Slavery reparations are still all the rage on the left – but even some Democrat politicians are tiring of one of liberals’ favorite virtue signaling schticks.
Late last week, Maryland Democrat Governor Wes Moore, the only black governor in the country, surprised many in his own party and the pundit class when he vetoed a bill that would have created a commission to study slavery reparations by 2027. “I will always protect and defend the full history of African Americans in our state and country,” Moore wrote in his veto letter. “But in light of the many important studies that have taken place on this issue over nearly three decades, now is the time to focus on the work itself.”
As Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley noted, Moore “seems to understand that this sort of racial pandering is now a political loser.” Most of his Democrat colleagues, however, apparently haven’t reached the same conclusion.
Following the decision, Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus blasted the governor for “block[ing] this historic legislation that would have moved the state toward directly repairing the harm of enslavement.” Democrats have a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature and could override Moore’s veto.
But Maryland isn’t the only place where slavery reparations have received some renewed buzz lately. At the same time as Democrats were expressing their outrage over Moore’s veto, Democrats in Washington, D.C. were reintroducing a resolution to offer reparation payments to the descendants of slaves nationwide.
The bill, which was first introduced by Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) in 2023, was sponsored by left-wing Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA). While introducing the bill, Lee laid out a long list of racial grievances, calling for reparations to ameliorate past injustices.
“Black folks are owed more than thoughts and prayers,” Lee said. “We’re owed repair, we’re owed restitution, and we’re owed justice.”
The resolution argues that the United States has not really changed at all in the past 400 years. According to the bill, America has “a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the crime of enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people in the United States.”
The federal government (meaning taxpayers), “must compensate descendants of enslaved Black people and people of African descent in the United States to account for the crimes and harms of chattel slavery, the cumulative damages of enslavement, and the epochs of legal and de facto segregation,” the resolution continues.
In other words, not just the direct descendants of slaves, but also anyone who is of African descent should get reparations. This would include Nigerians who moved here in 2019 or Angolans who moved here in 2023. (One wonders if that includes South African Elon Musk as well.)
Lee waived off any questions about costs and eligibility as a “distraction” when asked during a press conference. Asking who should be eligible is a tactic “to silence the rest of this movement,” Lee told a reporter. She also dismissed concerns about the cost of payments, saying Americans should not get “bogged down” in such details.
But who is eligible for a new government program and how much it will cost is of course central to any discussion of reparations. While Lee’s plan conveniently leaves out any real cost proposal, prior research shows that reparations would likely cost trillions of dollars.
Duke University Professor William Darity, using similar language to Lee’s resolution, suggested a reparations plan in 2021 costing $10 to $12 trillion, according to The College Fix. A 2023 report from a California task force also put the cost of reparations at $500 billion just for residents of that state “who can show they are the direct descendant of a Black enslaved person or a free Black person alive before the 20th century,” according to NPR.
Meanwhile, Howard University Professor Justin Hansford has called for $5 million payments to all descendants of African slaves, and even asked the United Nations to intervene to force the U.S. to pay out the money. Around 60 percent of black Americans, or about 20 million people, claim to be descendants of slaves, although records in many cases are unclear or unavailable. In any case, if there truly are 20 million black Americans who are descended from slaves, that would mean Hansford’s plan would cost $100 trillion dollars – nearly the GDP of the entire world.
The massive cost and underlying victimhood message is one reason some black Americans reject the idea of reparations. “Rather than teach our children that they are victims of a racist system in which they can only be made whole by making people who have done nothing wrong pay for the past sins of others, we should teach them that they are in charge of their own dignity and their own future,” Dr. Ben Carson said in 2021. The former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development was raised in poverty in Detroit by a single mom before becoming a world-renowned brain surgeon and later a Republican presidential candidate.
Ultimately, the reparations debate is indicative of a much deeper divide between Republicans and Democrats. As Dr. Carson eloquently articulated, Republicans support economic opportunity and reject the left’s racial grievance agenda, which tells minorities they cannot succeed without government handouts.
One prime example of this Republican philosophy in action are the “Opportunity Zones” established under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which incentivize investment in poor, primarily black areas. In the first two years of this program, Opportunity Zones generated $75 billion in private investment, according to Fox Business – lifting up black families without taking from the rest of America to do it.
Running on a message of opportunity is a large part of the reason why Donald Trump won a sweeping mandate in 2024. His victory included historic support from Latino men as well as significant gains in the black community.
Advocating for reparations and stoking racial tensions isn’t just nonsensical and un-American – more and more evidence suggests that it’s politically suicidal as well.
Matt Lamb is an AMAC Newsline contributor and an associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
What a bunch of nonsense to appease ignorant Blacks for votes. Every Black in the USA should give thanks that their ancestors who were slaves landed in America. Three out of every four slaves wound up in places like Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Brazil, and a dozen other backward countries. Today Blacks in the USA have more opportunities than anywhere else in the world if you work hard or get educated. Reparations is a joke.
I want reparations from Biden for his INVASION.
The Democrats have nothing to new to say, so they are just cycling through their tired, old socialist playbook hoping something sticks. That’s all this latest call for reparations is. The promise of “free money” to part of their voter base, if they remain stupid enough to keep voting for Democrat.
“We’re owed repair, we’re owed restitution, and we’re owed justice.” Look at history — Slaves were sold into bondage by their own peoples and tribes of Africa to slave traders who took these slaves all over the world which the USA was included. If there is anything owed, it should come from the countries or tribes that they were sold from. Are there other countries in the world that are dealing with this same situation?
Show me a slave to be compensated and a slaver who imprisoned the slave to be garnished, and we have a victim and a perpetrator. Otherwise, we have no victim and anyone garnished would simply be an innocent who has had their money stolen. This is why “reparations”, today, are a fraud. 100 years ago, Good. Today, it is Pointless.
Moreover, how do you handle the very taboo subject of black on black slavery? Back in the day, 20% of the slave owners in NC were black. Who receives? Who pays?
Unless born a slave, up to the moment slavery ended, a person may be eligible for a reparation payment. Since there is not a single former slave living today, there is no one alive eligible for such a payment. The demand for reparations now being demanded are nothing but a fraud and should be treated as such, with applicable penalties.
As only Democrats owned slaves, only Democrats should pay reparations!
When all else is failing this is when this crap comes up .I will not pay a thin dime for this insanity.
Well, let the Democrats pay it then. I never owned a slave, my relatives never owned slaves and no one today is a slave so why do they think we should pay? The demonrats have nothing better to do than sit around thinking of ways to get free money/
Since the Great Society boondoggle of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the taxpayers of this country have spent 21 trillion dollars on welfare, medicare, and food stamps. All to help those who continue to whine about inequities. It was supposed to help the poor blend into society and be an asset to the country, not to be a continuous burden. Unfortunately, the welfare system was set up to promote failure. That’s why it’s about time for welfare reform after 60 years of reparations.
I am a black man in America. There is no freaking need for reparations – PERIOD. Most every group of people on planet earth has been subjugated to another and if this was to be the case, then this would be an ongoing event. Pundits say that slavery was different in America – hogwash.
So many things to work on and dems always pick something divisive to push instead of picking things that unify. Why is that? IMO
So now the reparations movement isn’t JUST for descendants of “black slaves” (forget about all the black and white slaves throughout the world-TODAY still!) but its also for “people of African descent? Seriously? FYI, in case you never read Henry Louis Gates Jr’s (the Finding Your Roots BLACK professor) article about the ACTUAL number of slaves brought to what is now America..only 450,000. There were roughly 18-20 MILLION people stolen from Africa during that horrible time (mostly turned in to slavers-some of whom were BLACK-by other black tribesmen). That is a pretty small gene pool! It would be a total nightmare to TRY to prove that a black America actually descended from slaves brought HERE to the US, instead of to South America, the Caribbean and other nations holdings south of the USA. So, the Democrats, who know this, are including ALL BLACK PEOPLE living in the US. No way is that EVER going to happen! Why don’t the liberals focus on trying to end the slavery that STILL exists, like child trafficking across Biden’s open border. Biden’s regime “lost” 350,000 kids…pretty close to the number of slaves ever brought to America. In 4 years!!! You’d think 60 plus years of civil rights corrections (welfare for life, free housing, preferential admission to everything, you name it) would be enough “reparations” for them. Give it up libs!! Look up Gates article. It’s an eye opener!
It makes it much sense as anything Democrats do have somebody who’s never owned a slave pay somebody who’s never been a slave. Perfect perfectly logical just like men who think they’re women should be in women’s locker rooms and participate in women’s sports. I really think Democrats ought to pull their heads out of their butt but I don’t think that’s going to happen. A frog’s going to grow wings so he doesn’t bump his ass every time he jumpd before they do something intelligent. Democrat intelligence is the ultimate oxymoron!
I am not paying for something that I had nothing to do with . We do not owe anyone anything . Tell them to pack up if they don’t like this country .
It’s truly unfortunate any peoples were enslaved. However, December 18, 1865, 13th Amendment was ratified to the U.S. Constitution. This is 2025, 160 years have passed since 1865. The USA is far-far from perfect but it remains the Greatest Country in the World. On the whole Racial Prejudice cannot be administered here for Slave Reparations having many generations passed since before 1865. Everyone in America has their Cross-to-Bear and it’s this uphill battle we all face; some more than others. I, myself, have faced such obstacles but with JESUS CHRIST, HE, has made me to overcome everyone of’em. You, as an individual, too, can succeed. Not with Reparations you’re absolutely not entiled to after 160+ years passed and numerous generations, but by self-respect and hard work. I have overcome by JESUS CHRIST and so can you entirely!
The best way to keep up a racial divide is to continue this conversation. One race shouldn’t pay or receive anything because of their ancestors. How ridiculous is this?
B*** S*** Black people have had over 50 years of preferential treatment;
for college acceptance, job placement, home loans, on and on! They have
BET (Black Ent. TV) Black Month, Black colleges, all with special funding!
IF there should be any form of reperations to anyone, I believe and always
have it’s the Native Americans, we TOOK everything from! Giving them
rampent Diabetes, alcohol they physically can’t process, and dry desert
land, without wells!! Give them some of massive unused Federal land!
NO I’M NOT NATVE AMERICAN, I WOULD GAIN NOTHING
I read somewhere that the estimate cost for African-American reparations would be 16 trillion dollars. Okay, but before we pay African Americans we need to go back farther and pay Native Americans. And if you don’t agree with that, we need to go back even earlier in time to indentured servants who were brought here from Europe and China and pay all those ancestors. How much is all this going to cost? And at some point shouldn’t we be looking forward not back?
If reparations slavery is really a good thing, then there should be reparations paid to descendants of all the union soldiers that fought, died or were injured in their fight to end slavery, which at that time. was still commonly practiced in many places around the world.
Martin Luther King was adamantly against reparations, said it was extremely divisive and would “DIVIDE” our country. He is right!
Marxist Democrats love divisive policies like this, since they hate America. China loves funding these type of crazy ideas.
DIVIDE and conquer, as Confuscious say.
NO! We have given them advantages since the 1960s to help them. And IF by some stupidity, this goes through, it will never stop.
My ancestors were never slave owners.
People alive today should not have to pay for any past mistakes that may have been made. This will also bring another civil war, except no non-black people will be fighting for them. What about all the soldiers that were killed, or maimed because they fought for them?
Why don’t they have the people in africa who sold them as slaves pay them?
What about the Irish (“No Irish Allowed”), the Japanese held during WWII, the Jewish (in the past, and currently), the Chinese (slaves for railroad building)?
Every group has had adversity, and no others are “Demanding” reparations… why is that?
Not one dime of money for black reparations until the AmarInds are repaid in full for the deaths of millions and payment for lands stolen! And the only people to make reparations for slavery are Democrats. They even fought a war to keep their slaves. Blacks want reparations, get ‘em from the slave holders, aka Democrats!
Blacks owned blacks ( africans made slaves over conquering other tribes) and whites owned whites ( irished owned other Irish whites in their own cultures, and Mexicans and Spanish owned their own peasant culture even the British owned their own subculture in 1200 to 1590!
My chrystal ball says it would actually make things worse…..
If it wasn’t so sad I would laugh demorats are all just nuts! We are all slaves to our government that steals our money tax wise and sends it all over the world so our criminal politicians can enrich themselves with kickbacks screw then all!
Until the some blacks stop acting like victims and demanding to be given special treatment because some of their relatives were slaves, they will never think they are equal to their non-black peers!
Tell them to start with those countries who bought and sold all those slaves in the first place. It was their own people who sold them to the slave traders in the first place. In here in the U.S. we’ve been given them advantages over Caucasians since back in the 1960’s. And all on the backs of taxpayers who never owned a slave in their lives and neither did their ancestors. It’s nothing but a political money grab that’s popular with a lot of people who will never, ever, grow up and move forward like the rest of us.
This ridiculous idea , if implemented in any form, would open the door to copycat versions such as: the Irish who were often indentured servants, died like flies building canals and docks then used as cannon fodder in the civil war. Or the chinese, exploited and overworked building railroads. For that matter, where would there be any limits? Would the UN try to make people of Italian descent pay reparations to the gauls for what the Romans did? The key here is that communists see only groups, not individuals. Therefore descendants or people of the descendants ethnicity can be held guilty. With this logic, if your great grandfather stole some cattle you could be charged with his crime or at least be forced to pay restitution adjusted for inflation.
Sorry but they don’t account for decades of government support via the Dems. That actually destroyed the family structure but no one complained as they collected the giveaways.
The notion that the black community today should get reparations is a stretch. The cost accounting is more a list of grievances that money will not likely put to rest. This is another rally cry for the Dems. They have nothing else.
If they have a way to determine the ancestry, country of origin, that sold them, by all means demand the reparations , see what the country has to say about it, it they are racked with guilt, probably not since no one is beating them about their heads with it.
Americans already paid with our Blood in the Civil War that FREED THE SLAVES!!! And by the way, the North did not have slavery, just the South had them. And at that time to the PRESENT, the South has been dominated (owned) by the Dems. So if ANYONE OWES Blacks anything, it’s the Dems, not the rest of the nation!
Dems just want to seduce Blacks using ‘Racism’ because they need their Votes, but do NOTHING for them (because Dems WANT the Racial Divide to stay ‘a political issue’, which is why they wanted to ‘Defund the Police’ and other rants and ‘policies’ that only make things get WORSE for EVERYONE, including our Black citizens!
Since Democrats supported slavery, owned slaves, started and operated the kkk to control slaves and ex-slaves, let them pay reparations to people alive now who were never slaves! No person living today were slaves and none today were slave owners! If democrats are feeling guilty about their past, go ahead and give your money away to those who were never slaves and are just trying to get free money out of someone. Just leave the rest of us, who had nothing to do with slavery, alone.
Great idea!!!! A dollar a day tax to every living person who owned slaves and that money at a dollar a day to every living person who was a slave…. The only former slave still alive must be Jasmine Crockett’s grandmother who at last report was still collecting social security benefits…
We owe them nothing! The Democrats are corrupt!! Let them use the money they collect behind the scenes to pay reparations to the people in their community. There are many cultures who came to the US and suffered from the Nazi’s and never received money. Why should I continue to pay for people who do not want to get up and work. I have worked 4 jobs most of my live to support myself. Others can also motivate themselves to earn a living and no live off other people’s hard-earned money.
SSDD – Same Stuff Different Day. They never EVER learn!
NO & paid for then by Civil War
Reparations is nothing more than buying votes. It makes no difference whatsoever for the recipient nor the payee. Opportunity Zones are the way to go. It’s like give the man a fish or teach him how to fish mentality. Because every race has been enslaved at one point in history. Under kings, emperors, tsars, shahs, emirs etc. Till today under dictators. When does it end. Giving them money doesn’t solve the problem giving them
opportunity for a lifetime does. A good education, opportunity and inclusion. Now they are still a plank in the platform of the democrats. They run on this not that they care about the blacks but to get their vote. Only the blacks are onto them. The dems still play the race card while the citizens have already accepted everyone as the same. Racism stuck up its ugly head again when Biden was the puppet president. Not because they championed for the black people no it was for their votes and loyalty. Reparations is a carrot to keep the blacks voting for the democrats in perpetuity. Don’t fall for it. I want reparations too. My ancestors were enslaved under an evil king. Anyone else have such a story. Let us start with the Holocaust. Shouldn’t Germany pay reparations to the families of all those Hitler had gassed in the concentration camps? What about the millions of Russians Stalin killed or Mao or Pol Pot or Ho Chi Min. I could go on but these dems that are calling for reparations are not in it for the black people they are enslaving them once again to be loyal for generations to come to the democrat party and keep racism alive into perpetuity.
Stupid is as stupid does! How about locking up all the descendants of slave owners? MAGA
If reparations are paid to blacks who were not slaves, how about paying those of us who had relatives die fighting for freedom for slaves.
IF any group of individuals showcase blatant and almost laughable (but not!)and cruel hypocrisy on slavery of which they were the slave “owners”, it’s the democrat party….the party of slavery, the party of bridge hangings, whippings, rape, white sheets, masks and pointed hats, burning crosses in front of the shanties of blacks. Who forbid Black children in the early 60’s to go to white schools. The Black people forbidden until later to even vote. Martin Luther King who was threatened repeatedly for having the gall to march for equal rights…and ultimately murdered. For democrats to “champion” the cause of the Black people would be amusing if not so pathetic. It wasn’t until the mid 60’s if memory serves, that I saw a news photo of two little Black girls all dressed up with ribbons in their hair, being escorted by an police officer to a white school.
I saw a photo of two white democrat politicians, I think one was Slick Willy Clinton who presided over the mass murders of 80 American citizens, and another white democrat politician who’s name I can’t recall “appraising” Barack Hussein as a “clean negro”. Actually he is half white. He is definitely one who should have been run out of the country.
Lest we forget the democrats were the ones who brought about the “Civil” War to keep their slaves. It was the Republican party with the help of one very brave Black lady who carried a 12 gauge, think her first name was Carrie, who put together the underground highway for slaves to escape the south and go north where they were able to find work.
Blaze up to 2024-5 and the demorat party in my state is deliberately and with malice, undermining the ability of Colorado citizens to protect themselves against criminals who seem to be the favored of the demorat gestapo.
I have no doubt if Hitler, Lenin and Stalin were alive today they would be democrats.
Isn’t it time for our nation to move away from this type of prejudice.
Enough is Enough!
There are no more slaves in the USA!
This is 2025, not 1860.
President Lincoln and Dr. King ended Racial tensions in America!
I don’t see the problem. Every person who has been a slave is personally due reparations from every person who personally owned them, Leave the rest of us out of it.
Two additional points: First, What was the race of the first individual in the United States to sue to make his indentured servant a slave? It was a black man.
Second, who gave white Europeans the idea that they could travel to another continent and take the native inhabitants as slaves? It was Arab Muslims.
I’m all for reparations, but let those who started enslaving blacks (and others) foot the bill.
First of all how can they prove their lineage! Then afterwards my question remains you show me anyone who had been a slave for the last 50 years and the. Yes he deserves to get it. But unless you yourself is a slave or has been a slave you do not deserve the money. They must remember there were a Lot of people of all heritage that were also treated as slaves. Irish, Polish, many many other races. Do we pay them also!
I strongly support reparations. It was the Democrats who benefitted the most from slavery so they should pay reparations, and Democrats in Congress who support reparations should be the first to cough up some money. We Republicans fought and died to free the slaves so we should be exempt. It was the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who was murdered by the Democrat John Wilkes Booth, who freed the slaves.
Are there any Black people that WERE slaves,if so then to them only.
I sure hope it don’t come to light, because all those ppl that were slaves are dead, they are the one’s who may deserve it, but the ppl that are alive today their ancestors might have been one, but they still don’t deserve it, what good would it bring, except more racial divide, if they don’t like where they are, then move out of the country & go back to Africa! All this is, is a way for the democrats to get the blacks to come back to them!
I have a few questions: my family did not come to this country until the 1960s why should we or any other American in this situation have to pay for something that we weren’t a part of? Several states including Colorado, Oklahoma and Wyoming were not states at the time, why should they add to their tax burden when they were neither slave or free states? Lastly, where is this “racism” I hear so much about? You can’t even look at a black person cross-eyed without having your entire world upended. Dr. Carson is right about black people needing to not embrace a mentality of victim hood.