Newsweek

By Alexanndria Hutzler

July 29, 2020

William Darity Jr., an economist at Duke University who studies racial inequality, told Newsweek he is “not surprised there is no commitment to reparations” as Biden “never has suggested that he supports African American reparations, and it would be startling if he were to change directions at this time.”

When pressed about his position on reparations during a virtual town hall hosted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) last month, Biden demurred and said his answer “would depend on what it was and will it include Native Americans as well.” Darity Jr. noted that it would be difficult to group the two cases together as the motivations behind the compensation are different.

“Reparations for Black American descendants of persons enslaved in the United States seek the material conditions to claim full citizenship, while reparations for Native Americans are a claim for sovereignty. So the two cases cannot be combined,” he said.