When most people first hear the idea of paying reparations their first response is "Why?, they weren't slaves, that was in the past. I'm sure that many on here will feel the same way. In fact when I first read about this I thought the same thing, so I did some research and found out that we paid reparations to Japanese families who either were and had direct family members detained in camps during WWII. These American citizens were rounded up, and detained for the duration of the war, they lost their homes, automobiles, and businesses. Well if we saw fit to pay them reparations why not African American families who were affected by slavery? Some might be saying that it happened so long ago how could their be direct affects, well I did some research on that also. What we have to think about is the fact of how long slavery went on in the U.S and how much work African Americans did without every recieving payment. Think of it this way, most rich families have been rich for long periods of time, they amassed their wealth through whatever means and where able to pass it down to the next generations. This is not so in the case of African American families back then, they weren't given their 40 acres and a mule, they didn't have amassed wealth to pass down to their children. It has been estimated that slavey costs African Americans somewhere between 1 and 90 trillion dollars!!! So basically pick a number somewhere in the middle and there you go. Shouldn't we stop saying its all in the past, obviously its not, they're still facing racism, segregation, and oppression in America. It's time we as White Americans take responsibility, sure many may say I wasn't a slave owner so why should I pay reparations with my tax money? Well all I can say is this, it's not going to costs us a fortune to do this, I even have a solution, we could use the tax money that going to space exploration for 6 years and do wonders, its just 6 years what do you'all think?
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If America tried to repay everyone they've wronged in the past, they'd owe almost every group of people in the world.
If the government payed reperations for example to the blacks first, then every race would want one. If one gets one, then everyone should get one. Besides, the government is already in debt. No payments now. But they did it back in the past.