By Michelle Dang

Staff Writer

  In the United States, African Americans were the victims of slavery for hundreds of years before the 13th Amendment, the amendment that abolished slavery, was instituted. To this day, they have not been compensated for the grievances delivered onto them. However, because of the time length between the abolishment of slavery and now, it would be unrealistic and impractical if reparations should be paid to them.

  The issue with reparations would be how much it would cost for the federal government to pay everyone. According to PBS, it would cost the US between $5.9 and $14.2 trillion to give reparations to all the descendants of slavery in the United States.

  The Constitutional Rights Foundation states that “it is unfair to ask American taxpayers, many of them from families that came to the United States after slavery ended, to pay for the wrongs of slavery.”

  In addition to this, there is question to who would receive the repayments. In other cases, especially with the victims of Japanese internment and the Holocaust, reparations were given to direct successors of those affected. Today, there are no more living black slaves or direct heirs of black slaves to pay the reparations to.

  For something that occurred so long ago, it would be questionable to spend federal time and money to make up for the mistakes that our leaders made in the past. The middle ground that the government would need is to instead focus their attention towards the African Americans that live in the United States today.   

  “I have much more confidence in my ability, or any president or any leader’s ability, to mobilize the American people around a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to help every child in poverty in this country,” former president Barack Obama stated in an interview in the Atlantic with Ta-Nehisi Coates, “providing a benefit specific to African Americans as a consequence of slavery.”

    With more than double black Americans living in poverty compared to the white Americans, the government can make the decision to provide for their necessities and protection. So far, federal and state governments have created programs that help with welfare, subsidized housing, healthcare, employment and education which benefit African Americans in poverty.   

  However, more specifically, the government should focus on how the criminal justice system mistreats African Americans. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), people of color are arrested five times more than white Americans and from Vox, unarmed minorities are 25 percent more likely to be shot by police than white Americans. Enacting legislation that adequately addresses police misconduct would be a first step in alleviating criminal justice system bias.

  Since it is unrealistic to give reparations to all the descendants of slavery in the United States, what can be done now for the current black Americans who are mistreated by the governmental systems should be the main focus.