The Kane Mutiny

Last Friday night, in preparation for watching the Twins-Red Sox game on TV, I was channel surfing for a viable alternative to watch during the expected lulls during the game. Yes, the game promised to be a good one, featuring the pitching match up of Pedro Martinez and Joe Mays. But I knew that this alone wouldn't prevent me from searching for mental stimulus during segments of the game that were found lacking in this regard.

Included in this "lacking" category would be any time the Red Sox were batting. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but something about their lineup just strikes me as dreadfully dull and frankly, offensive. Maybe it's their names, letter confabulations such as "Daubach" and "Merlroni” and most egregious "Trot." Just the thought of these being shouted in the hoarse, whiskey soaked bark of a Southie is enough for me to withdraw my attention in disgust.

So in my search for a diversion, while blurring past all the important cable news celebrities (O'Reilly, Chung, Matthews, Brooke Burke) I came upon C-SPAN, which was broadcasting a panel discussion on slavery reparations. Discussions of this topic come up about once every couple of months on C-SPAN.

As I've watched many of the previous presentations, I figured this was going to be another exercise in revelatory hate mongering, logic high crimes, and grammatical misdemeanors, by some of the most inarticulate members of the Left. (Which given the competition, is not an insignificant accomplishment--it's like being the foulest smelling pile of viscera on the slaughterhouse floor).

But, much to my pleasant surprise, this panel was put together by the Heritage Foundation and consisted of minority group members who opposed the concept of slavery reparations. Of the four panel members, I recognized only Linda Chavez (who was typically brilliant). However, all four were good in both the presentation of their beliefs and in the comprehensive understanding of the issues on which they spoke. Their sense of isolation from the mainstream of minority opinion (or at least the opinions of the minority leadership) was obvious, and their stance of righteous dissent was impressive and well taken.

The most compelling rhetoric came from a columnist from the Baltimore Sun, named Gregory Kane. He nailed all of the more common points I've previously heard (well articulated by David Horowitz and George Will, among others). However he also spoke of his personal disdain for the notion of accepting a monetary gain based on the suffering of his forbearers. He acknowledged that race is still an issue in American life, and that it still affects him. But also that the situation had improved greatly since he was a child. And his childhood experience was better by several magnitudes compared to when his parents were children. And his parents' experiences couldn’t even come close the sufferings imposed upon the previous generations who were actually held in bondage. And, according to Kane, the thought of making a personal profit based on the wrong commited to previous generations, given the relatively benign conditions faced now, only served to cheapen their experiences and memories and was personally revolting to him.

He's exactly right of course, and these words seem to resonate with the black audience in the crowd, more so than the other more semantic and abstract arguments forwarded by the likes of Horowitz, et al. I’ve never seen or heard of Gregory Kane before, but upon reading his back columns from the Baltimore Sun archives, it appears he leans conservative (which takes guts given his status as a black columnist in a majority black city), and he's a voice that merits listening to.