Essay On Reparations For African Americans

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Recommended: Slavery in America

In response to the quote, "I support reparations for slavery in the United States" I strongly oppose this statement. However, I do believe that this debate is a very sensitive subject and is not something I thought I would be encountered with. After, intensely analyzing these articles I have come to my conclusion about this topic. When reading David Horowitz 's report, "Ten reasons why reparations for blacks is a bad idea for blacks and racist, too!" I found myself agreeing with just about everything he stood for. Although, when I was studying the writings of Randall Robinson, "America 's debt to black" I was astonished by what he had to say, because I was not in agreement. Also, slavery in America started in 1619 and ended in 1865, which …show more content…

Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?" (Horowitz 1) This information is quite often overlooked. When many people talk of slave owners they automatically think Caucasians. Today, I do not know how we would be able to establish who would pay the reparations and who would receive them due to the lack of information we have from so long ago. How are we to know who is a descendant of a slave? I will argue that there is no one person responsible for slavery, so therefore why should a certain category of people owe a debt today?

In Horowitz 's article he stated that "Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves."(1) Therefore, why would it be fair to punish all Americans by making them pay reparations when only a small minority owned slaves in the first place. How would paying African Americans solve anything when not all of their descendants were slaves? This is not fair in any way in my opinion. "What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves?"(Horowitz 1) Have they not already paid their reparations by offering up their lives? The Union also known as the North is included under America. With that being said how is it reasonable to want all of America to pay for something, when only half (the South) was responsible. Also not all of the South owned slaves in fact, "This is true even for those who lived in the antebellum South where only one white in …show more content…

Most of the things that I included in this paper were backed up by Horowitz 's facts found in his article. However some of the facts that were in his discussion I did not agree with at all. This did not change my opinion on reparations for slavery at all though. I also read Robert Chrisman and Ernest Allen 's "Ten Reasons: A Response to David Horowitz. Reviewing this article gave me a different point of view about some things. Although, I would not say that I totally agree with this

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