The African American community has always been plagued by racial oppression and brutality in America. As the country wants us to believe that it is trying to move progressively forward and away from its racist history, the topic of reparations seems to always be pushed under the rug. Should African Americans be awarded monies for the less than humane treatment we have received throughout history that have, perhaps, traumatized an entire group of people and its ancestors? Absolutely. President Obama thinks so, too, but unfortunately he says that it would be extremely difficult to do so.
In an interview with The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, POTUS opened up about his thoughts on reparations, civil rights and more.
“Theoretically, you can make, obviously, a powerful argument that centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination are the primary cause for all those gaps [between white and black people],” Obama told Coates. “That those were wrongs done to the black community as a whole, and black families specifically, and that in order to close that gap, a society has a moral obligation to make a large, aggressive investment, even if it’s not in the form of individual reparations checks, but in the form of a Marshall Plan, in order to close those gaps.”
The only thing that prevents him or anyone from moving forward with the process is that it would be difficult to find political support in doing so. “So the bottom line is that it’s hard to find a model in which you can practically administer and sustain political support for those kinds of efforts,” the president explained.
What makes his interview interesting is that back in September, the United Nations demanded that the United States pay reparations to African Americans for a history of “racial terrorism.”
“This conclusion was part of a study by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a body that reports to the international organization’s High Commissioner on Human Rights. The group of experts, which includes leading human rights lawyers from around the world, presented its findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, pointing to the continuing link between present injustices and the dark chapters of American history.
“In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report stated. “Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching.”
Roommates, do you think that African Americans will ever receive reparations?
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Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/ta-nehisi-coates-obama-transcript-ii/511133/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/27/u-s-owes-black-people-reparations-for-a-history-of-racial-terrorism-says-u-n-panel/?postshare=2041475011560185&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.c84893e45021
