Can Reparations Become Reality?

A respectful political analysis of the dubious legislative path for Reparations for Black American descendants of slaves in the United States.

We’re not having a serious political conversation about Reparations. This is something that millions of Black people around the country are concerned about and I think it’s about time someone gives the subject an honest, yet respectful political analysis and that’s why I’m here today. 

So Black folks, before y’all put me up on the “coon” cross and crucify me just hear me out…

And this is ‘not be a Republican, vote for Trump.’ I’m not Candace Owens and I don’t give a damn whether you vote Republican or not. Don’t vote for Trump, who cares, it doesn't change the validity of this analysis. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything or change anyone’s politics. I only ask the questions that we should be asking ourselves. What you do with your answers to those questions is up to you.

I want to start by saying that I’m what’s called an #ADOS (American Descendant of Slaves) or #FBA (Foundational Black American), depending on who you ask. These are two internet-stylized ways of saying that my ancestors were slaves in this country, having come here via the Middle Passage from the coast of West Africa between the 1400s to 1800s, on both sides, and I have the paperwork to prove it. My great great great great grandfather, Hampshire Brown was a slave. So, I’m not a “tether” as they say, my lineage (and hairline, as that’s supposedly a thing now) checks out. So if Reparations ever were a thing, I’d be getting a check and I’d be cashing said check. 

Yet in reality, Reparations is about as real as the Easter Bunny and I mean this as no disrespect to grass roots activists like Yvette Carnell & Antonio Moore, Tariq Nasheed, Mechee X and even Dr. Umar Johnson who are in the pro-Reparations space. I follow them all, can’t say I necessarily agree with their hotter rhetoric, but I find them all interesting and in some cases quite entertaining. But in listening to their musings on Reparations I find that there are a few things political process-wise that seemingly haven’t quite been considered.

I have a whole Reparations chapter in my upcoming book where I do an even deeper dive into this.

Simply put, Reparations in this current iteration is never going to happen, because it was never meant to actually happen. It is meant to be a political wedge issue designed to tether Black people to the Democrat Party.

We tend to get caught up in the argument of whether Black people “deserve” Reparations and if anyone says we don’t, then that person is a racist, everybody starts fighting and the conversation cul-de-sacs there.

In reality, it’s not a matter of deserve or don't deserve. Does Zelenskyy’s Ukraine deserve hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, yet they’re getting them… why? Is it because they are White? No. It’s because overseas war is profitable and most importantly it’s politically advantageous and Reparations is not as politically advantageous. Foreign war brings political factions together as the war in Ukraine has bipartisan support, yet the domestic war for Reparations (especially as it is now marketed) keeps political factions apart, and that’s by design.

There are 4 points to consider:

1. If Democrats wanted to pass Reparations they could have passed it in 2009/2010 when Obama & Democrats had full supermajority control of Congress. They could have passed it and the Republicans wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop it, so why didn’t they? Why is Reparations only a thing when Democrats are out of power in Congress? If Reparations didn’t pass under the "first Black president,” do you really expect it to pass under some random White dude?
   
   The same way the rebellious group of 20 congresspeople led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Lauren Boebert & Rep. Byron Donalds refused to vote for Kevin McCarthy’s speakership earlier this year, before their populist Republican issues were addressed (and for this they were roundly made fun of by Democrats and #BlackTwitter) is the same way the Congressional Black Caucus should have held out their past votes for Nancy Pelosi’s speakership until a vote for the actual funding of, not just the study of, Reparations was put on the House floor. Nancy Pelosi would not have been seated without their approval. If our Black Democrat Representatives in Congress are so for Reparations, why didn’t they use their actual political power, their voting power to move it forward when they had the chance?
   
   For widespread Reparations to happen for 30-40 million Black people in this country it would have to happen at the federal level and may even take adding an amendment to the US Constitution in order to solve this issue for once and for all. We’re talking House majority with at least 60 votes in the Senate to release the billions or possibly trillions from the US treasury that these current Reparations proposals are calling for. No one state has the power to do this or can even afford to do this without federal help, not even California.
   
   So what about California? Great question. California is not a competitive state for Democrats. It’s the bluest of blue states. Democrats can propose whatever radical proposals they want through California and face zero danger of losing any ground there politically. They can tell you', sure we’re gonna give you five million dollars just because you’re Black, in California. And once whatever they propose out of California gets to the Supreme Court and dies at the federal level, they can always blame the “racist” Republicans. But if Reparations was a real thing for Democrats to actually pass into actual law and actually do, Democrat Congressional leadership would be trying to push it through the legislative body, Congress, where laws are actually made, not through disingenuous executive orders and show trials in the courts.
   
   And speaking of legislation, let’s see how many Democrat Senators, the actual legislators, the lawmakers support Reparations outside of California.
   
   The 2024 electoral map doesn't look good for Democrats. Of the 33 Senate seats that are up for election, Democrats are defending 23 of them. Republicans are only defending 10 seats. Three Democrat incumbents represent states won by Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 (Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia), while no Republican incumbents represent states won by Joe Biden in 2020. Democrats are also defending Senate seats in six states that Biden won by a single-digit margin (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota, and Maine) while Republicans are defending only two seats in states that Trump won by a single-digit margin (Florida and Texas). Former Democrat, now Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema's first term is ending in Arizona, a state that Biden won by less than a quarter of a point in 2020.
   
   So if you want to know the real possibility of Reparations happening in real life you’d have to ask yourself: Would Democrat senators up for reelection in 2024 in states Biden didn’t win or barely won, and/or senators representing states with smaller Black populations like Krysten Sinema of Arizona, Jon Tester of Montana, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin vote yes on Reparations if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat were to bring a vote to the Senate floor tomorrow (and he could if he wanted to)? You know and I know what the answer would be.
   
   Do you really think that Chuck Schumer would risk losing Democrat control of the US Senate because Black people, a constituency who time and time again has pledged our undying, yet unrequited loyalty to the Democrats, now feel we deserve Reparations from the US government…? HELL NO!
   
   And that’s not racism or White supremacy, it’s just plain ol’ electoral math.
   
   

2. Democrats are the party of the poor, so Black people, why would the party of the poor want you to be rich?

   If every Black person were five million dollars richer tomorrow, what reason would we have to want to continue to support the Democrat party, whose latest slogan is “tax the rich?” We just got this money from the government, we damn sure wouldn’t be trying to pay half of it right back into said government via taxes to fund welfare programs for poor Whites and Latinos, right?
   
   If the majority of Black people became business and land owners tomorrow due to the infusion of Reparations cash and benefits, then the Black struggle policies of the Democrats would no longer suit us. We’d no longer have any reason to continue voting for them.
   
   The Democrats rise and fall on the Black struggle narrative. Our overwhelming support of the Democrat party is their most effective weapon against the Republicans. All Democrat political leadership are are a group of rich White people calling another group of rich White people, Republican political leadership, racist, all because Democrats have the overwhelming political support of struggling Black people. If Black people are no longer struggling we then become free agents who can then look at what’s best for our own individual lives and bank accounts and vote accordingly, vote competitively, instead of feeling the need to collectively struggle vote as we do now.
   
   I’m gonna vote Democrat because the Democrats support Reparations, meanwhile the Democrats push a Reparations that is so radical and far to the left that it will never gain the bipartisan political support it would need to actually happen. And when it doesn’t happen Democrats will place the blame at the feet of those “racist” Republicans. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. This is the political holding pattern we’re in.
   
   The current push for Reparations is nothing more than political busy work for Black people as prophesied by Democrat Former President LBJ, Lyndon B. Johnson in the 60’s, in order to “keep these n-words voting Democrat for the next 200 years.”
   
   It’s the same thing Biden is doing with his supposed Student Loan bailouts. He knows it’s unconstitutional and never going to happen but he pushes it anyway, not to Congress, through actual legislation, where every Democrat (even the moderate ones like Sen. Joe Manchin) would have to vote, signifying on record for whether they’re actually for it or not, but by Executive Order and ultimately through the courts (sound familiar?). So when it gets struck down he can play victim, blame Republicans and the college students will vote for him all over again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It’s the Democrat playbook.
   
   Making the Black struggle voter instantly rich via Reparations would be electoral suicide for Democrats, hence why it’s never going to happen.
   
   

3. Demography is destiny. The Democrat ruling class likes to talk about race relations in this country as though it’s still the 60’s and their beloved LBJ is still president. Many of them being way past their prime, Civil Rights movement holdovers, this makes perfect sense. The 60’s and it’s demography are long gone. In 2024 the United States is a radically different country today than we were then. We were much more of a Black and White country then than we are now. Then, Reparations made much more political sense than it does now. Then would have been the time to enact Reparations, but President LBJ clearly had other plans.
   
   Black people, being strict adherents to the Democrat Party over the past few decades have unwittingly gone along with the Democrat’s push for greater electoral power through legal and illegal immigration, leading to Black people no longer being the most populous minority. We are now outnumbered by Latinos and the population of Brown people now figure into the political calculus of Reparations, which used to be a Black and White issue, making it now a “people of color” issue politically.
   
   Case in point, let’s look at South Florida, Miami-area, where I live, Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, CA. Let’s look at House districts. Rep. Fredericka Wilson of FL-24 and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of TX-18, and Rep. Maxine Waters of CA-34. Two urban, blue-leaning districts in what are ultimately red-leaning states and the last a blue district in the bluest state of all. All represented by these Democrat women, Congressional Black Caucus members who champion all the default woke Democrat positions. Why wouldn’t these Black women be at the forefront of the Reparations for Black people discussion? Why didn't these Black women hold up past installations of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House for the cause of something as important to their Black voters as Reparations?
   
   It’s probably because their districts are 34/51, 42/36, 46/23% Hispanic/Black in population. The Congressional Black Caucus doesn’t just represent Black people anymore. So for many Black Congresspeople to offer anything more than mere lip service toward Reparations for just Black people when they need a sizable portion of the Hispanic vote in order to keep their seats isn’t anymore politically safe for them than it is for their Democrat counterparts in the Senate. Hence why “people of color” is the new Black.
   
   Again, not racism, just electoral math.
   
   

4. There is a form of “Reparations” already on the table that’s currently the law in Iowa and Arizona that would pay Black parents up to $30k/year per child (that exact amount being whatever the government pays per child in your state) and Democrats are vehemently against it. That reparation is school choice. School choice, being the ability for Black parents, all parents to take the up to $30k/year per child the government doles out to it’s own failing public schools to “educate” our children (more like indoctrinate them to be the next generation of LGBTQ+, Marxist, social justice warriors) and instead direct that same government money toward a private, religious or afro-centric school of the parents choice.
   
   With that kind of money Dr. Umar could have built ten schools, Xyayx Institute could have 100 schools, but Democrats like Barack Obama in his November 2022 campaign rally speech for Pennsylvania Democrat Senator “Frankenstein” Fetterman and Governor Josh Shapiro in Philadelphia railed against Republican Candidate Doug Mastriano and his school choice plan. He calls it not “fully funding our schools” or “supporting our teachers.” I call it holding schools and teachers accountable for tangible results, like higher test scores and graduation rates. If a school isn't performing then parents should have the right to use their tax dollars to educate their kids elsewhere. A little competition would be good for our public school system.
   
   This hypocritical rhetoric from Obama unfortunately comes as no surprise as he has been an enemy of school choice and education vouchers throughout his whole presidency. If it were up to him, your kids couldn't use vouchers to go to private school and would be forced to languish in sub-par public schools, while he sent his girls to the ultra exclusive Sidwell Friends School, one of the best private schools in the country. They received the kind of education that inevitably set them up for success in life (being First Daughters also didn't hurt, obviously). So can regular Black children, White children, American children get a chance at a piece of that Obama, or is it just for your kids?
   
   How can Democrats say they are for Reparations, but against school choice, knowing good and well, the first thing Black folks are going to do with the Reparations money is take our kids out of failing urban public schools? It was recently reported that the majority of students in Baltimore Public Schools, a majority Black school district run by corrupt Democrats, are not proficient in reading and math at grade level. What’s the point of giving our kids five million dollars when they can’t even count the money?
   
   Could Democrats vehement opposition to school choice be because public school teachers unions are some of the biggest contributors to the Democrat party? Or possibly because, Democrats, the chosen party of Black people, the party of government control, would rather they control where the billions of government education dollars get spent rather than have Black parents control where it gets spent.
   
   Ask yourself this question Black person: If Democrats like Obama don’t want you to have control of how $30k/year from the government is spent, why would they want you to have control over how five million dollars from the government is spent?
   
   Make it make sense!
   
   In conclusion, I ask can there be some sort of a Reparations for Black people? Yes, but not in this current, unserious, get-whitey, #CutTheCheck iteration.
   
   Have structural racism, systemic racism and things of that nature happened in this country? Absolutely. Should something be done about whatever valid lingering effects of these things there may be in an ultimate effort to move our country forward from our racial past? Absolutely. Even figures on the political right that Black people so reflexively hate, like Ann Coulter have expressed this.
   
   But rather than pushing decadent get-whitey revenge fantasies like what our current Reparations conversation has become, I urge Black Democrat voters to push their leadership to craft politically feasible, reparative policies for Black people with stated, verifiable goals that ultimately hold Black leadership accountable for tangible, measurable results. And if that means a cash payment, make a real argument for that that can actually pass in Congress, not an overinflated pipe dream only designed to keep disenchanted Black people voting Democrat for the next 200 years.
   
   Fairness and equality of opportunity should be the goal, not the disingenuous notion of “equity,” (equity meaning government-forced equality of outcomes, and race quotas which are not actual equality) and exploitation of racial strife. We’re not a country of oppressors and the oppressed, our futures foretold by our skin color, but of American citizens, citizens of the best country in the world, who can do whatever we put our minds to.
   
   Nobody is a better illustration of that than that of our Black Congressional leadership, many of whom have come from humble beginnings to be the leaders that they are today. They are members of the most powerful political body in the world, thus making them some of the most powerful people in the entire world. If they can do it, without the promise of a five million dollar check from the government, why can’t they show the next Black person how we can, instead of trying to sell us on all the reasons why we can’t?