Opposing View: Race- based reparations is a step backward

America has been paying reparations for slavery for more than 160 years. The Civil War cost the Union and the Confederacy more than $ 90 billion, adjusted for inflation, and 750,000 overwhelmingly white lives.

It is true that there remain wide disparities between Black and white Americans in pay, wealth, health, education and more. But the route to a better, more equal America is through colorblind reform and individual justice, not racial entitlements – programs for Black farmers, Black college students, Black homeowners, Black businesses and so on.

For instance, African Americans have complained they are hobbled in the quest for home ownership by the fact that years of on- time rental payments don’t result in the good credit needed to buy a home. We can add rental payments to all credit reports, helping poor people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds just as much as poor Blacks.

African Americans justly complain of a history of substandard schools that have relegated their children to lives of poverty. Colorblind school choice to attend schools that are better will help all students in failing schools.

In other cases, we can repair people’s lives for harms they directly suffered. If you were denied a government loan because you were Black, you should be eligible for compensation, not because of the group you belong to, but because you as an individual were wronged.

All of those steps will take us toward a colorblind equality where all have a fair shot at the American dream if they work hard and play by the rules. Racebased reparations will take us away from that goal by fostering continued racial division and political strife.

Poor whites will see handouts and advantages for Blacks of all economic classes as an insult to their own struggles. Many will object to giving “reparations” to the 17% of Black Americans who are immigrants and their children. They have no history of suffering from slavery or Jim Crow.

Many whites descended from those who fought and died to end slavery may justly object that their families have already paid for America’s sins. Millions more, like my grandparents, didn’t immigrate here until the 20th century, leaving them blameless for structural racism.

Race- based reparations are a step back into racial politics that Americans are trying to get away from. The way to end racial discrimination is to stop racial discrimination.