America’s long legacy of racism, discrimination, brutality, and lynching against African Americans has finally been exposed to the light. George Floyd’s killing by the police, along with the many other recent killings, brought outraged Americans into the streets to protest.
In 2020, the idea that Black Lives Matter was raised up, and confederate flags and statues came down. Millionaire athletes took a knee, and coaches and league presidents spoke against racism. Sports teams changed their names— from Washington DC to high schools across the country. Even NASCAR raced away from its racist past.
America has never fully acknowledged or atoned for our history of racism. Indigenous Americans had their lands and lives stolen from Columbus to Wounded Knee. African ancestors endured slavery and then a century of Jim Crow segregation. Latinos were expelled, and Asians were excluded from America. Sadly, minorities are still victims of racism, violence and murder.
Reparations are due for unpaid work, for stolen lands, and for violence committed by our nation, either directly or indirectly. Native Americans could be given co-ownership of federal and state-owned lands, plus cash payments. Freed slaves were promised forty acres and a mule, so that could be owning their home and a new car, plus cash payments. A thousand dollars a month for a few years would start to repair America’s long legacy of discrimination.
We live in a multi ethnic nation, from 1776 to today. But political and economic power were not shared with minorities or with women until very recently. Now, an African American and Asian woman is Vice President and a Native American woman is Secretary of the Interior!
