With Juneteenth upon us, it’s time for us to rethink the backwards way we view reparations

As the nation approaches what’s arguably its second Independence Day, Juneteenth, I can’t help but ponder the wrongheaded way we often think about reparations. This year will mark the 159th anniversary of June 19, 1865, when thousands of enslaved African Americans found out — 900 days after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect — that they had been legally freed under federal law. Even before that day, the nation has been gripped by the debate over reparations, or how to compensate enslaved Black Americans and their descendants for the nation’s original sin. As an African American man who was born, raised, and has lived his entire life in our city, I greeted the news about the Philadelphia Reparations Task Force with great skepticism. Much of the media coverage about reparations focuses on “slavery’s lingering impact on the Black community.” But I have a serious problem with those who use a system that was dismantled almost 200 years ago to paint the picture of my people as victims who are so weak-willed, so traumatized, and so haunted “by the peculiar institution” that we can’t make headway in American society. We are not victims, we are victors — and I take issue with...