The Case for Reparations
Since 1619 African-Americans have been exploited. From being made into slaves to dealing with institutionalized racism black people have been through a lot. So the question is, do we as African Americans deserve payback? I mean after all this nation was built by the hands of a slave. From railroad tracks to traffic signals, this whole country is based off of the innovations and inventions of African-Americans. So how is it that most of the African American community is living in poverty? I mean you would think as much work as we have done just to better a country who disrespects our kind on the daily. If every slave were to have gotten properly paid for all of the labor that they performed African-Americans would have a steady platform of wealth just the same as Caucasians. African Americans always had to work harder for everything we have. Just until about 60 years ago blacks weren’t even paid the same amount as whites for doing the same job. So my answer is yes. Even though we weren’t the ones who were in the slave fields we were still the ones given the short straw. Think about it. In average every slave worked 16 hours a day, 6 days a week and slaves usually worked about 28-32 years. According to my calculations on average even if each slave were paid minimum wage they would have made 7,113,120. Before I continue I do not believe every black person in America should get paid 7 million dollars (even though that would be nice), but I do believe that this money should be put into the impoverished African-American communities. This money should be used to better the education systems in these communities. I believe that they should give those without opportunity one so that there will be no more ghettos, and no more hoods. I believe reparations would be nice and I do feel as if they are needed, but realistically I don’t believe they’ll never happen be we are still living in a repressive society who doesn’t care about the rights we...