Don gets a history lesson

 (My new American Thinker post)

Our pal Don Lemon got a taste of reality and he couldn’t make lemonade out of it.  Lemon was trying to be “woke cute” but ran into a history lesson that more of our kids should be learning in school. This is the story:    

During an interview with royal expert Hillary Fordwich, Lemon brought up the argument some people have made recently that reparations should be paid from the royal family’s estate for their family’s part in slavery and colonialism. 

“England is facing rising costs of living,” Lemon said, “and you have those who are asking for reparations for colonialism … and some people want to be paid back and members of the public are wondering, why are we suffering when you have all of this vast wealth? Those are legitimate concerns.”    

Fordwich responded by saying calls for reparations from the British royal family are misdirected, and that the aggrieved should instead go back to the beginning of the supply chain.

“Well I think you’re right about reparations in terms of – if people want it though, what they need to do is, you always need to go back to the beginning of the supply chain. Where was the beginning of the supply chain?” she asked. “That was in Africa.” 

She then detailed British efforts to end slavery not only in their kingdom, but around the world.

“Which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery?” It was “the British,” Fordwich said to a surprised-looking Lemon. 

She added that two thousand British naval men died shutting down the slave trade on the high seas. 

Fordwich said the “African kings were rounding up their own people, they had them in cages waiting on the beaches, no one was running into Africa to get them.”

Fordwich also said that maybe the descendants of the naval men who died ending the slave trade on the high seas should receive compensation as well.

Maybe Don Lemon should have watched the Bill Maher “anti-woke” segment before asking these questions.    

As my late father used to say, history is complicated and the product of imperfect human beings. The best way to correct the mistakes of the past is to admit them and then give the new generations the opportunities denied their ancestors. In the U.S., we did that with the civil rights legislation and those programs that opened doors closed before.

Then it’s up to the new generation to take advantage of those opportunities and stop watching charlatans like Don Lemon.

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