The Case For Reparations By Ta-Nehisi Coates

In his article, The Case for Reparations, Ta-Nehisi Coates insists that “until Americans reckon with their compounding moral debts, America will never be whole”. He writes that after four hundred thirty-five years of racial injustice towards the African American community, the American government owes them. The slavery and slave-like conditions people were put in is something The United States should and will be ashamed of until the end of time. The horrific experiences and tragedies people endured are something that will hopefully never happen again. To think of the innocent who were lynched, raped, assaulted, and found guilty of crimes that they did not commit could make anyone’s stomach turn. Segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the Ku Klux Klan …show more content…
Health care, subsidized housing, and welfare are just a few of the many programs available to people with low or no income. The disadvantages to African Americans that slavery left behind are a problem of the past. Many African Americans are well off. The problems they face today are brought about by high crime rates, family lifestyles, and dependence on welfare. In The Case for Reparations, Coates mentions Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson’s findings of incarceration rates between two neighborhoods. He …show more content…
He makes it seem as if if you do not think reparations should be paid then you must be a racist, white supremacist. That just isn’t the case. Terrible, horrific things happened to slaves, but when the United States government is already trillions of dollars in debt we shouldn’t go giving money out to people that feel almost no repercussions from the slavery that existed here hundreds of years ago. This is money that would coming from tax payers. It wouldn’t be going to former slaves and it wouldn’t make the situation better. Reparations would not fix the damage done in the