More and more US Democratic Presidential candidates are supporting some form of financial reparations for descendants of African American slaves:
Even among the 2020 Democrats who stopped short of endorsing reparations, several have laid out robust policies aimed at closing the gap in wealth between black and white families. Scholars estimate that black families in America today earn just $57.30 for every $100 in income earned by white families, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. For every $100 in white family wealth, black families hold just $5.04.
It's a difficult topic imo. Black families were originally planned to get paybacks in land and money (if you've ever heard the expression "40 acres and a mule") but never got it. Instead they had to start from nothing, regardless of the racial discrimination they faced from the abolition of slavery in the 1860s to the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. Some even ended up working back on the plantations they were freed from at a very minor wage, and by the time Reconstruction ended, they were living in practical slavery for many more generations. Meanwhile, white families who profited from slavery kept their profits and see that benefit today. This down the line leads to the massive wealth inequality between African Americans and everyone else in the US.
There's also the argument that the mass incarceration of African Americans, stealing mothers and fathers and children from Black families, is the "new slavery". Lost generations of potential wealth, all due to government-sanctioned racism. When you contextualize the value of all the lost wages, or the financial cost of the pain and suffering, it becomes an EXTREMELY expensive endeavor. But is it worth it?
What are some of your thoughts? Does the US government have an obligation to provide financial pay-back to make up for all the lost wealth from hundreds of years of racism and unpaid labor?
