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Summary: The Case For Reparations

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Slavery was abolished in America 150 years ago, however, the color line it created is still very much alive. From the overtly racist Jim Crow laws to the discriminatory covert practices within the housing industry of today, there is a clear division of white versus black, superior versus inferior, that divides the nation. In her article “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates makes the case for why African Americans should be paid back for all of the injustices they had to, and continue to, endure. Granting reparations would be more than just handing out money to blacks to make up for the astronomical wealth gap certain discriminatory actions and policies have created, though. Coates said that making “reparations to those on whose labor …show more content…
Students of the north are relieved to learn that they were on the “good side” of history and cannot believe that some people in the south call the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression.” The north ended slavery first and is more accepting of blacks today than the racist, Confederate flag-waving south — or so one thinks. Coates’ article opens readers’ eyes to the fact that racism still exists throughout the United States (including the north), and that it is experienced and expressed on the individual, cultural, institutional, and structural levels. Coates most effectively does this by juxtaposing the experiences of blacks during the slave and Jim Crow eras to the experiences of blacks today. By doing so, readers understand that while “lives of black Americans are better than they were half a century ago… such progress rests on shaky foundation, and fault lines are everywhere” (p.59). Again, Coates most frequently uses examples of discrimination in the housing industry as a way to show how racism remains ingrained in American society. Many whites question why blacks want to live in ghettos or don’t work hard enough to get out. However, this sectioned-off living is really due to structural discrimination. In combination with the wealth gap between blacks and whites, unfair housing practices oftentimes make it impossible for blacks to own a home in a non-black neighborhood. …show more content…
If a black family can work just as hard, or harder, than a white family and not be able to enter the same community as a white family, does the idea that an American can earn what he or she works toward still stand true? No, of course not. And this is what Coates wants readers to realize. "American piracy," which is when “black people keep on making it, and white people keep on taking it,” is a "fact of nature," Coates writes. Ever since slavery, whites have gained because of the hard work of blacks. In today’s housing market, because blacks unfairly pay more for houses, white realtors make a bigger profit. And because of the unequal treatment of blacks in the real estate market, many African Americans are forced to live in condensed areas of poverty. Additionally, because blacks have fewer opportunities to own a home, they have fewer transformative assets to pass down, and so the next generation is already starting a step behind their white counterparts. If America were a true meritocracy, more blacks would be able to leave the area they are currently living in and move to a neighborhood that is deemed more wealthy or white. But this is just not the case, and having white Americans consider that they did not earn their house/American dream within a true meritocracy is an uncomfortable thought for many. But, Coates explains, it is a question

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