Adonnis Jamal :
That whole “it’s a privilege, not a right” argument falls apart the second history is put on the table. The reality is: some of the wealthiest American institutions — banks like JPMorgan Chase, insurance companies like Aetna, railroads like CSX, even universities like Harvard and Georgetown — directly profited from slavery. Enslaved people weren’t “privileged guests,” they were the unpaid labor force that built the foundation of the so-called “greatest nation.”
Reparations were supposed to be paid — 40 acres and a mule wasn’t a myth, it was promised after the Civil War, then snatched away. The people who should have received reparations are long dead, yes, but that’s not an argument against paying. It’s actually an indictment of America’s delay. Waiting until all the original claimants were gone and then saying, “Well, too late now” is like stealing someone’s wages, waiting for them to die, and then telling their children they don’t deserve the inheritance.
If those reparations had been paid when they were owed, their descendants would have inherited land, wealth, and opportunity instead of generational poverty. That’s not abstract — white families today benefit from inherited wealth, property, and institutions that slavery financed, while Black families were locked out. Pretending the debt vanished because time passed is just another way of saying theft becomes legitimate if you stall long enough.
2025-09-12 00:30:12