I agree, the arguement for reparations for slavery is hot shit. I'm not advocating for that. We already paid those reparations out. Granted, the money went to slave owners to replace lost profits, and black ppl never received their 40 acres and a mule as promised, but I digress. My argument for reparations is for everything that's happened since. From the compromise of 1877 to the rise of the kkk to plessy v ferguson in 1896 to the coup in Wilmington, north Carolina in 1898 to using "pickaninnies" (black babies) as gator bait in the south to the red summer of 1919 to burning down black wall st. To having essentially no representation for about 80 years after 1877. People are alive today who became "equal" under the law just 60 years ago. We've all seen the pics of ruby ridges walking into school with all those white kids yelling slurs at her. Those ppl are still alive. They've reproduced. You think this happened 100s of years ago? You think everything is equal now? You think this idealogy just left? Republicans are the only ones in the courts trying to gut the voting rights act. James Otis, 1765, "taxation without representation is tyrrany." To this day, there are still 500k+ black ppl without representation in D.C. because it's not a state, despite paying some of the highest federal taxes in the country. And I'm just scratching the surface. In my view, we're lucky black ppl, for the most part, only want equal rights. But those of us who know history, every time we hear those southern strategy dog whistles like states' rights, law and order, war on drugs, make America great again, America first. All of it was founded in racist roots. It's just a reminder to all of us that this idealogy hasn't left and why the talk about reparations will never go anywhere. Because too many of us don't want to actually deal with real American history.