The White Guy's explanation for why African Americans should be paid reparations for slavery struck a chord with many of our readers. Most don't think cash payments are realistic solutions, but many advocate reparations in the form of scholarships, training and access to capital for descendents of slaves and Native Americans. Others don't support reparations at all. And one reader thinks women should get reparations from men.
(See also: Reparations: What White People Need to Know)
Here's what DiversityInc readers had to say:
I would support reparations if they were put into funds for scholarships, grants to schools for enrichment programs in at-risk districts, and other educational and training endeavors. I don't think that cash reparations to individual descendents of slaves are realistic. Also, I wonder how one would begin to calculate the value of generations of enslavement to come up with a dollar figure; freedom is priceless.
—Marlene Willauer
As an African-American woman, I don't support reparations as a viable concept. The mixture of people of color, added with people of Caribbean heritage who would not necessarily qualify as direct descendents of American slavery, would at best be difficult to sort out. The alternative I probably would mostly support would be that some incentive be provided to level the economic playing field. A business incubator that would support qualified individuals in starting businesses that would employ with equal pay scales and opportunities for advancement as well as development.
—Doris Day
The country still has not paid for the land it has taken via "treaties" from Native Americans, and there is such huge denial on this issue. It does not surprise me that there is limited insight into the ugly things in our past. There is a pattern in this nation of forgetting what has been unethical and inhumane in the development of the U.S. We are constantly in denial of our own faults but willingly point out others' faults. Yet, there is still hope that we may grow up someday and acknowledge what we have done to others and demonstrate positive change.
—LaVonne Fox
Reading your recent article about why reparations are necessary, it occurs to me that women definitely deserve reparations from men! I doubt that you will address this issue with the sincerity and fairness it deserves, but I will not let myself be guilty of not at least speaking up and speaking out!
Women were oppressed not just for hundreds of years, but for thousands. Women were very much enslaved; they had little to no rights and were literally owned by the men of their families. Women were not permitted to own land or to aggregate wealth. They were prevented from receiving education.
Women are still disadvantaged as a general group today. Women are still treated as second-class citizens from birth to death. Women are still denied education in favor of men. In my own family, as recent as when my mother was growing up, the money went to college education for boys first. There was no money left for girls by the time it was used up by the boys, nor was there any desire to give them that chance even when there was money left over.
Women need reparations in order to fund programs that elevate girls from marginalized second-class citizens to people of affluence and influence proportionate to their numbers in society.
—Jennifer Vanderputten
Are you serious? Make someone pay for something they didn't do, to someone that something wasn't done to, to make them "rise to their potential." I'm sorry, but if it takes reparations to make someone or a group "rise to their potential," it doesn't make it right. Right now it's only African Americans, but what about the Latin and Hispanic population? They will be the majority in the very near future. So what do we do to raise them to their "potential"? Oh, what about LGBTs? Now that there are domestic-partnership benefits available, should we backdate it and cover all the medical bills they had during their partnership? If you go to jail for ten years and they realize they made a mistake, then yes, you should be paid. Your great-great-grandkids should not. I was told, "To be great you have to Learn, Unlearn and Relearn." Right now we have to unlearn the hate that was geared towards us and learn that the future contains potential for everyone, as long as YOU are willing to get it for yourself.
—Russ Canty
This article is just the continuing fuel that people use. If we are all created equal, then why don't white people who have had a bad beginning get more? We have to let go of the past that none of the people living now had anything to do with. This needs to be a country of equality, not making up for things the current people cannot fix. We all have problems. I work for a school system that [has] two African Americans [who] make more money than [I do] for the same position. I have more years of experience and more education. Where is your justice there? I have no trouble working side by side with African Americans; I have for 23 years, but equal is equal no matter the color.
—Debra Brogan
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