Many Black Americans say that we are in our current predicament of police killings, looting, and crime because of our inaction and irresponsibility and that we don’t deserve reparations at this point. The alternative to this perspective is that these issues would not exist if we had the chance to begin building our wealth four hundred years ago or if all oppression halted with the end of slavery.
Without addressing which of these two arguments is closer to our collective truth, the fact of the matter is that some form of significant reparations would do more good than harm by creating a more equitable situation for many Black Americans.
Without addressing which of these two arguments is closer to our collective truth, the fact of the matter is that some form of significant reparations would do more good than harm by creating a more equitable situation for many Black Americans.
As someone who has always been curious about my lineage and where my ancestors have been, I recently found out that the Smithsonian Institution has a Freedmen's Bureau portal search that they have recently made digital. The Freedmen's Bureau was a governmental organization that was established near the end of the Civil War with the goals of establishing schools, locating lost family members, buying land, and legalizing marriages for newly freed African-Americans and other displaced southerners at the time. The implications of something like this for African-Americans with similar curiosities as me are limitless because you can search up specific names, locations, dates, and messages. Knowing this information left me with bittersweet feelings because the only things my ancestors had when coming here were family and culture and even that was lost. Seeing this set that fact in stone for me. The great evil of slavery has forever affected the lives of all black people living in the Western Hemisphere and disconnected all of us from our true roots.
Reparations for Jewish people are an example of reparations working because they have worked to be one of the highest-income groups in the world after getting these payments. They have received 90 billion dollars through the years 1945-2018. The Holocaust was a great shame to Europe, and they made sure to acknowledge the murders of six million Jewish people. Failing to provide something similar to what Jewish families got in Europe is an embarrassment to the United States and a disgrace to all of the black families living here. After all of these years, it should be apparent to politicians and other prominent figures that black people will never be satisfied until we get compensation for what we went through and the damages to our cultural identities.
The main factors preventing the distribution of reparations are greed and cold-heartedness. The U.S. is a country where you benefit by not empathizing with others and being on the winning end of constant competition. Other countries would have you ostracized for this degree of selfishness. Another factor that plays into this is the form in which these reparations would be distributed. Some people argue black families should receive $2,000 a month for the rest of their lives; others say younger generations should have their college tuition fully covered. The main arguments against these plans would be that these all affect taxpayers and eventually make them contribute more money than they already do to bills, taxes, subscriptions, and many other things. Plans that involve a tax increase are worth it, though, because of the associated issues that will become irrelevant, such as violence or police killings. These issues persist today because many don’t have the chance to better themselves because of the monetary wall that has been created.
Reparations for Jewish people are an example of reparations working because they have worked to be one of the highest-income groups in the world after getting these payments. They have received 90 billion dollars through the years 1945-2018. The Holocaust was a great shame to Europe, and they made sure to acknowledge the murders of six million Jewish people. Failing to provide something similar to what Jewish families got in Europe is an embarrassment to the United States and a disgrace to all of the black families living here. After all of these years, it should be apparent to politicians and other prominent figures that black people will never be satisfied until we get compensation for what we went through and the damages to our cultural identities.
The main factors preventing the distribution of reparations are greed and cold-heartedness. The U.S. is a country where you benefit by not empathizing with others and being on the winning end of constant competition. Other countries would have you ostracized for this degree of selfishness. Another factor that plays into this is the form in which these reparations would be distributed. Some people argue black families should receive $2,000 a month for the rest of their lives; others say younger generations should have their college tuition fully covered. The main arguments against these plans would be that these all affect taxpayers and eventually make them contribute more money than they already do to bills, taxes, subscriptions, and many other things. Plans that involve a tax increase are worth it, though, because of the associated issues that will become irrelevant, such as violence or police killings. These issues persist today because many don’t have the chance to better themselves because of the monetary wall that has been created.
mark dace jr
