Reparations are not a stupid idea. We've paid off a number of special interest groups including hundreds of corporations. The one group that has never received compensation is African Americans decedents of slaves.
1. The United States accepted slavery into it's newly formed country.
2. The slaves gained freedom, yay! But with little to no resources. We weren't given free land to settle like Texans or an apparatus of support like immigrants landing in this country (Boss Tweed operations and such)
3. Jim Crow in the South and unwritten Jim Crow in the north.
4. Red Lining neighborhoods making it difficult for blacks to obtain loans or mortgages. How can we start a business without the funding afforded to every other type of American?
5. The number of blue collar jobs decreased, so who was the first to go or last to be hired? Blacks
6. Lack of economic opportunity, coupled with CIA and FBI initiatives, lead to the growth of crime in black neighborhoods.
7. Now the once middle/lower working class neighborhoods are crime infested with low income, meaning the schools are underfunded.
8. Socially we are the face (or scapegoat) of welfare programs, despite the fact the whites are the main beneficiaries. America views blacks as scary, lazy, crime obsesses peoples that refuse to pull ourselves up.
All of these injustices are my reasoning for reparations. No one alive was a slave, but every one of us lost generations of the American Dream because of our skin color match that of this countries largest population of slaves. Other immigrants had a taught time in America as well, but the obstacles listed above were not placed in their way. Eventually, most immigrants assimilated as one group of white people or brought their cultural sense of community to the States to create prosperity, like our Asian brothers and sisters. Blacks were stripped of our ancestral history. Our history starts in slave ships.
It's time to make it right. Doesn't have to be all about hardcore cash, but something should be done.