Cook Center Director William A. Darity Jr. gave comments on an article by The Jewish News of Northern California on reparations, specifically the case for reparations for the descendants of African slaves in America.
One of the harms often cited is the racial wealth gap, a major argument for proponents of reparations. According to federal data from 2017, a white family’s median wealth is 9.7 times higher than that of Black families. And while Black Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, they hold just 2.6 percent of the nation’s wealth, according to Darity, an authority on Black American reparations who submitted testimony for the H.R. 40 hearings. Closing the wealth gap, Darity told Mother Jones magazine, would require funding “in the vicinity of $10 trillion to $12 trillion.” Calculating the cost of reparations is an inexact science and figures vary dramatically, as do ideas for forms the reparations should take and who should be eligible.
Read the full article here.
