America Should Pay Reparations to African Americans

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America Should Pay Reparations to African Americans

The United States government should pay reparations to African Americans as a means of admitting their wrong-doing and making amends. The damages African Americans have sustained from White America’s policy of slavery have been agonizing and inhumane. Therefore, I am in favor of reparations for African Americans. The effect of slavery has been an enduring issue within the African American community. Many of us are cognizant of the harm racism brought to the African American race, conveyed through slavery, racial segregation and discrimination. African Americans suffered many atrocities, but the greatest damage done to them was the destruction of they’re original identity. African Americans no longer have a native language or any African customs to connect them to Africa. Today, African Americans are connected together because they all share a common foundation-the horrendous experience of slavery-and the great effort to conquer its lingering result.(www.AcedemicLibrary.com)

Americans should realize the magnitude of slavery’s consequences on African Americans as a whole. Blacks were brainwashed and stripped of self-esteem and taught to be ashamed of dark color of their skin. Many African Americans have effortlessly tried to advocate “Black Pride”, trying to re-instill self-worth and being proud of our distinct facial and body features, and darker complexions. African Americans had zilch to begin with after the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Slaves were promised a “mule/ and 40 acres” and they didn’t live to receive it nor did generations to follow; because the American government has yet to live up to its word. The fruit of the slaves’ labor was stolen from the “land of the free”. The victims of the White people’s African slave trade never experienced such freedom. This race deserves compensation for the mistreatment

it has suffered and continues to endure. Paying reparations to the descendants of African American slaves would bring about a tremendous improvement for the advancement of Black America. (Douglass, Fredrick, 1845, Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass).

White Americans have profited from education, life experiences, riches that were handed down by their ancestors. As well, African Americans have been handed down the hardship of race-rela...

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...nation: a civilized country which respects civil and human rights, encourages opportunity for and well-being of all her people, and can be trusted by other nations as a county whom honors her word. Well, America promised African Americans 40 acres and a mule and didn’t live up to her promise. America’s attitude and silence on reparations reeks of hypocrisy. (X, Malcolm, Biography of Malcolm X).

America should also pay reparations to African Americans because they consistently want us to labor for their work and take all the credit. For instance America is at fault for African American dead and injured men who served and were drafted in the Vietnam War. America put young black men on the front-line of a war they had nothing to do with nor helped contribute to. America wanted a race that was not yet “capable” of voting but was competent enough to fight in a war. A race that did not have the option of drinking from any fountain, sitting anywhere on a bus, using any bathroom, however we were fit for fighting. The point is America constantly benefits from African Americans, but refuses to compensate African Americans for their contributions to this country. (www. AcedemicLibrary.com)

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