For Black People, Reparations Are About More Than Slavery

NewsOne Featured Video An attendee holds up a sign in support of HR 40, during the hearing on reparations for the descendants of slaves (HR 40), before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on June 19, 2019. | Source: NurPhoto / Getty America gaslights Black people. Black people in America are in an abusive relationship with a country that was built on the blood of our broken backs and got rich off the sale of our humanity for centuries. The dehumanization of Black people in America didn’t stop once chattel slavery ended; it simply evolved into other forms of subjugation and discrimination, things done both under the cover of darkness and boldly and directly in our faces. So when the topic of reparations comes up, it’s also disappointing but never surprising when (some) white people try to diminish the conversation and whittle it down to what they perceive as a long-ago act that no one alive today had anything to do with. MORE: Op-Ed: Reparations Must Be More Than A Check “Slavery was hundreds of years ago,” they say. “Why should I pay for things I had nothing...