Reparations cause backlash across the country, TURNS their inequality impacts

The moral case for reparations may be strong, but the political and cultural consequences of enacting the policy are likely to be extremely high. Far from serving as a moment of moral reckoning and healing for the country, as its advocates contend, it would inspire a severe backlash that would inflame tensions on both sides of the color line — and set the stage for future calls from other groups for acts of public restitution for past injustices. It's a recipe for greatly intensified civic anger and resentment. As I argued when he first published his essay, Coates' case for reparations was important and compelling — but also wrong-headed. Coates asserted that American patriotism is a fraud. In his words, a form of American national pride that "proudly claim[s] the veteran and disown[s] the slaveholder," and that celebrates "freedom and democracy while forgetting America's origins in a slavery economy," is "patriotism à la carte." As he put it in one of the essay's most unforgettable lines, "To ignore the fact that one of the oldest republics in the world was erected on a foundation of white supremacy ... is to cover the sin of national plunder with the sin of national lying." In Coates' view — one endorsed by Brooks in his recent column — the only way for the United States to purify its patriotism and truly expiate its racial sins is for it to fully own, accept, and atone for them by enacting a policy of reparations. That might sound good in theory, but it isn't at all the way it's likely to work in practice. White Americans love to think well of themselves and the country — loving the United States not just because it is ours but even more so because they believe the country is good in itself, intrinsically worthy or deserving of love. Debating and attempting to enact a policy of reparations would force white Americans to confront their country's longstanding and persistent racism and place that reckoning at the core of how they view the country's history and themselves. That is quite likely to spark a defensive political, social, and cultural reaction.