Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders seems to make the case for reparations for African people inside the U.S. He sites high prison numbers, high unemployment numbers, the high poverty rate, etc. These are the social injustices that reparations would in part repair. Then Bernie says, “No” he can’t support reparations for slavery and stolen black labor.
This is the question the Black Lives Matter folks should have raised to Bernie and Hillary Clinton as opposed to demanding they say “Black Lives Matter” and what is in their hearts. The reparations question was also asked of Obama in the first U.S.Presidential debates in Harlem, New York and Obama like Sanders gave a resounding “no” to the question of black reparations.
The U.S. government has never even apologized for slavery. To acknowledge they owe African people for slavery and stolen labor would split asunder the very ideological and economic foundations that U.S. capitalism rest. So let’s tell the Black Lives Matter folks to demand that Bernie just say “Reparations Now!”
