Coates: Good afternoon, Mr. Williamson. I have read your response and I must say, we differ greatly on our views of whether reparations should be implemented into our nation.

 

Williamson: Good afternoon, Mr. Coates. Although, we may disagree on the idea of reparations, I must agree with that statement.

 

Coates: I must ask, why is it that you are so against the idea of reparations for the black community in America? It’s obvious that the country we are in today owes much of its success to the past suffering of the black community.

 

Williamson: I’m not saying that slavery and its negative aftereffects never happened. What I am trying to get across is that the past is the past, but for the betterment of the future, the political interests of African Americans are best served by equality under the law. The African Americans that were hurt by the racist policies of the past are long dead. There is no longer a duty to appease them and their interests. Our focus should be on the current and future youth.

 

Coates: That’s the thing—they’re not all “long dead.” Clyde Ross is still alive. Mattie Lewis is still alive. The stigma and the repercussions of the continuous years of racism and segregations are still alive. Black people today are facing damages, not just from the actions of our forefathers, but from the continued ignorance of the psychological, economical and most importantly, moral foundation that America was built on. Reparations for the black community is something more than a donation to these “poor families”, a bribe for them to keep their voices down.

 

Williamson: The type of reparation that is offered is not the issue. The issue is that you think race is the end-all reason that blacks have been worse off than whites, however, that is not the case. Whites have just been more daring with their money; black are financially risk-averse and that, in the long run, has left them worse off than their white counterparts.

 

Coates: But there’s a reason for them being so! Just look back on history, in the 20th century, many blacks were swindled into terrible “on contract” sales for houses that were largely inflated in price. A black family making $100,000 lived in the same neighborhoods inhabited by whites making only $30,000. There’s a reason why blacks aren’t risk takers with their money. They hardly ever had any, and when they finally started to possess some, it was still being snatched away by the whites. Reparations of any kind are long overdue.

 

Williamson: But this kind of discussion for reparations goes against America’s justice system; it is only fair for us to serve the people as equals under the law. Race should not be an exception.

 

Coates: I think what people are really afraid of is that opening a discussion about reparations would bring up the fact that the course America is on right now ignores past mistakes. We persist on blindly ignoring our past and only indulging in our present. By doing so—by not coming to terms with our past, by not acknowledging that we are on a bad path—we continue to blindly believe that America is this great nation of equality when it is in fact not.