Harris Supports Reparations for African-Americans

SBINSIDER NEWS\ANALYSIS| September 7th, 2024

Reparations are a political issue that bubbled prominently to the surface in 2024. In 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a long article in the Atlantic with what he sees as the continuing effects of slavery and suggested that government should endeavor to identify living victims and write them a check and provide other government benefits.

The issue has reappeared because of the candidacy of VP Kamala Harris. She has consistently supported reparations for most of her public life. The following quote is from this past July when asked about reparations:

“I think there has to be some form of reparations and we could discuss what that is, but look, we’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery,” she said. “We’re looking at almost 100 years of Jim Crow. We’re looking at legalized segregation and in fact segregation on so many levels that exist today based on race and there has not been any kind of intervention done understanding the harm and the damage that occurred to correct [the] course. And so we are seeing the effects of all those years play out still today.”

She went further: 

“Yeah, including things like what we should be doing to take very seriously undiagnosed and untreated trauma,” she said.

Besides the obvious problems of trying to discern which citizens are entitled to reparations, it would be unprecedented for the US government to take tax dollars and cut a check to citizens today who never owned slaves or whose ancestors never did either. The US elected a 50% Black president in 2008 with the expectation that maybe the idea that “structural racism” no longer existed and Obama is the proof. But no. That turned out to be a momentary pause in the continuing quest by Black activists (and many guilty White liberals) to keep this issue alive. The reason simple-it is a grift for the activists, the Democratic Party could not win elections at the National level without the 90% vote it gleans from African-Americans, and feeds the notion that the US is uniquely racist and the majority white population should feel guilty and pay up.

What Happens Next?

The main question that is seldom asked to those race activists or political candidates is: Ok, suppose the American people accept that reparations are owed some people, what happens the day after you get the check? The answer has been that there are so many issues related to what is owed besides cash. PBS has a series entitled American Black Journal that directly addresses the other issues that drive the wealth gap between the average White and average Black. The answer are not concrete. Mostly you hear platitudes about “dignity” and a real public apology like the Japanese Americans who were illegally imprisoned in WWII received.

From this viewpoint, it is the same argument that all politics is about: Who gets what? The Democrats seem intent on keeping their Black voters thinking everyday that they are still victims of the government (controlled by the White majority) at all levels and only voting for Democrat candidates can bring the reparations they demand.