Why Reparations? How About The Denial Of Our Constitutional Rights The 14th Amendment

In America 34% of the population is over the age of 50. For white Americans, the most common age was 58, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau. That’s why today’s blog post is so on point. Because many white Americans will say when they discuss or confronted with the issue of reparations for African Americans, they will say well I didn’t own no slaves. Well did you know that for more than a century after the supposed last African American slave was freed. The African American was denied his/her civil rights right into the early part of the 1970s’? This means white Americans continued to benefit economic from the oppression that denied these constitutional rights. They benefited from educational opportunities, employment opportunities as well social and civic opportunities. The institutions that are the foundation of wealth building in this nation benefited as well. So the argument that you didn’t own any slaves holds no water when the oppression of the constitutional rights of African Americans continued long after the passage of the 13th Amendment passed in 1865. Let’s look at the 14th Amendment today. It was intended to secure equal protection under the law for every American. It was specifically written to protect the rights of the recently freed African Americans but from the Compromise of 1877 until as late as the early 1970s’ that signature right of protecting citizenship rights was ignored by a majority of states in this country. These states had to be forced by the federal government and the federal judiciary to adhere to protecting our rights. So, when the most common age for white Americans in 2018 is 58 years of age. The argument I didn’t own any slaves is paper thin and the paper is soaking wet. It cannot bear any pressure because it will tear apart with the littlest of effort. Yes, it has been time and time again that without slavery, American capitalism would’ve have grown to make the American economy the most powerful economy on the planet. Also, you can also make the argument that all that cheap and free labor derived from vagrancy laws, convict leading, peonage, sharecropping, and the other acts of oppression during the denial of our constitutional rights created additional wealth building throughout America. Why reparations, how about the denial of our constitutional rights. Especially the 14th Amendment.