Ta-Nehisi Coates: Nice to finally meet you, Kevin. I feel like I know you already after reading so much about what you think about the way I think. I say this in all seriousness, I am pleased to sit down and talk straight about what we believe is the most fair and effective procedure to provide justice and economic equality for African Americans. I found your article, “The Case Against Reparations,” to be very well written and well thought out. I did notice that you mention a white immigrant escaping the Third Reich as well as European Jewish immigrants who quickly closed the income gap as examples of groups facing hardship in the New World. This brings to mind reparations Germany paid to Holocaust survivors living in Israel after the State was established. Although this is a side point, since you brought it up, I would like to take note of it as a model for what I envision reparations for African Americans to look like. You argue that our people need to move forward. That there is no one around still alive to collect the economic value of property that was stripped through legal and coercive means. That there is no point focusing on the past, the future is what is important. I think you are missing out on a key aspect of what it means to be an African American living in the United States under a banner which promises “freedom and justice for all.” To be a black person living in America is to remember why most of us are even in this country. For many of us, it is because we were forced onto ships, shackled and unfed, to be brought to plantations to work. And that was the end of our freedom for hundreds of years – we were born into slavery and we worked every day until we died, under a white master. With this legacy it is critical for our people to “Never Forget” – the motto of the Jewish people who have vowed to never again sit back and let the enemy annihilate them. Demanding reparations for our people is the only way to make a stand that we have indeed moved past the innumerable racial injustices committed both pre and post Civil War, showing that we are free and equal citizens under the law. As to your argument that there is no one around to accept the payment, there are multiple ways for families of victims to submit proof that their relatives were extorted.

Kevin Williamson: Mr. Coates. Thank you for taking the time to meet me today. Sometimes it’s easier to avoid confronting those who think differently than you do – and I appreciate how you made the difficult move to have this very important conversation. As a fellow black man, I don’t deny the suffering that our ancestors endured on the way to this country. And I understand that the suffering only continued when they landed on American soil as slaves. It didn’t stop with the Northern States’ victory in the Civil War and it hasn’t completely been eradicated yet. You mention numerous correct examples how the African American population as a whole continues to endure income gaps as well as lowered quality of life as compared to White people. This is sad and must be dealt with. However, I do not believe the answer is reparations. The German reparations you mention were extremely controversial. How can you take German murderers’ money in exchange for Jewish blood, argued Menachem Begin? How can you turn down economic help when your fledgling State is struggling to survive and cope with a huge influx of immigrants, argued David Ben Gurion? So aside for the fact that many African Americans on principle would find it offensive to take money from the aggressor, I don’t see how you intend to implement this plan. Even if, like you said, there would be a way to prove how much money is owed to who – who would be around to pay? Individuals, not governments,  stole from the black man. While this is the unfortunate reality, there is nothing to be done at this point. No government, city, state, or federal, is willing to take on this burden. After the Holocaust, the world recognized the injustice that had been done to so many Jews as well as other minorities. Reparations were a way for Germany to immediately appease the international community following the biggest tragedy of the 20th century. In this way they regained respect and trust and today have grown to be a world power. African Americans need to find a way out, individually, to stop playing the victim of hundreds of years, and in this way we will be able to turn our suffering into the key to our future success.