This week, Democratic Party leaders renewed their push for a reparations program that would, presumably, repay black Americans for 19th-century slavery.
Missing from this proposal is…well…everything except an empty promise. As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently pointed out, there is simply no way to calculate who would receive these benefits, and who would pay for them. Why should someone of Italian or Irish heritage whose family crossed through Ellis Island during the early 1900s be responsible for what someone else’s ancestors did decades prior?
Moreover — how do we calculate who is eligible for this? Not every black American is descended from slaves. Even less white Americans are descended from slave owners. At the height of the institution’s power, five percent of white Americans owned slaves — and it was normally one or two at a time. The idea of every white southern family having a vast plantation simply isn’t true. Slaves would cost money — and only the very rich were able to afford what you often see in historical dramas.
This isn’t about justice. This is about literally buying black votes.
~ Facts Not Memes
