I have an idea about how to pay California Blacks the reparations they claim to rightly deserve for the horrific treatment exhibited against them by all whose complexions do not match their own: pay the reparations in Confederate currency.

There likely is not $800 billion (the amount of reparation funds calculated to be necessary for these payments) in old Confederate currency lying around in California, or anywhere else for that matter, but what are printing presses and copying machines for?

The Fed is surely more than willing to give tips on the printing of large quantities of limited-value currency (AKA the Biden dollars sent to every American to help cope with the COVID pandemic) — or totally worthless currency, at least until now (any existing or newly printed Confederate currency).

There would be poetic justice in these payments being made with the currency of the old seceded South; it was the Confederate states, after all, that fought in the Civil War to maintain slavery in our country.  We can talk all we like about the war between the states being about states' rights, but we know it was really about slavery.

I would submit that the Union side of the conflict has paid more than its fair share of reparations in the form of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of young men — men who died to make slaves free.  While the Confederacy lost equal totals of its own young men, they were fighting to preserve the institution of slavery.  If a debt remains unpaid to the descendants of those slaves whom the South wished to remain enslaved, then the Confederacy should pay it.  And what better way than by reviving their old currency?

Recipients of these reparations would be free to spend their money with anyone who chooses to recognize their value.  Any individual or business choosing not to accept that currency as legal tender would not be obliged to accept it in payment of any debt.  As many Blacks seem to be encouraging a new segregation in our society, they would have a currency unique to their portion of society.  Since no one would be obliged to accept it, it would be no harm, no foul for those choosing not to do so.

While many people might think this suggestion is made entirely in jest, I think an added payment would quell those concerns.  Let's throw in a case of Bud Light for each reparee.  Anheuser-Busch seems to have a substantial quantity of unsold beverages and would likely donate them to such a woke cause.

So let the light-beer fueled celebration begin.  While the recipients of the Confederate largess sort out who will or will not accept this form of payment, the rest of us can go on with our lives, knowing that reparation has been made and we need lose no more sleep over how we could afford it.

Bill Hansmann is a dentist and dental educator with over fifty years in the profession.  He continues to teach and write political blogs and semi-mediocre novels while living with his wife and cats in Florida.

Image: Amscheip.