The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The title of Ta-Nehisi Coates's book of essays We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy is an allusion to the presidency of Barack Obama, but actually refers to the period during Reconstruction when Black people were enfranchised, governed themselves, and reaped the benefits of citizenship before white supremacy, once again, reared its ugly head. If Between the World and Me awoke me to what it's like to live in a Black body in America, these essays enlightened me to how racist, systematic pogroms to strip Black people of their rights and wealth are the very essence of the history of the United States of America.

Particularly compelling is "The Case of Reparations," which is usually mocked as "a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists." If you don't have time to read the book, you can read it online in The Atlantic, where all eight of these essays were originally published.

"The sins of slavery did not stop with slavery. Slavery was but the initial crime in a long tradition of crimes, of plunder even, that can be traced to the present day. . . For Americans, the hardest part of paying reparations would not be the outlay of money. It would be acknowledging that their most cherished myth (of life, liberty, and justice for all) was not real."

It should be required reading for every American to read this book if you really want an understanding of the legacy of slavery that continues to this day. Racism is not in the past.