Does the United States owe Black Americans compensation for the brutality of slavery and the lingering effects of segregation and other forms of racial discrimination?

Those in favor of reparations argue that slavery was the foundation of much of the nation’s antebellum wealth. At emancipation, enslaved people represented the most valuable asset in America, “$3 billion in 1860 dollars, more than all the other assets in the country combined,” Ta-Nehisi Coates told a House panel in 2019 testimony. 

The U.S. government has paid reparations to Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, and even compensated some former slave owners. Proponents ask, why not Black Americans?

Those who oppose reparations argue that such a broad approach is politically untenable, difficult to design, unaffordable, and perhaps unconstitutional. 

Central to the opposition is the idea that guilt should not pass down the generations. Others say that monetary payments would cast Black Americans in the role of eternal victims. Reparations would also be extremely expensive. Draft recommendations from California’s Reparations Task Force run into the billions.

Yet some efforts have moved forward. In 2021, Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to approve housing-related reparations for Black residents. And Harvard University has set aside $100 million for an endowment aimed at closing racial economic and social gaps.

Link : https://www.csmonitor.com/Daily/2023/20230616?cmpid=ema:Free_Trial_Daily:20230616&id=1162632