I’m a black woman who DOES want reparations!
Oh well, I knew that our convergence of opinion would be limited to just one essay.
I want reparations. I am owed reparations. I deserve reparations. I am not a "victim" begging for people to have mercy on me. I am a PLAINTIFF who needs to remind an unwilling and selfish America of how little it would now be without the blood, sweat, tears, anguish, terror, prejudice, and injustices shared by my ancestors and me. I'm asking for what BELONGS to me. If America had been willing to pay my ancestors what was owed to them, then the accrued interest would not be as staggering as it is today.
Today, as you read this, there are people alive whose last name is Rockefeller. These present-day Rockefellers are millionaires today because of something one of their ancestors did 150 years ago. John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil, perhaps the grandfather of monopolies. When Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, Rockefeller's wealth increased, and his descendants have enjoyed wealth, prestige, and, of course, name recognition, ever since. They have done NOTHING to earn their current privilege. They were simply born with, or married into, the "right" name, and they benefit from the efforts of a long-dead ancestor.
I, too, have a legacy from long-dead ancestors. While I have what I believe to be some truly favorable genetics and a large and proud extended family, I have also inherited the injustices visited upon my forebears. Unpaid and unreimbursed for their work and those of their ancestors, they had few goods, either financial or social, to pass on. The promised "40 acres and a mule" was the first of many promises denied which could have given us a financial foothold.
The accrued interest on NOTHING is NOTHING. Our ancestors did not have the land, property, real estate, or financial goods to pass on to their children, and that interest on NOTHING has determined the poor financial situations of most blacks today. I am not only "well-healed," but I am also "well-heeled." Perhaps I shouldn't complain. However, how much more well-heeled would I, and others, be, if we could have begun with more than the nothing our ancestors were given. That lack of economic, social, and political capital is abuse that happens to us today. It's not something that's over and done with.
I'm glad that you have the gift of able-bodiedness and the ability to work hard. Many others have those gifts, but those gifts were never realized due to opportunities denied to them merely because they weren't white. You see, you have actually argued against yourself.
"I’ve had so many opportunities my ancestors weren’t afforded." Why, yes, you have. Imagine how much MORE success you could have had and with so much LESS effort had only your ancestors been able to pass on such opportunities to you. They couldn't. The interest on their unpaid labor and truncated advantages is what is owed to you, to me, and to others like us. Maybe I don't need a Pell Grant or a first-time homeowner program and classes. I SHOULDN'T NEED THEM. We built other people's homes. My ancestors, and yours, should have been homeowners a century ago, and they should have been able to pass on the proceeds to you and to me.
Reparations? You can call it that. I call it long-overdue back pay with interest. A lot of American institutions had better get their checkbooks ready.
Clearly, you believe what you believe, but I wonder why.
