A repeated segment on 60 Minutes II last month caught my attention. It told the story of the Seminole Indians of Florida, their assimilation and intermarriage with freed slaves, and their tragic “trail of tears” journey to the Oklahoma Territory after 1830. Recently, the U. S. Government settled a lawsuit, awarding $56 million to the tribe for “reparations” for this history. But now the tribe has voted to exclude from the settlement any blacks among them who cannot prove pure blood direct Seminole descendancy from 1823 (somewhat analogous to the Nazi Nuremberg Laws of the 1930’s). These people have lived together as a tribe and a community for 180 years, until the government, encouraged by a few members of the trial bar, gets involved with its group-based rights theories. It strikes me that this is where all such theories will lead. So who is being “divisive”? Who are the racists? Is it we opponents of “group think” affirmative action and reparations? I think not.
