BLACK LIVES MATTER
White People Should Not Get a Vote on Reparations
Their forefathers enslaved my ancestors. Here’s why white people should not have the right to deny justice
I could not shake off my chains, nor move a yard without the consent of my master. (Charles Bell, an enslaved African man)
In 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates published The Case for Reparations in The Atlantic. His essay makes a compelling case with historical evidence of the direct line from the chattel slavery system to the disparities impacting Black people and their communities today. Still, Black people may want to consider who they are making the pitch to. According to the AP, 83% of white Americans oppose reparations. I can’t help but think that we’re barking up the wrong tree.
White Americans today are descendants of those same white men who held Black people in perpetual bondage. In an ideal scenario, white people today would realize how wrong slavery was and engage in the process of restorative healing. However, America is not the scene of a fairytale.
Some still try to defend the system of slavery. Others try to deny the impact it had and has on Black people. The whole…
