Read the details of Democrats' support for reparations

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Senator Kamala Harris of California recently told a radio host that the idea of reparations should be considered in the face of economic inequality. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts approved the need for repairs, potentially for Native Americans whose lands were expropriated by European settlers as well as African-Americans. The same is true of the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julian Castro.

The idea, which the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates attempted to reintroduce in 2014 with his manifesto "The Case for Reparations", has once again made its way into the political discourse. But none of the candidates who have expressed their openness to the concept has a concrete proposal that would specifically give a new group of Americans a new advantage based on their race.

Senator Bernie Sanders, interviewed by a young black woman at CNN City Hall Monday night for her position on the repairs, did not say that he was supporting them or supporting them, but argued instead that inequalities should be addressed.

When Wolf Blitzer specifically insisted on the idea of reparations, the Vermont Independent Democratic nomination candidate for the presidency responded by saying that the term "reparations" was being used in different ways .

"What does that mean?" Sanders asked the word. "What do they want to say, I'm not sure anyone is very clear, what I just said is that I think we have to do everything in our power to address the enormous level of disparity that exists in this country. "

Sanders has had no problem in his political career making bold promises that seem at odds with political reality. On Monday night, he boldly promised "Medicare for All," a minimum wage of $ 15 and a free college. It is interesting to note that the repairs were interrupted.

Harris, along with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, is part of the group of colored Democrats who run for president. First in the radio show "The Breakfast Club" and in a later interview with The Grio, an information site aimed at African Americans, Mr. Harris reiterated that the United States had to admit that, in general, blacks and whites of this country did not begin. from the same place. But the solution she evoked would not only benefit African Americans.

"We had more than 200 years of slavery," Harris told the Grio. "We had Jim Crow for almost a century. We have legalized discrimination, segregation, and now we have segregation and discrimination that is no longer legal, but hinders progress. We have disparities in housing. We have disparities in education. There are disparities in income. We must recognize that not everyone has started on an equal footing in this country, especially blacks. "

Harris argued that his proposal to provide new tax breaks to low and middle income people could help solve this problem. Grio interviewer Natasha Alford pointed out that this could by default, help black families but "this is not a particular policy for African Americans".

Harris ends by saying this:

"Any policy that will benefit blacks will benefit society as a whole Let's be clear about this, let's be very clear about it, so I will not stay here and say I'll do something that will only benefit you" 39 to blacks, no, because all that this black family gets will benefit the community, society as a whole and the country. "

Booker has proposed giving chicken eggs to American children every year, so that when they grow, they have tens of thousands of dollars to pay for their education or a down payment on a house.

The so-called baby bonds are a policy aimed at addressing the lack of generational wealth that makes African-American children's success more difficult.

But, like Harris's tax breaks, child bonds would not only benefit African-American children. Anyone whose family income is below the $ 126,000 income threshold would benefit. Actually would also contribute to combating racial inequalities.

Booker did not recently discuss the idea of reparations, but William Darity, a Duke researcher who supported the idea of reparations, insisted that his family obligations were at the rendezvous, l & # 39; inequality in this country.

The fact that the Democratic electorate increasingly supports minority voters has been documented chapter and verse by political observers. Which tells you a lot about why the Democrats in 2020 place a lot of importance on the idea of reparations.

But it is not that there is a specific plan for repairs.

The calendar transfers the democratic influence in 2020 to color voters

Former President Barack Obama was definitely not an advocate for reparations. His long conversation with Coates, published after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 elections, clearly showed that the first black American president did not think that reparations were possible or, at this point in the history of the United States, correct.

Obama: The best way to say it is probably that you can present a theoretical abstract argument in favor of something that looks like repairs. And maybe I'm not optimistic or imaginative enough –

Coates: You are supposed to be optimistic!

Obama: I thought so, but I am not optimistic enough to think that you would be able to bring together a majority of US Congress members who would make this type of investment beyond the investments that could be made in a progressive program to raise all the men. So, to rephrase it: I have a lot more confidence in my ability, and that of any president or any leader, to mobilize the American people around a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment to help each and every one. Poor child of the country I am mobilizing the country around to provide a specific benefit to African Americans as a result of slavery and Jim Crow.

The conversation continued from there and deserves to be read in its entirety. In his response, Darity, Professor Duke, asserted in his long Atlantic essay that Obama had not been bold enough in his own policies to bridge the wealth gap.

There is not much survey on the popularity of repairs, but writer Perry Bacon Jr., in an article on 538, has attempted to classify Americans' openness to racial justice proposals. . He puts repairs in its "unpopular" category. Which means that there is no reason to think that the political realities mentioned by Obama have changed.

The question is whether this is an idea that can be reinterpreted, as Democrats seem to be doing.

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