We can all agree that slavery is one of the greatest evils this country has ever participated in.

We can also all agree that while there may be arguments, some historically valid, that people may use to mitigate the evil or to spread the responsibility around (e.g., to the tribes that sold Africans as slaves), that does not in any way make our ancestors less responsible for what they did.

Nor does it take away from the fact that our society probably reaps the benefits of slavery even unto our own generation and beyond.

Admitting all of that, I must oppose reparations for slavery.

My opposition is on practical grounds, that may, in a way, lead to certain moral objections.

Practically, to pay each African American in the United States $10,000 (hardly just compensation as far as their ancestors are concerned) would cost the federal government over $343 billion.

This amounts to nearly 20 percent of the yearly federal budget.

If we were to just hike up income taxes to pay for the reparations, we would see a 40 percent or higher increase in income taxes across the board.

Basically, money will leave the hands of companies and consumers. There will be massive layoffs for corporations to balance the sudden massive hit.

People will stop spending money, partially because they have been laid off and partially because confidence in job and monetary security will fall off drastically.

Even African Americans, now $10,000-a-person richer, will suddenly find themselves saving every penny possible, as they may have been laid off in the massive recession this would all spark.

It’s funny how economic recessions don’t know how to discriminate against color.

Now, let us say that we do this despite the very real economic consequences, which will affect people of all races.

What message are we sending? Are we saying that you can enslave an entire group for decades, and then make it all OK by paying their descendants a few thousand bucks more than a century later?

Why don’t we tell that to all those who died in the fields and were brutalized and assaulted at the whim of their “owners.”

“It’s OK you were enslaved and violated, because we are going to make it right by paying thousands of dollars to people who you have a genetic link to years down the line.”

NOTHING can make up for slavery. No reparations, no apology, nothing.

People died and had their lives destroyed, and nothing anyone can do today can change that, any more than we can bring back all those who died in Nazi Germany or in Stalin’s purges.

What we can do is remember. Do you truly want to do something good for all those who suffered under the yoke of slavery?

Remember what they went through. Don’t cheapen them by making a token payment that will do nothing for those who suffered, but will succeed in sparking economic hardship and widening racial divides.

Remember those who came before, honor them so that their deaths are not in vain. Remember, that we may all say as one nation, in one voice, “Never again!”

Michael T Falkstrom

Sophomore

History