Should African-Americans receive reparations for slavery and racism, and how best if so?

Widely debated today is whether African-Americans should receive reparations for slavery and racism. The Atlantic provides background on the financial and economical differences between African Americans and Caucasians simply on the basis of racist laws. Lenders in the past used to abuse them by taking away all the benefits of home-owning and making it so that they had to spend more money than they were capable of until they could no longer afford to live there anymore. Then these lenders took essentially all of their money and targeted the next black family. However, that does not mean that today there are not still limitations for black individuals or families simply due to racist ideologies. Some can argue that these reparations are unnecessary at this point as life isn’t so hard for African Americans today as it was in the past. The rates of black poverty are lower, black teen-pregnancy rates are the lowest they’ve been, and the gap between black versus white teen-pregnancy is much less. Due to these reasons some argue that life is only getting better for African Americans within America and is equal enough that reparations are taking it too far. However, not everything has gotten better. Since 1970 the gap between black and white households’ incomes has not changed. In 1955-1970 4% of whites and 62% of black individuals in America were raised within poorer neighborhoods. One decade later the same study was conducted and nothing had changed. African Americans do deserve reparations for the time of slavery but also during the time of the Jim Crow laws and even for today’s shortcomings economically. Since African Americans were brought to the United States to today, they have been not financially supported at all or at a rate much less than whites. There is some ironing out to do within this process, however. One of the problems to be taken into consideration is what defines an individual as black? Who is on the list and who did not make it? Another logistical tactic to be talked about is how exactly these reparations should be distributed and should it be a one and done thing or a long lasting practice? It would be best to establish at a federal level as a long lasting practice. However, rather than handing out money, it should be installed as a requirement within companies and industries. African Americans within the workforce should be paid on average extra, acting as the reparations for all of the time that they were paid significantly less. Some may argue that this will cause less companies to hire African Americas so that they can save their money, causing these individuals to be earning no money anymore. However, there is an expectation on the amount of people of color companies should be hiring and if they do not meet the expectation, the company faces consequences. To dish out money is not as effective as fixing the immense economic inequality that African Americans within the workforce are facing and have been facing since the creation of the United States.