Reasonable or Ridiculous?      

   For half a century, some people have advocated slavery reparations. Rep. John Conyers has introduced a bill annually for more than 25 years. 

   Some legal scholars have filed class-action lawsuits. Civil-rights leaders and black elites generally support reparations, says John Riley in the Wall Street Journal. A small percentage of whites agree.  

Riley

   Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders all opposed reparations when they ran for president. Either they recognized the illogical basis, or they didn't want to offend white voters. Duh.

   This year, 2020 Democratic candidates - Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker and Julian Castro - are pro-reparations. Either they don't agree with MLK adviser Bayard Rustin, who called it "a ridiculous idea," or they just want traction with black voters, at least through the primaries. Duh. 

   Riley, a columnist with the WSJ, writes that holding slavery responsible for black America's current problems ignores the progress blacks have made.

   During the first 100 years after emancipation - though poverty rates were higher and racism still widespread - violent crime and trauma in poor black communities were nothing like today, he says. 

   Sociologist William Wilson wrote, "In ghetto neighborhoods the first half of the 20th century, rates of joblessness, teenage pregnancy, out-of-wedlock births, female-headed families, welfare dependency and serious crime were lower." These "...did not reach catastrophic proportions until the mid-1970s."

   Riley asks, "Is it possible that something else is primarily responsible for the outcomes we see today?" 

       Jimmy