Recall candidate Peter Camejo supported reparations in the California Governor's race in 2002

To the Editor:

I was intrigued with the candidacy of Peter Camejo in the 2002 California governor's election campaign until I read that he was supporting financial reparations to present day blacks for black slavery that existed in the South before 1865.. To me, this reparations concept is an absurdity in California, which was a "free state" before the Civil War and in which thus no slaves were ever owned by anyone, certainly not after California joined the United States in 1847.

Reparations is truly a can of worms, one that is probably best left unopened. Who exactly would be required to pay into the reparations kitty? Folks whose ancestors owned slaves in the pre-Civil War South? Folks whose ancestors fought on the side of the North to free the slaves? Immigrants who arrived in America after 1865? And exactly who would be receiving these racial reparations? Full-blooded blacks? Half-blooded blacks (half-shares?)? Would these reparations be a one-time thing or would this program go on for years and years or even say, generations?

Another problem is that there really are no such things as separate and distinct "races" in the human species. All differences are gradations and are spread and blended over a continuum.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

13 August 2003