Essay On Why African Americans Should Not Pay Reparation

The United States as a country has no shortages of questionable actions. Some people say that the country has not paid for a few of the serious actions, although the country has. One of these questionable actions is slavery. The major question is how do people repay the African American Community for what the country did to them all those years ago. The U.S. government should not pay reparations to the African American community, the reason for this is because of lineage and the money problems the country.
One reason why the citizens shouldn’t pay reparations is lineage, it would be very difficult and time consuming for the government to go through and trace back every slave from the 1700’s. According to David Frum, a first generation

immigrant from Africa is considered to be an African American. If the government want’s to repay the people the citizens, wronged over 200 years ago the government would need to sort out the African Americans who were here and who were not here. This would also be hard because of the racial mixing over the generations (David Frum). Such as, if somebody’s great great grandfather owned a plantation and two generations later a white person married a black person and the citizens paid money them, then the people would also be paying the plantation owner because it was mixed some where down the line. Some people may say that it does not matter because the country is still wronging all them. If that is the case the citizens as a whole need to figure out what the government would be paying for, whether it is slavery or the 2010’s. According to the Philadelphia Plan, which is a federal affirmative action program established in 1967 to racially integrate the African American population into the workforce. What it exactly did was set quotas for business owners and public colleges to higher or enroll more African Americans otherwise there taxes would increase until the business couldn't pay them anymore and half to close down (US Congress). This shows that the government has been regulating the work force so more African Americans can get jobs in business. Wouldn’t this count as a reparation already, so why would the citizens need to pay more for things that are already regulated.
Another reason that the country should not pay reparations is the money problem of the United States.

Reparations always use money because in order to pay people the government need money to pay them with. Even if the government increased education that would still take money in taxes. According to David Frum even if the citizens all wanted to pay the African American population the country would not have the money to do that. The only possible way is to increase taxes on everybody, making sure nobody has money because the citizens are all paying it in taxes to the African Americans for reparations (David Frum). Some people may say that people can pay reparations without money, such as increasing their public schools or supplying them with food. According to Kyle Smith (what news company) in hindsight, this might seem like a good idea, although the government can not increase public schools without taking taxes because they are funded by the government. Also the citizens of the country have to buy the food somehow, it always involves money (Kyle Smith). When the government taxes the American people there will always be out cry in what is a right tax and what is a wrong tax. The average white American pays 25% of their income in taxes. If the government would make another tax for say reparations, that would make it to be that over 25% of people's income is going to taxes and not to the

people.
Some people say that the citizens are still wronging them and even if people do not have money to pay them people can pay without money. If people that are poor can not pay money and the rich can, wouldn’t that be discriminating against the rich and making them pay more because they have more money? Also if the government is trying to make up the people's wrongs to the African Americans what about the Native Americans who the country slaughtered or the Hispanic Americans or the Japanese Americans, the list goes on and on. According to the US government it is not fair to only pay reparations to the African American populations but all Americans (Black past). Where will the reparations end? If the country has wronged so many people in the past the government can not use money to fix things. The to fix this problem is with love and not holding grudges and forgiving people for things in the past, and moving on with the his or her life.
The United States government should not pay reparations to the African American community. The reason for this is because of lineage, money problems, and what people want to be paid for. The reason that lineage would be a problem is, the government couldn’t possibly trace back every slave from the 1700’s. Another reason is the government couldn’t possibly pay for reparations without increasing taxes on the people. Lastly the people would need to figure out what they are being paid for, whether slavery or the 2000’s. Some people may say that the American people wouldn’t have to pay them in money, but everything costs money through taxes and even if the citizens didn’t pay them directly the people would still be paying for their care.