Why white folks shouldn't fear reparations

This isn't about calling people racist

Policeman
(Image credit: (AP Photo))

Ta-Nehisi Coates has published a masterpiece of an essay called "The Case for Reparations." It's a frame for an extensively detailed (but still only partial) accounting of the ways that the African-American community has been plundered by a white supremacist society. And it has a lot of white people up in arms.

At least blacks aren't in Africa, some whites have responded. All the slaves are dead, others say. Then there is the refrain: What about reparations for abortion/the sack of Carthage/#Benghazi? Most of all, I hear: I never owned any slaves!

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.