In Search of a Multicultural Bottom Line
Chris Rice
July 1, 1997
My wife Donna's home-health-nursing route takes her through high-crime neighborhoods far removed from her native Southern California suburbia. Jogging, I hear catcalls of "run, Forrest, run" as black kids match my bouncing dark beard with the movie's Gump. My oldest son is a double minority in first grade, a white boy whose first language is Ebonics. Spencer Perkins, my black ministry partner, and I are both gifted to "run the show," but we submit to one another in leadership. In our small Acts 2-style Christian community, different races share households, put paychecks into a common fund, and make life's decisions together. Some of us grew up in housing projects and foster homes, others on peaceful farms and in foreign lands. We are "diversity" personified, hanging on for eleven years even though we haven't always liked or agreed with each other. And sometime every month, I say to hell with all this, let me have my own life. After reading the last issue of rq, it occurred to me that our lives as Christians would be much easier if we settled for the world's version of multiculturalism. Frankly, I prefer what they're offering. Take "reparations" for African Americans. Let's do what should have been done after the end of slavery and the Civil War—a modern equivalent of forty acres and a mule. Start with an official apology. Then, let's give a $20,000 voucher to every living black person in America, restricted to education tuition (K-12, college, or graduate school), purchase of a home, or business start-up investment. We need about 650 billion dollars. White Americans currently living will pick up the tab—about $4,000 each. From a straight cost-benefit analysis, I'll pay the four grand—at $25 a month over thirteen ...
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