Redistribution is still necessary even if the debt can never be fully compensated for.

First of all, I believe what Black Americans need the most is accountability and justice. Black people unquestionably call on the United States government and the wealthy elite, the soul of the American system, to see the injustices this system has done by leaving enslaved human beings moneyless and their descendants in their current disparited conditions today.

Secondly, there is no monetary amount that would fully acknowledge or resolve the issues that slavery, legal segregation, and ongoing discrimination and racism have done to Black Americans nor Black people, who are not descendants of slaves or who enter the U.S. as immigrants. According to a 2019 Associated Press poll, 74% of Black Americans believe cash reparations can compensate for slavery and segregation (Williams & Nasir 2019). Yet, the remaining 26%, others and myself, think that regardless of the copious amount of money the United States gives Black people, there is no way to compensate for these grievous injustices. Not to mention that Darity Jr. & Mullen trace back to 1894, when Frederick Douglass observed that:

People who live now, and talk of doing too much for the Negro…forget that for those terrible wrongs there is, in truth, no redress and no adequate compensation. The enslaved and battered millions have come, suffered, died, and gone with all their moral and physical wounds into Eternity. To them no recompense can be made. If the American people could put a school house in every valley, a church on every hill top in the South and supply them with a teacher and preacher respectively and welcome the descendants of the former slaves to all the moral and intellectual benefits of the one and the other…such a sacrifice would not compensate their children for the terrible wrong done to their fathers and mothers. (Darity Jr. & Mullen 254)

Douglass agreed that there is not enough white America could possibly do to satisfy the full stability Black Americans need to survive and thrive on. I would fully agree with Frederick Douglass; there can never be a reparations plan that would fully compensate for the damages done to Enslaved Africans and their descendants (Black Americans). If monetary reparations were given, there must be an infinite supply of financial needs required to stabilize and health injuries of white supremacy against Black people. Thus, cash reparations would have to be paid endlessly and eternally to current and future generations of Black Americans.

At the same time, Frederick Douglass still believed whites should do as much as possible to make amends with Black Americans (Darity Jr. & Mullen 255). Here, Douglass and I would also agree with each other; whites still must do whatever it takes to make reparations possible. However, I would offer a critique here. Instead, I would state that everyone, including BIPOC and anyone who benefits from Black oppression, must share a responsibility to create a world set free from America’s “grievous injustices.” Regardless of our positionalities and intersecting identities, we all must recognize that we are ingrained in this system of oppressing, ignoring, and benefitting from the roots of anti-Blackness, and xenophobia in general. Therefore, the project of Black reparations can only be fully effective if white America, its system, and others advance, acknowledge, and improve the lives of Black Americans in their health, wealth, and well-being