Why Reparations Are Impractical
Some believe that the descendants of slaves should receive reparations for the colonial past, but I believe this is not a practical way to improve the lives of African Americans due to the impracticality and the difficulty of actually executing it successfully. While the sentiment is good, reparations will reveal issues of unfairness when it comes to who is selected, and it will lead to more controversy than it will solutions. There are so many challenges in actualizing reparations that it will not be an effective plan.
It is undeniable that so much was taken from slaves and their descendants in the history of America. Reparations do not just mean giving financial compensation; reparations can also constitute giving back land or property to those whose ancestors were wrongly stolen from. The effects of these injustices that occurred during or directly after slavery still impact Black Americans today. African Americans have continued to struggle disproportionately, and it is not a coincidence. In Ta-Nehisi Coates The Atlantic article called “The Case for Reparations,” he explains, “As a rule, poor black people do not work their way out of the ghetto — and those who do often face the horror of watching their children and grandchildren tumble back.” He argues that black people have had the resources to be less successful than their white counterparts due to the lingering effects of slavery.
Reparations do not just mean giving financial compensation. Reparations can also constitute giving back land or property to people and families whose ancestors did not receive adequate payment or had something unfairly taken from them. According to Coates, many black Americans had property taken from them “stretching back to the antebellum period.” He claims that “The land was taken through means ranging from legal chicanery to terrorism.” By using individual cases of injustices, Coates makes a strong argument that slaves and their descendants were taken advantage of during and after slavery. While I agree that this was and still is the case, I believe reparations are unrealistic and will ultimately be an ineffective way to make amends with the descendants of slaves.
To start, many descendants of slaves are primarily white or mixed with white. For example, I am mixed, with a majority of my ancestry being white, but I still have ancestors enslaved in America. This is not uncommon in today’s society. Many people can even be much more “white-passing” than myself but still have ancestors that were slaves. To give these people benefits when they likely face little to no racial discrimination today would probably be a controversial decision. This is not the only point of contention when it comes to who qualifies for reparations. David Frum, in his Atlantic article about “The Impossibility of Reparations,” describes the complexity when it comes to deciding who can receive reparations. He asks, “Does a mixed-race person qualify? How mixed? What about recent immigrants from Africa or the West Indies? What about future immigrants?” All these questions pose severe threats to the practicality of reparations and highlight the flaws of this system.
Furthermore, it is possible to argue that other races of people in America have suffered as much or in similar as African-Americans. For example, Japanese Americans went through years of suffering during World War II. They would not be compensated with these reparations. Is this fair that one race receives benefits for their ancestor’s adversities but others do not? Furthermore, other races and ethnicities such as Hispanics, Indians, and Middle Eastern people experience a lot of the same discrimination in present-day society that African Americans face. Giving only one group reparations will most likely provoke indignation from other groups. Frum claims that “Within only a very few months of the implementation of the Philadelphia plan, preferences of various kinds were extended to women, Hispanics, and other groups.” Reparations now not only cover a large amount of African American ancestors but also include other groups which only inflates the impracticality. We need to create a solution to improve the effects of institutional racism for all people instead of just trying to give benefits to one group.
In addition, during and after the Civil War, many slaves and their families left the country, going up North or back to Africa. Americans also have emigrated to other countries for many years since that time as well. These slaves suffered as much as those whose families remained in America, but they would most likely not receive reparations because they were no longer citizens. It is not practical to give reparations to all descendants of slaves because of the way they have dissipated over time, but it is also not fair to only make amends with those who live in America.
Moreover, because of the sheer amount of descendants of slaves, it is not economically feasible to give everyone impactful reparations. The number of offspring from enslaved people in America is extremely large and increases exponentially every year. It’s hard to imagine that The United States has the resources or motivation to give each one of these descendants impactful reparations. What would most likely happen is that everyone would get insignificant compensation or some would receive greater amounts than others, which reveals issues of inequity. Since so many people have enslaved ancestors, it seems increasingly difficult to pinpoint who will be able to benefit from reparations.
Even if we could identify a perfectly eligible person to receive reparations, past attempts have shown to be unsuccessful. Affirmative Action is a program established in America to attempt to counteract the disadvantages that black Americans experience. This program gives preference in employment and admissions to African Americans. The idea of this is not bad, but it is impossible to overlook the adverse effects. Affirmative Action can give African Americans a leg up, but it also prevents them from being entrepreneurs, and according to Frum, “Black Americans are less than half as likely as white to own their own businesses.” Affirmative action only creates a broader divide between races, and it has a variety of drawbacks that we have seen in the past. If we do move past all the challenges in eligibility and actually create a system that gives reparations to descendants of slaves, the outcome may not be as positive as many hope.
It is not realistic to make reparations happen in a powerful way. It is undeniable that black Americans have faced extreme atrocities throughout American history, but I do not think reparations are the most impactful way to solve these problems due to their impracticality. Reparations will likely not only marginally improve the lives of the descendants of slaves, but it will also not solve racism in our country as a whole. Giving people reparations does not ensure prosperity and success for these people in the present or future. Instead, we should focus on solving the inequities that continue to occur today. I argue that we should put programs in place and focus on helping all people of color who are suffering, even if it is due to grievances of the past. To truly solve the problem, we need to look deeper and solve the institutional racism instead of simply covering it up with unrealistic handouts that will ultimately be temporary.
