<!–

–>

June 6, 2023

Democrats frequently talk about compensation for slavery and Jim Crow in the form of reparations for black Americans. Indeed, House member Cori Bush recently proposed $14 trillion as a good place to start.

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609268089992-0’); }); document.write(”); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function(event) { if (event.slot.getSlotElementId() == “div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3028”) { googletag.display(“div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3028”); } }); }); }

Any reparations plan would be extraordinarily complex. First, if reparations are to be paid, to whom would they be paid? To every one of America’s 45 million blacks? Would that include the 4.5 million blacks who immigrated after Jim Crow was gone? Should the 33 million black Americans age 50 or below whose lives have all occurred since the Voting and Civil Rights Acts passed? How about black families whose ancestors lived in northern states where slavery was largely outlawed before America was a nation, and Jim Crow never existed? How about blacks from states like California and Idaho that had neither slavery nor Jim Crow? Or those of mixed origins with one black parent? Is one black grandparent sufficient, or would it have to be at least 2 of 4? Do black families who earn $200,000 a year still qualify for reparations? How about America’s 1.5 million black millionaires?

If reparations are indeed to be paid, the next question is, who would pay them? America has approximately 250 million white people. Would all of them have to pay? Would those include those whose ancestors arrived after the Civil and Voting Rights Acts passed or whose ancestors arrived after the Civil War, as many Italians and Irish did? What about the 155 million or so white Americans who are 50 or younger and were born after Jim Crow was history? How about those descended from one of the 360,000 white Northern soldiers who lost their lives fighting to end slavery? Or those who live in states that never had slavery or Jim Crow? Do the whites of Wyoming, where the black population is 0.9%, pay the same as Louisiana, where it’s 31%?

Image: African slavers taking their captive fellow Africans to the slave market (1874), from the Internet Book Archive. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Once we’ve nailed down who’s going to get reparations and who’s going to pay them, then we must figure out how much to pay. For the sake of argument, let’s take Cori Bush’s $14 trillion proposal. That works out to $311,000 for every black American. Again, for argument’s sake, let’s say that all 250 million of America’s whites would be responsible for funding that reparation. That would require that every single white person (including babies and retirees) write a check for about $56,000. That’s unlikely to be feasible given that the average median white household income in the US is $78,000.

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609270365559-0’); }); document.write(”); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function(event) { if (event.slot.getSlotElementId() == “div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3035”) { googletag.display(“div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3035”); } }); }); }

So, if writing a check is out of the question, maybe whites need to set up a payment plan, sort of like a mortgage. Spreading the $56,000 out over 15 years at today’s 6.7% interest rate would make for a monthly payment of $494 per white person.

That doesn’t seem too unreasonable, but what about unemployed whites or those on government assistance? Do they pay? What about white kids too young to work? Do they pay, or do their obligations accrue until they turn 18 or get their first job?

Then, of course, who do they make those checks out to? Do the white people get to choose which black people they pay? Or do they make the payment to a pool to be distributed by some upstanding organization that represents black people like the NAACP or BLM or the National Action Network?

Are the payments tax deductible? Maybe we should let the IRS collect the money and have the government distribute it. Would the government need to set up a Department of Reparations to keep the money separate from the rest of the government’s funds? Or maybe the government can pay the whole sum upfront and bill the white people over time.

Would individual black people have a claim on individual white people’s property if the white people didn’t or couldn’t pay? Would jails become debtor’s prisons full of people who can’t pay?

Assuming all those details get figured out, are new black babies entitled to reparations? If yes, for how long? Will black babies born in 2075 still be eligible for payments, and will white ones still be obligated to pay? Is it in perpetuity, or will it only last 100 years?