The DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – initiatives that are such a bane to the white supremacists, are a lame substitute for Affirmative Action, itself a lame substitute for Reparations. I have a practical plan for how genuine Reparations could be implemented, but first I want to argue that Reparations for slavery and subsequent discrimination of Black Americans is powerfully in the interest of white Americans as well. Here are the main reasons:

1. It’s only fair. The treatment of Blacks has been transcendently unfair.
2. It will enable us as white people to claim our full humanity, which we can’t do with the blood of white supremacy on ours and our ancestors’ hands. 
3. Economically, it will benefit whites because, in my proposal at least, it will pump 2.5 trillion dollars into the economy over ten years.
4. It will overcome the huge divide in the working class between Black and white families, even if there is initial resistance on the part of whites. This unity will benefit the entire working class.  
5. The process of attaining Reparations will need to decisively defeat the white supremacy that has dominated US politics since the beginning of the country.
6. It will force all Americans to take responsibility for our history. 
7. It’s the right thing to do. 

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2020 that white households had a median wealth of $250,400, while Black households had a median wealth of $24,520, in other words, Black wealth is 10% of white wealth. This difference is fully attributable to the enslavement of the Black population, the failure to grant the promised 40 acres and a mule, and subsequent discrimination, in jobs, housing, education, public transport, for example the exclusion from New Deal benefits of farm and domestic workers, nearly all Black in those times; the excusion of Blacks from the various Homestead Act land giveaways. Or, the explicit denial of FHA loans to Blacks, post-World War II when the federal government subsidized the building of the white suburbs. 

No amount of money could ever make up for the horror of Black oppression and degradation over four centuries. But something like this modest proposal for reparations could help a lot of people and represent a step toward healing. The difference between median white wealth and Black wealth from the 2020 census is $225,880 ($250,400-$24,520) Let’s round that up to 226,000 and provide that amount to every one if the 11 million Black households. That’s a total af about $2,486,000,000,000. If the government would distribute these funds over ten years, paying the neediest families first, it would come to $248,600,000,000 a year, a paltry sum in the federal budget, 3.5% to be exact (the federal budget is 7 trillion dollars). If it wanted to get fancy, the government could tax the still existing corporations that benefited from slavery and the slave trade, J. P Morgan Chase, Well Fargo Bank, Aetna Insurance (which has even apologized for its role), Brown University, several railroads, etc. 

The first step of course is to pass HR 40 calling for a “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act” which has been introduced every January 1 by Rep. John Conyers since 1989. In 2025, it was introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley.