The idea that those who never owned slaves should pay reparations to those who never were slaves is insane

You realize that wealth is passed down generationally right? Like, that if I rob your parents and that takes opportunity away from you, that you were also wronged.

I bet you are angry about the death tax, too.

So if some thief steals from my mother, not only can my mom sue him, I can sue him too?

Yes, because you are part of your mother's estate.

If your father dies, and it later comes out that his business partner stole a billion dollars from him during their dealings together, you get to sue his business partner.

But what if my parents aren't dead yet?

That will depend on the laws where you are, but has nothing to do with the conversation.

My point is that the son should not bear the iniquity of the father. Yes some white people from a long time ago enslaved black people and benefited from it and so did their descendants, at least economically. But that doesn't mean these descendants now owe present-day black people anything. Plus you have to take into account that some white people did not own any slaves at all. So if you really truly want to do this reparation thing then you would need to find out which white people owned slaves and which ones didn't.

So we should just take the aggregate, and use government funds to lift up oppressed communities. It was the government after all that allowed and enforced slave laws, and the government that enforced Jim Crow laws, and the police that enforced those laws.

It's not just slavery either. Things like subsidized farm loans were given to whites and systemically kept from black families all the way into the 40's and 50's. And red-lining continued into the 70's. And voting rights violations and the drug war continue into the present day and impact the same communities that were the descendents of slavery.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Nov 6 2021 04:10pm

But that's like collective punishment. Yes you made it sound like a good thing by using the words "lift up oppressed communities" but it just boils down to, take money from white people and give it to black people, even though the government is supposed to be color-blind and its job is to care for all citizens.



I am not disagreeing that successive governments have to atone for the wrongs done by previous governments, because this is also how things are done in my country. For example, we give money to wrongfully interned Japanese canadians, even though it was done by a different government from a different time period. But something about it just bothers me. The people who put them in camps are long gone, they are most likely all dead. Why should the present-day government have to give out reparations, which is money taken from present-day white people, who have nothing to do with the internment?


I admit that there have been some racist laws and policies, however, I feel that regular people should not have to pay for the mistakes and wrongdoings of their government.