Reparations and Racial Inequality

 Darby discusses in his article "Reparations and Racial Inequality" the issue of reparations for African Americans and what these reparations should be. He brings up that many people asked for monetary reparations be made; I find this demand to be crazy, and Darby states how monetary and physical reparations may not be enough. I find it really crazy that people would demand monetary reparations because what at all does that change? It is like saying money fixes everything; when it reality, it doesn't. 

Darby overall argues that African Americans need to live in a world in which they are equal to be themselves and to have the life of everyone around them. Darby brings up the idea of building statues and museums and what not, but even this still will not fix everything. When it comes to monetary reparations, you obviously reach the question of where does this money come from; it would not be fair to make anyone today make a monetary payment because 150 years ago an extremely distant ancestor of theirs was possibly a horrible person. Asking monetary payments to be made from a person who has never done anything bad to the situation will just anger them. Thinking monetary payments will suffice is just insane as this changes absolutely nothing in society. Slavery ended, but inequality never ended, and in order to end this, the societal view needs to change since clearly the political view has not done enough. Giving physical reparations also quite literally does nothing, and it angers me that people even requested that. In order to create equality in society, there is significantly more than needs to be done instead of giving monetary and physical reparations. This is just like giving a kid a new toy so that they like you; they don't actually like you, they just like what you gave them. 

In order to create the equality that we need, the societal view needs to change. There are laws in place to make African Americans politically equal, but writing on paper does not change the rude bigoted opinions that so many people have. The only way this equality can be achieved is absolutely everyone holding the same exact standard. Equality is giving each and every person the ability to express themselves in the exact way they were made to do, putting aside all things race, and giving everyone equal opportunity to achieve in this world. This is not a simple thing that can be reached through giving monetary and physical reparations; these feelings and actions come from the mind not the wallet.