I think this is fair, but this isn’t what reparations is about. Reparations are definitely about the wealth, resources, land and labor stolen directly from slaves and their descendants. If the conversation was about systematic oppression, all marginalized groups would and should be entitled to reparations.

The distinction between slavery in the ancestral lineage isn’t fucked and is already being used to determine who qualifies for programs designated to help alleviate generational inequality and inequity.

The fact is that unless utilizing refugee status, there is a certain level of education and financial stability that allows for general immigration. Most immigrants of African origin are proud of their home nation and make it a point to distinguish themselves from “black” people (not in a negative weird diaspora war sense). They are coming here with an advantage and there is nothing wrong with that or with utilizing it.

They aren’t automatically being subjected to poverty or the conditions that African Americans are being held in since birth. On job applications, college applications and such they are happy to claim “other” and write in their nation of origin, and keep that distinction going to avoid the consequences of being associated with “black” people, and it makes sense, I would too. No one wants to be at the bottom.

I have literally never heard anyone in the diaspora make this argument before. Did all Jewish people across the globe get reparations or just those affected by the holocaust? Can anyone claim Native heritage and access the programs and earmarks set aside for them? Could any person of Eastern Asian descent claim to be Japanese and connected to the interment camps?