The History of Reparations in America

The State of New York recently announced how its Holocaust Claims Processing Office helped secure over $183 million for victims and beneficiaries related to the Holocaust. You won’t find it in their press release, but these funds didn’t come from the State of New York or U.S. taxpayers. It was part of a $1.4 billion global distribution from Germany announced last year. Since 1952, the German government has paid more than $90 billion in reparations to individuals for suffering and losses resulting from persecution by the Nazis. These reparations are being quietly celebrated. Most citizens of New York haven’t even noticed, perhaps because it wasn’t their money being forked out. Let’s contrast that with California, where a recent report outlined the need for reparations to Black Americans. While Californians, in general, were over 60% favorable to some form of reparations. There was great disparity as to who should receive them and how much. The Executive Summary alone was 74 pages, with the Full Report reaching 1080 pages. The report was as comprehensive a breakdown of systemic racism as I’ve ever seen and has been broken up into 40 chapters. Economists calculated the costs of other harms African Americans endured and...