Every candidate backing reparations is bullshitting you.
Let’s start with the first backer: Marianne Williamson proposed $100 billion in reparations to the Black community. While that sounds nice, it only amounts to $2,500 per Black person in the United States—that’s about one month’s labor at $15 an hour.
That ain’t a reparations plan, it’s an “alleviate white guilt” plan.
Backpay alone for unpaid wages for slavery amounts to 6.5 trillion dollars, which would give $162,500 to every Black person in the United States.
That’s looking at slavery alone, not the 150 years of racism that followed.
That’s ignoring wage discrimination from 1865 until now.
That’s ignoring the many hours spent fighting for equality, for the pain and suffering inflicted upon black Americans who did stand up for their rights.
That’s ignoring redlining.
That’s ignoring “coloreds only” and “back of the bus.” That’s ignoring mass incarceration and the War on Drugs.
Racism is not an insurmountable problem, but it’s going to take serious research and a targeted plan, not just signing a paltry one-time check. Any candidate supporting “reparations” who isn’t willing to back HR 40 is straight playing you.
They don’t understand the debt America owes for unpaid Black labor. They don’t understand the pain and suffering America has inflicted on Black Americans. And they don’t want to understand, or they’d be willing to study it.
