the idea is deadened, usually, by insistence that it be applied, like affirmative action, on an individual rather than social basis...this is indulged by people on the right as well as the left...who's gonna get the check-ism...
it's also deadened because , applied socially, reparations might create the biggest reforms imaginable, almost amounting to a social revolution...and that, of course, is impossible, in the land of kerry the alternative, um, proponent of more equitable distribution?...
getting away from silliness like identifying individual recipients (who's black enough, who's related to slaves enough, who's nappy enough?) and looking to social identification instead , money-investments-educational assistance might be directed to ghetto-slum-under developed areas of poverty, rather than simply to deserving, if token, members of a middle class ...
of course those investments would have to be on a massive scale, far beyond lbj's great society ( which was almost socialism compared to the crap we have now ) and this would call for a social change movement different from what we generally experience, more hopeful for people in the future , and less disdainful of people in the present...
that may not seem possible , given the one-at-a-time pace of change that prevails and that pessimism invites and accepts ...but there are movements growing, mostly elsewhere, that are less tolerant of reality and more demanding of radical change, and as the larger system becomes more threatening to all, even among the materially comfortable class, there will be a growing desire for substantial, rather than minimal change... and the issue of reparations for slavery might be the most sensible, socially just, confrontation with american racism, and american capitalism, that we could join...
fs