@snood,
I agree whole heartedly that blacks in America have gotten a truly horrible shake, but the harms has decreased over the years since slavery. This is a fact, plain and simple. In the Jim Crow days there may have been a tiny handful of African-Americans for whom reparations might have seemed unnecessary, now there are, at the very least, hundreds of thousands, if not millions who would fit that category.
Taking nothing from the personal experiences of successful African-Americans, but it defies credulity that the government might make payments to Ophra Winfrey, Kaye West, Michael Jordan, Clarence Thomas, Jesse Jackson, Thomas Sowell, or any of MLK progeny and nieces and nephews.
Sometimes a jury in a case where a wrong has been committed but where damages haven't been proven will award the plaintiff one dollar. It's a symbolic award of course, but it remains true to the law. I would be content with such an outcome in this matter, even if the one dollar becomes one thousand dollars or a similar reasonable but not ruinous amount. I doubt however that the African-American community would be.
If the goal is to have a formal recognition of the terrible effect of slavery and racism on a significant segment of our society something like this, I think would fit the bill, but I don't think it has a snowball's chance in hell, and not simply because White bigots would oppose it.
It truly would be wonderful if there was a means to clean the American slate of racism, and it would be worth a great amount of money to do so, but this is a pipe dream. The government could award every African-American a million dollars, but it wouldn't put and end to racism and it wouldn't put an end to people complaining about it. However that is exactly what would be expected: "Jesus Christ we gave you all a million dollars and you're still bitching!"
Unfortunately there is only one solution: Time.
If I were black I wouldn't be happy about that, but that's the way it is.
