The year is 2018. The Location: A Coffee Shop in Brooklyn, NY.

Coates: Hi Mr. Williamson. I appreciate you coming to sit down and chat. I saw your response to my view on reparations and I’m glad that we finally discuss our differing viewpoints.

Williamson: Thank you for having me. I wanted to start off by saying that I found your piece to be moving, intelligent, and well written. However after reading your article, it just made me reflect on how there really is no need for reparations.

Coates: Well why do you say that?

Williamson: While I do agree with you in stating that the economic disadvantages imposed on African Americans did not end with slavery, as you stated in your article with Jim Crow Laws and segregation in general, however, there shouldn’t be reparations given to African Americans because we should all be treated under the same law and same equality in order to move on into the future, instead of dwelling on the past and can not expect Americans to pay and give reparations. I think you miscalculate what the real-world effects of converting our liberal conception of justice into a system of racial appropriation might mean.

Coates: I am not asking for anyone to give up front monetary reparations. By reparations, I mean, the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences. It is truly the price we must pay in order to reach a sort of spiritual renewal. We must examine the fact that African Americans have built our wealth in America, yet are not being compensated and rewarded for that. Black families making $100,000 typically live in the kinds of neighborhoods inhabited by white families making $30,000.To ask for people to pay would be absurd. However, there are bills like the H.R. 40, that examine slavery and discrimination from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies, that has never come to the floor under both Democrats or Republicans. So, we haven’t even really had a chance to assess how much might be owed, if anything, and how that could possibly be paid back. You know, the question is totally off the table. And what I really wanted to do was get people to at least acknowledge that the argument was there.

Williamson: I see your viewpoint. However, the issue of income doesn’t entirely have to do with race. Blacks are financially risk-averse compared with whites, which probably has something to do with the history mentioned before. However,  this risk aversion has the long-term effect of leaving them worse off. This also has a negative effect on mental attitudes. This emphasizes the point that African Americans may never catch up economically with the whites, and this current income has little to do with race and racial issues in the past.

Coates: You are missing a crucial point, which is that the banks in America aren’t truly for minorities. In 2005, Wells Fargo enrolled black public figures in an effort to educate blacks on building “generational wealth.” However, the “wealth building” seminars were merely a mask for wealth theft. Five years later , the Justice Department filed a discrimination suit against the bank stating that the bank had pushed blacks into predatory loans regardless of their creditworthiness. This was not a coincidence. It was racism defining itself, as it always has and always will until we fix ourselves mentally and spiritually. I see your point that we must look into the future, however, we must also look into the past to ensure that these racial inequities are not present in our future.