, the glue that holds the republic together dissolves.

Juneteenth and the new segregation

Consider one example of this trend: the push for a separate “independence day” for black Americans.

On June 17, 2021, Joe Biden signed Senate Bill 475 into law, establishing a new federal holiday: “Juneteenth National Independence Day.” The bill commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Texas and issued General Order No. 3, announcing that slaves in the state had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation — two years after it was signed.

Former slaves in Texas celebrated, and in the years that followed, Juneteenth spread across the South. But it never held central importance in the broader civil rights movement.

Juneteenth did not abolish slavery. It merely marked the day slaves in one state learned they had been legally freed. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863, applied only to states in rebellion — excluding Union-supporting border states like Kentucky and Delaware, where slavery remained legal until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.

A false independence narrative

Some activists now argue that Juneteenth should serve as “Black Independence Day.” That’s a mistake.

This view implies that African Americans have no rightful claim to the Fourth of July or to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. But those ideas belong to all Americans — not just the descendants of the signers.

It’s true that many historical figures sought to exclude black Americans from the promise of the Declaration. Chief Justice Roger Taney made that argument explicit in the Dred Scott decision. Confederates like Alexander Stephens and John C. Calhoun claimed that “all men are created equal” never applied to African Americans.

They were wrong.

What Frederick Douglass really believed

Some cite Frederick Douglass’ famous 1852 speech — “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” — to support the idea that black Americans should reject the founding. But they ignore the full context.

Douglass, speaking two years after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, condemned the hypocrisy of a country that declared liberty while tolerating bondage. “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” he asked. “A day that reveals to him ... the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

But unlike Taney, Stephens, and Calhoun, Douglass didn’t reject the Declaration. He upheld it.

RELATED: Frederick Douglass: American patriot

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images

Douglass took hope from the principles it proclaimed and called on America to live up to them. He dismissed the Garrisonian claim that the Constitution was pro-slavery. “Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted,” he said, “the Constitution is a glorious liberty document.”

He believed America’s founding held the moral resources to defeat slavery — and it did.

The universal promise of 1776

America’s founders didn’t invent slavery; they merely inherited it. At the time of the Revolution, slavery was a global institution, practiced on every continent and defended by every empire. Slavery, including African slavery, was a manifestation of the argument of the Athenians at Melos as recounted by Thucydides in his history of the Peloponnesian War: “Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Even Africans sold fellow Africans into slavery.

The Declaration of Independence marked a sharp break from that past. It asserted that all human beings possess natural rights — and that no one may rule another without consent.

Thomas Jefferson famously observed that humanity had long been divided into those born "booted and spurred” and those “born with saddles on their backs.” The founders rejected that model. They established a republic based on equality before the law, not the interests of the stronger over the weaker.

They also knew slavery contradicted those ideals. Many believed the institution would die out — an Enlightenment relic destined for extinction. Still, the political compromises they made to preserve the Union allowed slavery to persist, and it took a war to end it.

Why the founding still matters

The Civil War was not a rejection of the founding. It was a fulfillment of it.

As Harry Jaffa wrote, “It is not wonderful that a nation of slaveholders, upon achieving independence, failed to abolish slavery. What is wonderful ... is that a nation of slaveholders founded a new nation on the proposition that ‘all men are created equal,’ making the abolition of slavery a moral and political necessity.”

The Declaration of Independence lit the fuse that ultimately destroyed slavery.

So let Americans celebrate Juneteenth — gratefully, joyfully, and historically. Let the holiday recall the biblical jubilee it was meant to evoke.

But don’t displace the Fourth of July. Don’t segment America’s founding. Don’t divide what should unite us.

As Douglass said: “I would not even in words do violence to the grand events, and thrilling associations, that gloriously cluster around the birth of our national independence.”

He went on: “No people ever entered upon the pathway of nations, with higher and grander ideas of justice, liberty and humanity than ourselves.”

Douglass understood something too many have forgotten: The genius of the American founding lies not in who it excluded but in the promise that, one day, it would include everyone.

Why I won’t celebrate Juneteenth as a federal holiday



Expect a wave of corporate media pieces today, all aiming to elevate Juneteenth’s importance in the American consciousness. These articles are sanctimonious, astroturfed exercises in progressive virtue signaling — gaslighting the public into believing Juneteenth deserves equal or even greater recognition than the Fourth of July.

But Juneteenth neither marks the beginning of slavery nor its end. Activists have hijacked the holiday to undermine the moral clarity of Independence Day.

Juneteenth has been weaponized to fracture America’s identity through deception and denigration.

Juneteenth commemorates the day Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and declare the end of slavery in the state. Early celebrations called it “Jubilee Day,” marking the delayed but welcome fulfillment of the Constitution’s promise and the Declaration’s revolutionary spirit — at least in Texas.

For decades, Juneteenth remained a Texas tradition. It held official status as a state holiday for 41 years and an unofficial one since 1866. But in recent years, radical activists have repurposed it as a tool to advance a racialist rewrite of American history.

A ‘George Floyd’ holiday

Before George Floyd's death in 2020, few progressives were even aware of Juneteenth's existence. But after Black Lives Matter-led riots caused over $1.5 billion in property damage and left at least 20 dead, the left seized the cultural moment. Activists bullied lawmakers into submission — both figuratively and literally.

That year, members of Congress knelt in kente cloth as a gesture of obedience. The Pentagon renamed military bases to satisfy a new moral order. Corporations slapped critical theory slogans on products. The so-called “black national anthem” was played at sporting events, eclipsing the actual national anthem.

And then came the crowning gesture: the creation of a new federal holiday. Juneteenth became the woke sacrament, signaling America’s supposedly unending racism.

It was ludicrous then. It’s borderline insane now.

Juneteenth is Texan — and that’s all

Texas has every right to honor Juneteenth. The holiday commemorates the fulfillment of America’s founding ideals and the abolition of one of humanity’s most enduring evils. But beyond Texas, it holds no national significance.

Juneteenth doesn’t fall on the date of the Emancipation Proclamation. It doesn’t mark the actual end of slavery in the United States. Activists howl in protest, but the truth remains: Juneteenth has been repurposed to challenge and eventually replace Independence Day.

Most of the people writing solemn op-eds about Juneteenth don’t know its history — and they don’t care. What they do care about is creating a “new” Independence Day, one that fits a progressive narrative. Its placement on the calendar — just weeks before July 4 — is no accident.

This is part of the left’s long march through American institutions. National holidays shape national identity. And Juneteenth now functions as a tool to fracture that identity under the guise of moral progress.

Under the Biden administration, some military installations flew flags calling Juneteenth “National Independence Day.” The Department of Defense distributed official guidance using that exact phrase. Nikole Hannah-Jones, architect of the historically illiterate “1619 Project,” uses Juneteenth to promote her claim that America’s true founding began with the arrival of African slaves, not the signing of the Declaration.

Divide, rewrite, replace

As a former Marine and combat veteran, I recognize these tactics: divide and conquer, rewrite and replace. They follow a playbook.

Juneteenth’s federal recognition aims not to celebrate American emancipation but rather to distract from the actual Independence Day. The broader goal is to erode national unity and advance a Marxist agenda: divide Americans by race, replace shared history with grievance, and erase what came before.

RELATED: We should scrap Juneteenth, aka George Floyd Day, for a holiday commemorating America’s 1865 rebirth

Blaze Media Illustration

I lived in Texas for many years. I’ll celebrate Juneteenth as a Texas holiday. The end of slavery deserves celebration. I would even support a national holiday that commemorates the abolition of slavery, honestly.

But I won’t join in the farce that Juneteenth represents America’s independence. Too many Americans gave their lives to preserve our constitutional republic and the revolutionary idea that all men are created equal and endowed by God with unalienable rights.

Independence Day remains the foundation of this nation. It paved the way for emancipation, the defeat of fascism, the collapse of communism, and the rise of the most prosperous country in world history.

The radical left understands this. That’s why it has targeted Juneteenth as a cultural wedge. Leftists expect Americans to bow at the altar of wokeness and pretend not to notice. And if we object, they call us pro-slavery.

I reject that lie.

I refuse to bend the knee to a movement that seeks to destroy everything good and true about this country. The stakes are too high — and the truth is too important to surrender.

Trump reparations would be Dems’ biggest loss since the GOP took their slaves away



Donald Trump has a rare chance this Juneteenth to deliver Democrats their most painful political blow in 160 years.

The man hailed by supporters as a master dealmaker could throw the American system into upheaval by proposing a “MAGA-vellian” reparations plan — a bold mix of populist theater and strategic ruthlessness.

If Trump launched the MAGA Fund, he wouldn’t just rewrite political norms — he’d cement his place as the most disruptive figure in modern American history.

Call it the MAGA Democrat Slavery Compensation Fund.

This plan wouldn’t just shake up Washington. It would redraw the partisan map and deal a death blow to the race-peddling civil rights industry by exposing the fraud at the core of progressive politics. And coming from a president who has vowed to restore Confederate base names, the MAGA Fund would remind voters which party fought to keep slavery alive.

Timing is everything.

Trump acknowledged Juneteenth in his first term and pledged to make it a federal holiday during the 2020 campaign. Biden signed it into law in 2021, but the effort quickly became partisan theater. Critics said Democrats only embraced the holiday after the George Floyd riots, hoping to appease Black Lives Matter activists.

Candace Owens called Juneteenth “sooo lame” and “ghetto.” Charlie Kirk dismissed it as a “CRT-inspired federal holiday” meant to compete with Independence Day.

But now that Trump’s back in the White House — more popular among black voters than any Republican since the 1960s — he’s well-positioned to pull off a maneuver that could rattle his ideological base and neutralize his fiercest critics.

The MAGA Fund would benefit only the descendants of American slaves — not black immigrants, not “people of color,” and not members of the ever-expanding LGBTQIA+ rainbow coalition. It would expose the cynical way Democrats — whose party symbol is a donkey — have used black Americans as political mules for every new “civil rights” cause since the 1960s.

Duke economist Sandy Darity estimates full reparations would cost $10 trillion. The MAGA Fund? Just $855 billion. It would draw from corporate donations — a logical move, since more than 1,000 companies pledged more than $200 billion to “racial justice” causes in 2020.

The MAGA Fund would also weaponize the left’s favorite buzzword: equity.

Progressives insist policies must favor the disadvantaged. Why not apply that within the black community? Under this plan, Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James wouldn’t get the same payout as a Mississippi man working three jobs or a single mom raising four kids in the inner city.

Here’s how it would work:

  • Black households earning over $100,000 (about 25% of the total) would receive a symbolic $345, referencing the 345 years between the arrival of African slaves in 1619 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • Households earning $50,000 to $100,000 (roughly 30%) would receive $34,500.
  • Families under $50,000 (about 45%) would receive $103,500.

The MAGA Fund would channel the populist energy dominating the right. It would highlight how Democrats, backed by elite institutions, claim to represent the oppressed while serving the powerful. It would force them to either support Trump’s plan or explain why the party of “equity” opposes targeted aid to poor black Americans.

RELATED: Like Black Lives Matter, DEI must die

Saud Ansari via iStock/Getty Images

Even critics like Ann Coulter might back the idea. She’s blasted Democrats for extending black reparations programs to every new “oppressed” group. She’s also listed the conditions under which she’d support reparations.

Of course, Republicans would need to manage their white working-class base. Conservative pundits would rage. But behind closed doors, they could frame the plan as a final settlement — a way to declare the race debate closed. The race hustlers would need a new line of work after Trump stamped the national debt to black Americans “Paid in Full.”

And it wouldn’t just be symbolic.

Put nearly a trillion dollars into circulation and watch what happens. Dave Chappelle joked in a 2003 sketch that reparations would send gold prices soaring, phone bills plummeting, and “8,000 new record labels” starting within an hour. The skit played off stereotypes — but behind the comedy was economic truth.

Studies of universal basic income show recipients typically spend on essentials like food and transportation. A Washington, D.C., program gave low-income moms $10,800. One woman used $6,000 to take her kids and their father to Miami. You don’t need a PhD to know that pumping money into poor communities stimulates demand.

If Trump launched the MAGA Fund, he wouldn’t just rewrite political norms — he’d cement his place as the most disruptive figure in modern American history. Who else but a twice-divorced real estate mogul and ex-Democrat could overturn Roe, win over evangelicals, survive two impeachments and an assassin’s bullet — and then sign big, beautiful reparations checks with a smile?

Will it happen? Probably not.

Politics is too polarized. Corporations would recoil at helping Trump. Professional race merchants would denounce the plan as pandering. The left would lose its mind. The right might lose its nerve.

Still, if the last decade taught voters anything, it’s this: Never bet against the Teflon Don.

Park Service Wrongly Celebrates Juneteenth As ‘National Independence Day’

The rhetoric around Juneteenth celebrations is clearly intended to compete with and marginalize the Fourth of July.

Blistering racial battle explodes between Ana Navarro and conservative pundit Shermichael Singleton on 'CNN NewsNight'



For once, Scott Jennings wasn't the focal point of a heated debate on "CNN NewsNight" — and it's a fair bet he had no problem with that, given what went down on Wednesday's edition.

This time the combatants were far-left CNN political commentator Ana Navarro — whom we also know as a far-left co-host of "The View" — and conservative pundit Shermichael Singleton.

'Because you’ve advocated for black people, great. Congratulations. Last time I checked, I’m black; you’re not.'

The topic was President Donald Trump's deportation policies — but the debate soon morphed into a bitter, fiery racial argument between Navarro and Singleton, with both of them frequently hollering over each other.

Anchor Abby Phillip attempted in vain to rein things in, while Jennings and others around the table stayed out of it. But after continued fireworks, Phillip was forced to cut to a commercial as the battle of words between the two raged on.

You can view the dust-up here — and make sure to check out the words below that Navarro and Singleton fired at each other:

NAVARRO: You know who was here illegally before the deportation order? Marco Rubio’s grandfather.

SINGLETON: We’re not talking about Marco Rubio.

NAVARRO: Oh, now we’re not? Now, that’s not relevant?

SINGLETON: It’s not relevant. It’s not relevant to this conversation at all.

NAVARRO: No, I’m talking about Marco Rubio because Marco Rubio used to be an advocate for [Temporary Protected Status] for Venezuelans, and Marco Rubio used to be an advocate for Nicaraguans and Cubans.

SINGLETON: Well, I’m not Marco Rubio —

NAVARRO: No, I know you’re not.

SINGLETON: — and let me tell you my beliefs. If you come to this country illegally, you are going home. Simple as that. We do not have unlimited resources in this country to take care of other people.

NAVARRO: There’s a hell of a lot people other than the black people who were brought here as slaves who came to this country illegally.

SINGLETON: They are not the same as black people who were brought here against our will. [Illegal immigrants] decided to walk their butts across the border. There’s a big difference. There is a big difference! There’s a big difference, Ana!

NAVARRO: That’s exactly what I just said. I said there is a lot of people other than the black people! That's exactly what I just said! That's exactly what I just said, Shermichael! [You] look and act indignant!

SINGLETON: It's not about acting indignant.

NAVARRO: Yes, it is!

SINGLETON: You're acting as if you have the moral high ground here.

NAVARRO: You just heard me say that other than the black people who came as slaves there are a lot of people from many countries that came here illegally!

PHILLIP: I think you misheard what she said.

SINGLETON: Okay. Okay.

NAVARRO: No, he purposely misheard it!

SINGLETON: I purposely misheard it?

NAVARRO: Yes, you did!

SINGLETON: Now you’re in my brain? Is that where we're going?

NAVARRO: You think [that] I who have advocated for black people my entire life would say something like that? Give me a d**n break!

SINGLETON: Because you’ve advocated for black people, great. Congratulations. Last time I checked, I’m black; you’re not.

NAVARRO: That’s right! I’m Latino, and my people are being racially profiled!

SINGLETON: Do I have to remind you the history of my people? Do you want to go there? Do you really want to go on the moral high ground? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

(H/T: Mediaite)

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