Feds well-positioned to provide slavery reparations, Harvard study finds

[VAiz4hustlaz]

Advocates hope Harris will boost momentum on reparations to Black Americans

While she favored “some form” of reparations in the past, she has not offered her position as a presidential nominee. Views on reparations sharply diverge by race.

In 2019, in her first campaign for president, then-Sen. Kamala Harris called for “some form of reparations” for Black Americans and threw her support behind legislation to study the issue of repayment for historic wrongs.

Since then, spurred by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the reparations movement has notched victories across the country, including some in the Democrat’s home state of California.

Reparations advocates say Harris’s past comments and her new position as the first Black and Asian American woman to head a presidential ticket give them renewed hope that the movement to provide recompense for Black Americans for decades of discrimination could gain new, national traction.

“We have a Black woman with a lived experience and a heart for the Black community,” said Robin Rue Simmons, a former alderman in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill., who pushed a program that provides qualifying Black residents with $25,000 to address the city’s history of housing discrimination. “I believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is the leader to advance this conversation at the federal level.”

But how Harris feels now, five years after expressing support in her first presidential campaign, how high the issue rests in her priorities and what impact that may have on the coalition of voters she must assemble to defeat Republican Donald Trump remains a mystery.

Since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris’s campaign, speaking for her, has rejected her 2019 opposition to fracking, the practice of extracting natural gas that is popular in vote-heavy Pennsylvania, her past support of a single payer health care program and her more liberal proposals on immigration.

The Harris campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her current position on reparations.

Some Harris allies argue that support for reparations could help her attract Black voters who have been swayed somewhat by Trump’s economic message.

“There are people who support this and would be more politically engaged if this were a part of our political discourse,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) said in an interview before Harris accepted the nomination. “But it isn’t, so they’re staying home or some are even moving to the Republican Party because it feels like Democrats are taking Black voters for granted.”

Yet even some advocates worry that a forceful call for reparations could alienate more voters than it energizes.

While Democratic cities and states have pushed for reparations, the programs still face stiff political headwinds nationally. Just about a quarter of Americans support the federal government paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved Black Americans, according to a 2023 Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

The poll found large racial gaps in support for reparations. While 75 percent of Black Americans support federal reparations, only 15 percent of White Americans and 36 percent of Hispanic Americans agree. That has made some leery of Harris making the issue part of her argument for the presidency.

Harris’s November opponent has hewed closer to public opinion in his limited remarks on reparations. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Trump said that he didn’t see a path forward for reparations advocates.

“I think it’s a very unusual thing,” Trump said in 2019 of the possibility of reparations. “You have a lot of — it’s been a very interesting debate. I don’t see it happening, no.”

Quentin James, president of the Collective PAC, a Democratic political action committee that backs Black candidates, suggested that reparations would be a distraction for the Harris campaign before such a high-stakes election.

“I think reparations will be a major policy conversation over the next few years, but I don’t think we need to start that conversation before the election,” he said.

“There’s strong evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris will be one of the most vocal supporters of us having that dialogue as a nation,” he said.

Julia Azari, a political science professor at Marquette University, said it would make more sense for Harris to focus on the issues where Democrats agree.

“Not all Democrats have come out in favor of reparations, and you can find lots of different quotes from people saying they’re against them,” Azari said. “Why stoke an intraparty fight when you could just keep highlighting things your opponents have done that are unpopular, like book bans and changing the way people teach history?”

Even during her first campaign, Harris carefully parsed her support for reparations, so much so that the headline of a 2019 interview with the Root, a publication aimed at Black Americans, declared that she “wants reparations (sort of).”

“I think there has to be some form of reparations, and we can discuss what that is,” she said in the interview with the Root. “We’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery. We’re looking at almost 100 years of Jim Crow. We’re looking at legalized segregation and in fact, segregation on so many levels that exist today based on race. And there has not been any kind of intervention.”

She did not endorse specific proposals but instead made broad statements of support. For example, when asked in 2019 on CNN if she supported reparations in the form of cash payments, she said: “I support that we study that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/03/kamala-harris-reparations/

@Soul On Ice @Supersav @KingTaharqa @FLoss @APOPHIS @lazarus @850credit @gtg305h

 

[850credit]

Nothing gets done because it's the right thing to do or out of the goodness of the heart.

Only if there's a political benefit.

 

[850credit]

Fed Gov can afford to wait until rabble rousers die off.

 

[Diomedes3000]

Cacs will never pay us, Unless we take over the country and pay ourselves.

 

[REDLINE]

They have the money and can easily pay us, we just have to unite and tell them that we're from Ukraine and need the money to fight Russia.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

Advocates hope Harris will boost momentum on reparations to Black Americans

While she favored “some form” of reparations in the past, she has not offered her position as a presidential nominee. Views on reparations sharply diverge by race.

In 2019, in her first campaign for president, then-Sen. Kamala Harris called for “some form of reparations” for Black Americans and threw her support behind legislation to study the issue of repayment for historic wrongs.

Since then, spurred by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the reparations movement has notched victories across the country, including some in the Democrat’s home state of California.

Reparations advocates say Harris’s past comments and her new position as the first Black and Asian American woman to head a presidential ticket give them renewed hope that the movement to provide recompense for Black Americans for decades of discrimination could gain new, national traction.

“We have a Black woman with a lived experience and a heart for the Black community,” said Robin Rue Simmons, a former alderman in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill., who pushed a program that provides qualifying Black residents with $25,000 to address the city’s history of housing discrimination. “I believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is the leader to advance this conversation at the federal level.”

But how Harris feels now, five years after expressing support in her first presidential campaign, how high the issue rests in her priorities and what impact that may have on the coalition of voters she must assemble to defeat Republican Donald Trump remains a mystery.

Since becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris’s campaign, speaking for her, has rejected her 2019 opposition to fracking, the practice of extracting natural gas that is popular in vote-heavy Pennsylvania, her past support of a single payer health care program and her more liberal proposals on immigration.

The Harris campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment on her current position on reparations.

Some Harris allies argue that support for reparations could help her attract Black voters who have been swayed somewhat by Trump’s economic message.

“There are people who support this and would be more politically engaged if this were a part of our political discourse,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) said in an interview before Harris accepted the nomination. “But it isn’t, so they’re staying home or some are even moving to the Republican Party because it feels like Democrats are taking Black voters for granted.”

Yet even some advocates worry that a forceful call for reparations could alienate more voters than it energizes.

While Democratic cities and states have pushed for reparations, the programs still face stiff political headwinds nationally. Just about a quarter of Americans support the federal government paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved Black Americans, according to a 2023 Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

The poll found large racial gaps in support for reparations. While 75 percent of Black Americans support federal reparations, only 15 percent of White Americans and 36 percent of Hispanic Americans agree. That has made some leery of Harris making the issue part of her argument for the presidency.

Harris’s November opponent has hewed closer to public opinion in his limited remarks on reparations. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Trump said that he didn’t see a path forward for reparations advocates.

“I think it’s a very unusual thing,” Trump said in 2019 of the possibility of reparations. “You have a lot of — it’s been a very interesting debate. I don’t see it happening, no.”

Quentin James, president of the Collective PAC, a Democratic political action committee that backs Black candidates, suggested that reparations would be a distraction for the Harris campaign before such a high-stakes election.

“I think reparations will be a major policy conversation over the next few years, but I don’t think we need to start that conversation before the election,” he said.

“There’s strong evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris will be one of the most vocal supporters of us having that dialogue as a nation,” he said.

Julia Azari, a political science professor at Marquette University, said it would make more sense for Harris to focus on the issues where Democrats agree.

“Not all Democrats have come out in favor of reparations, and you can find lots of different quotes from people saying they’re against them,” Azari said. “Why stoke an intraparty fight when you could just keep highlighting things your opponents have done that are unpopular, like book bans and changing the way people teach history?”

Even during her first campaign, Harris carefully parsed her support for reparations, so much so that the headline of a 2019 interview with the Root, a publication aimed at Black Americans, declared that she “wants reparations (sort of).”

“I think there has to be some form of reparations, and we can discuss what that is,” she said in the interview with the Root. “We’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery. We’re looking at almost 100 years of Jim Crow. We’re looking at legalized segregation and in fact, segregation on so many levels that exist today based on race. And there has not been any kind of intervention.”

She did not endorse specific proposals but instead made broad statements of support. For example, when asked in 2019 on CNN if she supported reparations in the form of cash payments, she said: “I support that we study that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/03/kamala-harris-reparations/

@Soul On Ice @Supersav @KingTaharqa @FLoss @APOPHIS @lazarus @850credit @gtg305h

if the weirdo democRATs wouldve focused and executed this EARLY ON, and not so much focus on the GAY AGENDA,

they would be floating right into a win..

but their BLATANT DISRESPECT, THIER AHH FUCK YOU, SHUT THE FUCK UP KNIGGA AN TAKE THIS INJECTION

LIKE A GOOD LIL BITCH, is going to cost them DEARLY for a long time...

sorry but the Democrats gotta go,

the only thing that could save them.. Is a last minute large fuckin check to the TRUE AMERICANS whose land

has been stolen by hybrid european american converts..

you see pale face on the whole dont really know his true history, once they realize, they are actually TURN COATS on the people

that were ON their side when THEIR OWN european govt was fuckin them...

they joined their ENEMY to fuck over the people that was actually KIND TO THEM

THIS IS WHAT HYBRID EUROPEANS that were sent to america AS A FUCKIN PENAL COLONY... they always leave out that word PENAL,

when talkin about the first europeans sent here.. ha go fuckin figure.. bruh

THESE FACTS AND MANY MORE


ARE FIGHTING DAY AND NIGHT TO COVER UP AND RUN FROM!!!

 

[SoulPatch]

If you are in Alabama, do whatever you can to GTFO.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

Cacs will never pay us, Unless we take over the country and pay ourselves.

HA all we have to do, is KNOW that WE ARE OWED LAND AND RESOURCES

THAT WAS STOLEN FROM US..

bruh JUST KNOW IT..

DECLARE IT

AND LET THE UNIVERSE DO ITS THING...

CACS HA!!!!

we all puppets to the Divine Order of

THINGS!!!

KARMA IS A DIVINE ORDER THING.

JUST KNOW YOU BEEN TRANSGRESSED

AND WOE

TO THE

TRANSGRESSORS

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

HA all we have to do, is KNOW that WE ARE OWED LAND AND RESOURCES

THAT WAS STOLEN FROM US..

bruh JUST KNOW IT..

DECLARE IT

AND LET THE UNIVERSE DO ITS THING...

CACS HA!!!!

we all puppets to the Divine Order of

THINGS!!!

KARMA IS A DIVINE ORDER THING.

JUST KNOW YOU BEEN TRANSGRESSED

AND WOE

TO THE

TRANSGRESSORS

Takes way more than this.

 

[^SpiderMan^]

Why would we get reperations? It doesn’t benefit CACs and black folks aren’t demanding it. Look how many people on here defend Biden and Harris for lackluster effort supporting it.

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

Why would we get reperations? It doesn’t benefit CACs and black folks aren’t demanding it. Look how many people on here defend Biden and Harris for lackluster effort supporting it.

Don't let the elderly Demobots, tethers, and coons on BGOL discourage you into thinking that they represent most Black people and that Black folks have no interest in reparations. They're just happy to tap dance in the house. And the vitriol and misinformation you get from them is because they don't want the grassroots to organize and push back.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

Takes way more than this.

Not to kick Karma in motion...

why you think they invest so much money into lying to us about who we are and where

we come from, if the majority of us, thinks this is NOT our land, and belongs more to

some hybrid european whose arrived here on some penal colony shit....

Truth is tho, they are holding back reparations because they KNOW true history...

we deserve reparations for being ENSLAVED on our own land, and THEN we deserve

RESTITUTION to REINSTATE what was stolen..

but cacs only move when forced to move... on a physical level we dont currently have that power..

ON A SPIRITUAL LEVEL bruh its NOT EVEN FUNNY the damage we could do...

and all it takes is just 27 percent of us to do it, dont even need the whole squad..

its ok... if you dont know... Its already IN PLACE shit is already in MOTION....

and sit back and enjoy the show,

You know this is a battle of cacs vs jews right..

and they both tryin to get us to choose up....

jews aka democrats took us for granted...and are going wacky ...opening up

borders and trying to find new kniggas... man they have no idea how much

they fucked up with THAT shit...

 

[Blkops]

Black Americans should make the moral case for the US government to pay what they owe us. Period. Problem is some of us are only willing to pressure Dems and not Republicans as well. Both parties benefited and still benefits from the theft of our labor so make them both pay. But some of you want to use this as a bat to beat dems over the head every election cycle. Ask Kamala but ask Trump as well. Do bedda.

 

[850credit]

Black Americans should make the moral case for the US government to pay what they owe us. Period. Problem is some of us are only willing to pressure Dems and not Republicans as well. Both parties benefited and still benefits from the theft of our labor so make them both pay. But some of you want to use this as a bat to beat dems over the head every election cycle. Ask Kamala but ask Trump as well. Do bedda.

The "moral case" has been made since Frederick Douglass.

Morality has little to do with it. You want to argue morals in front of immoral judges, legislators and Presidents.

Reparations (for Black Americans) won't happen until international pressure forces it.

Just like Civil Rights era politics.

The rules of engagement are enforced, or broken, according to what fits established societal interests.

 

[^SpiderMan^]

The "moral case" has been made since Frederick Douglass.

Morality has little to do with it. You want to argue morals in front of immoral judges, legislators and Presidents.

Reparations (for Black Americans) won't happen until international pressure forces it.

Just like Civil Rights era politics.

The rules of engagement are enforced, or broken, according to what fits established societal interests.

Yeah WTF is he talking about? The morality is obvious. We’ve had studies conducted already. What we need is action. Thus far, neither of the presidential candidates have committed to any meaningful action regarding reperations.

 

[Politic Negro]

Authors & comment section

Washington, D.C.​

Researcher
Education: American University, MA in journalism and public affairs; University of Rochester, BA in international relations

Aaron Schaffer is a researcher on The Post's News Research team. He previously was assistant editor of The Post's 202 newsletter franchise, where he helped edit The Early 202 and edited The Cybersecurity 202 newsletter. Before that, he was a researcher for The Technology 202 and Cybersecurity 202 newsletters. Before joining The Post, he wrote a newsletter on Middle East lobbying in Washington for Al-Monitor.

Emmanuel Felton​

New York City​

Race and Ethnicity Reporter
Education: Columbia University, MS in Investigative Reporting; Emory University, BBA in Finance

Emmanuel Felton is the race and ethnicity reporter on the America desk at The Washington Post. Felton came to The Post from BuzzFeed News, where he was an investigative reporter on the inequality desk. Before BuzzFeed, Felton covered the intersection of racial inequality and education at the Hechinger Report, where he produced an award-winning investigation into the federal government’s failure to enforce school desegregation orders. He also serves as an assistant adjunct professor at Hunter College, where he teaches a course on investigative reporting.

Spoiler: Comment Section of article

Mr. Felton - this is a distraction.
The future of American democracy is on the ballot in November.

The question of reparations can be addressed after we secure some democratic norms. America needs a functioning government - first - to debate these issues. We can’t do that under an authoritarian regime.

If you need to write on issues of race - given that’s your “beat” - consider writing about the tangible threats to Black people (and Asian, and Hispanic, and White people, too) if Trump wins.
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Opothleyoholo

1 day ago


Hear, hear.
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Gonzotic

1 day ago


In other words... This is a political loser at the ballot box, so shush!
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Stargell

1 day ago


You have to win if you want to govern.
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Mr_Jones_Barn_Cat

15 hours ago


True. Squish. Anything else helps the diametric opposite.
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Java Man

14 hours ago


There was nothing to shush here. Harris did not make a new statement on reparations.

Why is the Post not writing about all the things that Trump considered years ago but on which he has not made a recent statment?

Let's have an article about Mexico paying for the wall. Or an article on Covid being a hoax. Or an article about Trump praising protestors in Charlottesville who goosestepped down the street.
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CDW-50

13 hours ago


Exactly!!!
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MRHD

3 hours ago


Because they're desperately digging up anything they can to try to blunt Democrat's momentum. We're probably going to see them run a greatest hits of Democrat's most unpopular ideas of the last thirty years from now until election day.
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Jack Q Doe

1 day ago


Beyond just a distraction. This is the WaPo's Murdoch-trained editors trying to introduce a divisive topic into the conversation to derail Kamala's candidacy.
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apparatchik

15 hours ago


Exactly and it won't be the last. Read the comments. People are posting as if Kamala is pushing reparations when that is not the case. This is nothing but innuendo intended to plant seeds of doubt about Harris. It's despicable.
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DGarms1994

13 hours ago


Not this reparations BS again. Sick of defund the police and nonsense such as this along with not prosecuting and locking up violent criminals turning off middle of the road voters and keeping us from having control of Congress to make actual progress. Stop this insanity. We need to save our democracy and don't have time for stupid looney BS that not even the majority of democrats support. This stupid nonsense is like a hitjob on the Harris campaign many of us are working so hard for.
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Critical Rationalist

13 hours ago


Now we know the next nonsense Fox talking point about Harris.
Just watch....
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Trustje

5 hours ago


Amen. They are using all hands on deck yo derail us. Stay watchful.
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Brian1234C

16 hours ago


What a disgraceful comment. You are seriously blaming the author for writing this article? Instead of suggesting we ... you know, ferret out the candidates' positions on important issues, so voters can make an educated choice?

You say the "future of American democracy is on the ballot." OK. So your point is that since Trump wants to be a self-appointed king, we should focus ONLY on that, and ignore any stories about other political issues, since they are collateral. Is that right?

OK... So does that mean the Post shouldn't write any stories about Trump's anti-choice stance, or his dismantling of Roe v. Wade, or plans to further restrict abortion rights? Or his plans to dismantle environmental protections, or to put immigrant children in jail to keep their parents away, or to re-ban Muslims from entering the country, or to restrict trans rights?

Hmm, I don't seem to posts in THOSE WaPo columns, chastising the author for pointing out Trump's hateful positions on these other issues.

Sounds like it's pretty much just those issues -- or maybe issue, singular -- where you want Harris to be able to hide her position from the voters, so she can spring it on them only after she's elected, since honesty might hurt her chances. Sound about right?

You're literally advocating victory via voter deception. You know it, I know it.

And that's the most liked comment too. Shameful. Trump is obviously unelectable, but the level of dishonesty on the far left would make even a MAGA voter blush on their behalf.
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Jennifer Lynn Prior

15 hours ago


Pfft.
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DGarms1994

13 hours ago


The only disgrace is suggesting utter looney reparations BS and trying to pin that garbage on Harris so we can lose the election.
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Adom

14 hours ago


Need functioning government first? It's democrats government now for last 3.5 years. And Democrats had government for 12 years in last 16 years. So what's your point?
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Citizen of the Untied States

13 hours ago


That 4 years of Trump was more destructive than 12 years of Democratic presidents.

Destruction is always speedier than construction and development. A forest may take hundreds of years to grow, but a wildfire can demolish it in a few days. Trump is a human wildfire.
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Adom

10 hours ago


oh really? that's why Trump was ahead of Biden by double digit in economy, immigration, foreign policy and still ahead significantly of Kamala in those areas by double digit in most polls. If destruction means 2% inflation, 2% mortgage rate, $2 gas, secured border and no wars, I am ready for that 'destruction' again!
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Lexilocutor

14 hours ago


Well said! This article seems misguided in the current political and historical reality. It would be less surprising to see a version of it on Fox News (albeit with less purported objectivity and more code words).
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GentilNivaquine

13 hours ago


I will add mine still. Well said
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Poli101

12 hours ago


It’s amazing how naive this writer is. Meanwhile, hundreds of civilians killed today in two strikes alone and a dozen or so more in the past 6 hours in Ukraine, but not a peep from the Washington Post. Their obsession with Israel continues though.
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James Kidney

1 day ago

“The poll found large racial gaps in support for reparations. While 75 percent of Black Americans support federal reparations, only 15 percent of White Americans and 36 percent of Hispanic Americans agree. That has made some leery of Harris making the issue part of her argument for the presidency.”

That says it all. Reparations is a political dead letter and always will be. Give it up.
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spamspamspamspam

19 hours ago


As usual, Asians don't count. I wonder what they think about it.
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WaPoUser

14 hours ago


100%. In SF, for example, reparations for Black Americans were considered, even though SF/CA never had slavery, while in SF/CA in the 1800s laws and ordinances were passed to prevent Chinese American children from attending public schools, to force the closing of Chinese businesses to benefit white businesses, to criminalize living in the conditions there were forced to live in, etc. For that, the city issued a nice apology. It's lunacy.
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TheRadicalCentrist

13 hours ago


Articles like this one - which couldn't have been crafted any better by the Trump campaign - are precisely why I have cancelled renewal of my subscription to The Washington Post.
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I Fits I Sits

1 day ago

The headline should read "Election is Harris's to lose; reparations advocates hope she will push extreme and massively unfavorable policy and lose"
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JustMeToo1

1 day ago


May I propose “Election is Harris's to lose; MAGA supporters and the Washington Post hope she will push extreme and massively unfavorable policy to support their agendas to stop this momentum.”
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JP PEARSON

1 day ago

Oh here we go again. Shame on you Wash Poo for throwing up this hackneyed and divisive non-issue in the race to insight independent and undecided voters. Pathetic.
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JP PEARSON

1 day ago


Incite.
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hmmmok

23 hours ago


It's truly WP baiting people. This issue is a joke unless you're coming from a fringe progressive bubble. It's a dead horse, and rage bait.
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Emme24

16 hours ago


It's baiting a dead horse.
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btw215

16 hours ago


Just waiting for Trump to run with this, maybe tonight on Truth Social. Maybe blasting it all over the debate. Very thoughtful, WP.
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Backboneinabox

16 hours ago


Editors saw the dwindling numbers and determined that the only way to make a profit going forward is to have Trump return to office, then write about the carnage that will follow.
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Java Man

14 hours ago


Editors are stupid then. If the Post keeps up this kind of journalism, no subscribers will be left to read the articles about the carnage that will follow.
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Sandsley

14 hours ago


They can write about the carnage all they want. Many of us will refuse to read it and unsubscribe. See how profitable that is.
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GPRAof1993

13 hours ago


All three comments posted immediately above this one are really, really stupid.
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justsaynotodictators

14 hours ago


Reparations is a sure loser issue. That large sucking sound is the sound of air following the rush of moderates out the doors to abandon Harris if this becomes an issue.
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nkulasingham

1 day ago
(Edited)

Uh Democrats should avoid this issue if they want to be a nationally viable party in the future.

You can't advocate for policy that polls 18% with White voters and 36% with Hispanic voters and expect to win the EC or Senate any time soon.
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Opothleyoholo

1 day ago
(Edited)

I am African American, and I am proud to be so. I strongly oppose reparations. Why?

1. In the current presidential election, the survival (or not) of our democracy, our constitution, and our very freedom are on the ballot. For Americans who want to preserve our way of life, seeing to it that the Democratic ticket wins the presidency is our one and only priority. Promoting the reparations issue will simply make a Democratic win in November much less possible.

2. Many Americans have a legitimate argument to make, that their forefathers came to the US after the time of slavery, and therefore they should not be held liable for that slavery.

3. Reparations makes the Black community look "needy." It makes us appear as being incapable of pulling ourselves up out of poverty by ourselves. That fits into a disgusting stereotype that is simply not true.

4. The equivalent of reparations has existed for decades in the form of all of the government programs that have provided our communities with educational and job opportunities. Until recently, affirmative action was part of that equation.

The average American would ask why the Black community would need reparations when billions of dollars have been spent already. Further, many millions of Black people exist in the middle class. Many more are working and moving upward into the middle class.

I encourage my fellow Black Americans to drop this issue.
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Jamie VA

1 day ago


A lot of the polling is also deceptive in the cherry picking of results. If a choice is not binary (reparations or no reparations) and instead include structural changes like down payment assistance, tuition grants, and other programs, the cash version drops significantly in popularity. People want change, not a band-aid.
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Opothleyoholo

1 day ago


Yes, those are valid points.

Cheers.
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Amador

1 day ago


been doing that along with affirmative action the last 60 years .
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NewYorkIndependent

1 day ago


Well said.

The trillions of dollars in Welfare, Food Stamps, rent control and assistance, and endless entitlements paid out to minorities have created a new form of slavery — four generations of Black Americans dependent on the state , locked into their failed and terrible schools, on a treadmill to nowhere.

More handouts will mean more failurel
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fecamfield

15 hours ago


And as I have pointed out to people before, "define black." A very large percentage of us are a blend, A black person once told me that i was passing, Well, then, so are a large number of other people.
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ChapelThrill23

1 day ago

Do they want her to lose?
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Ordet

1 day ago


No but WAPO does for publishing this.
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But I Digress

17 hours ago


WaPo wants clicks, pure and simple. And by publishing a stupid story like this, they give it an air of legitimacy. Look for Fox News to be hyping it tonight even though it's a huge nothing burger.
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fecamfield

15 hours ago


As a publisher once said, "the purpose of a newspaper is to make money."
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m_r_m_

17 hours ago


WaPo definitely wants her to lose.
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bobfbell

1 day ago

Want to drive away more white working class voters? Make a big deal out of promising reparations. Do the math. It ain't pretty or is it feasible.

No one is denying the horrigle injustice of 400 years of slavery and denied equal rights but if one is a student ofr history they soon discover other "second class" citizens came here and were likewise denied a fair shot for a long time. The Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, etc. etc. etc. all were exploited and denied rights guaranteed to them and their offspring by our Constitution.

The best way to begin leveling the playing field is to invest in education, job training and, yes, increasing voting and civil rights on a massive scale. She can make a persuasive case for all of those with many of us who are not Black but IMHO reparations are a non starter with too many whites who can make the case their ancestors got a short straw also. And, finally, when you are being beat over the head with a false argument you are a "socialist" the last thing you want to do is get behind what would become the largest most expensive case of social spending in our history.
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TreeLady

1 day ago


Women suffered terrible discrimination for centuries as well.
Is anyone offering reparations to women?
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bobfbell

1 day ago


TreeLady, women have never been a "protected class" as my wife and two grown daughters keep reminding me. I do my bit to make up including recently voting almost solidly Democrat vs. forty years on the dark side but there is no way I could ever come up with a "settlement" to please them.
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TreeLady

22 hours ago


Maybe I am wrong, but I think that women are a legally protected class, as in “race, creed, color, sex or national origin”.
Not very well protected, but that is a different issue.
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1 over 137

1 day ago


Not to mention, nobody calculates a dollar amount with an iota of logic. We hear the constant refrain of “denied generational wealth”. OK, what does the average person inherit from their parents in the U.S.? The answer is a few tens of thousands of dollars, not 5 MILLION dollars, like we hear many Californians calling for.

My Irish Ancestors came her with no more, nor no less job skills and money than slaves freed after the Civil War. They worked in mines, on railroads, as maids, and all sorts of lower class jobs. I was the first in my family ever to graduate college. When my father died, I inherited his debts, and when my mother died earlier this year, she left us less than $20k in home equity.

Lastly, giving people cash money is just a bad idea. Most of them would just blow it on a new car, expensive vacation, or some other silly thing, and nothing would change. The country would be far better served to just give everyone a free education, to whatever level they could achieve.
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hmmmok

23 hours ago
(Edited)


Exactly!

Massive investments in economically marginalized areas? YES PLEASE.

Fund all school districts the same, instead of 90% of the money to wealthy areas? YES, LET'S GO.

Cash payments to people based on skin color, so they can buy a new TV? NOT GONNA HAPPEN. EVER.
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fecamfield

15 hours ago


Ah, yes - free education. The original Mississippi state constitution guaranteed people a free education to the age of 21 - I saw a copy once before it got hidden. Then, oops, schools were integrated. The whites in control removed that provision, and formed private academies for their children. We finally got away from that, but the free education never came back beyond high school. I just paid $2,700 for a young person's tuition at a community college for the fall school term. Taxes keep going up, but the money vanishes somewhere.
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laxer68

20 hours ago
(Edited)

People who were never slaves demanding money from people who never owned slaves.
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David Dove

19 hours ago


That kinda says it all.
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walterhart

1 day ago

If you want Harris to lose the election, push this agenda.

It's that simple.
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makawaka

1 day ago

Some Harris allies argue that support for reparations could help her attract Black voters who have been swayed somewhat by Trump’s economic message.

Which ones? The one's aiding and abetting Trump's return to the White House because of their one-issue preoccupation that's sure to divide the Harris coalition? This is a niche issue being dredged up to throw a wrench in the growing support for the Democratic ticket.

Harris would be wise to continue to ignore the question but be prepared for it to come up in the debate. I can see Linsey Davis---yes, the "black" moderator for the September debate----asking Harris, "According to an article in the Washington Post, there is a movement gaining increased support to pay reparations to black people. How will you do this in a Harris administration and where will you get the money to fund this program?"

This is a race-baiting time bomb being served on a silver platter by the WaPO for those wishing to stop the Harris/Walz momentum. Ten foot pole, Ms. Harris.
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Cinnamon Girl

1 day ago


Yes! I can easily envision the debate question as you predict it.
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K T5754

1 day ago

What about reparations to Japanese Americans who were interred during World War 2? What about reparations to Native Americans who were decimated as a people and forced to and still live on Reservations? What about reparations to women, who weren't even allowed to vote until 1920?
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I Fits I Sits

1 day ago


What about the women who have died or been seriously injured because of abortion bans?
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Nyghthawk

1 day ago

The best reparations for all poor Americans, Black, Brown, and White would be a truly equal education. Inner cities, rural areas. Don't make school finance dependent on property tax. Equal opportunity begins in Pre-K, continues K-12, and on to college or trade school, or apprentiships.

Monetary reparations would be short-lived and ineffective. Give them the gift of knowledge. The world will open up like a shucked oyster.
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Clevbrian19d

1 day ago


Where I live in Cleveland, the city school system spends over $20k per student per year. This is higher than almost all of the suburban systems in the area. They continue to have the lowest graduation and, attendance rates as well as low test scores. The issues are a lot more than money.
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Nyghthawk

1 day ago
(Edited)


I have no idea what other factors are in play in Cleveland. I live in Texas. Some school districts here get 2-3 times what inner city and rural districts get. There is no universal pre-K. Poor children often start 1st grade unable to read. Nothing you do from that point will ever get to "equal opportunity."
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Blondie12511

1 day ago

Let’s see: money paid to people who were never slaves by people who never enslaved them.
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Lord Peter

19 hours ago


Jim Crow lasted through the 1960's. There are people alive today who were ordered to sit in the back of the bus, denied jobs, denied mortgages, denied entrance to schools, stores, theaters, restaurants, etc.
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Ace2727

16 hours ago

This is the third reparations article in three days. This has not been an issue on the campaign nor is it in any way realistic.

What is WaPo doing?
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Carrots and Peas

16 hours ago


Trying to boost Trump. He's losing.
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Ace2727

16 hours ago


They had a higher revenue when Trump was President.
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Carrots and Peas

16 hours ago


They also had a well respected Executive Editor, Martin Baron, but he retired in 2021.
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Starik in Georgia

16 hours ago


I don't the Post has any idea what it's doing.
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C Elliot Friday

15 hours ago


Trying to get don-old elected, that's what WaPo is doing.
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Windjammer2

16 hours ago



Well it's black people who keep bringing up reparations, and Kamala Harris happens to be black.
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Alieninvader2

16 hours ago


All black people think alike?
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Starik in Georgia

13 hours ago


No they don't. A large number are integrated and assimilated, and prospering.
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Inquiring Mind2

16 hours ago


Provoking.
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Joel Levi 1969

20 hours ago

Washington Post stirring the pot and trying to create a story out of nothing.
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ChesaG

1 day ago

Reparations is a non starter. Never going to happen. There have been billions spent on Social welfare programs to assist. But I can't see the American public showing preference for any race to get Reparations.
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kindness1

12 hours ago

Reparations aren't a Democratic plank. They appear no where in the plan. Yet here the WaPo depicts activists as they are the party.

Why is the WaPo going out of it's way to try and elect Trump?
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JustACommenter2023

12 hours ago


Bezos needs another tax cut.
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George Spigott

12 hours ago


Please.
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pat99again

12 hours ago


Exactly.
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j_ray

12 hours ago
(Edited)


This journalist (as representing the Post) has completed an assignment to develop accurate and responsible reporting on the needs and desires of a constituency group, in this instance those who support extending tangible assets to blacks and the communities where they live, that were harmed by individual incidents as well as America's systemic racism.
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soxcap

12 hours ago


Because a Trump Administration would be very good for Bezos’s tax rate?
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nativeson7

18 hours ago

Would never pass Congress and would never survive a court challenge but it certainly would doom Harris' candidacy if she seriously entertained the notion for even one minute.
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Va mid-roader

17 hours ago


... which no one says she has.
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btw215

16 hours ago


But rumors can spread fast. We know where this one started.
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The Mask

1 day ago

I’ve been waiting for reparations from the Romans for awhile now.
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IrishHeart4094

21 hours ago


And me as well from the Brits.
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ventsyv

19 hours ago


What have the Romans ever done for us?
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1 over 137

15 hours ago


You’re just trolling for a Monty Python fan to trot out the inevitable answer…
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How did this make it to such prominent status on the front page, when the story about the $10m campaign contributoon Felonioys got from Egypt didn't even make it above the fold?
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closer44

12 hours ago


WaPo’s election agenda.
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bronco99

12 hours ago


Because the $10M Egypt story was on the front page years ago. It was investigated and nothing was found. Just because some Dems decide they want to hold a hearing doesn’t make it true or front page news. Same playbook Reps use. It gets old on both sides.
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Putins Losing - Bigly

12 hours ago
(Edited)


It's more relevant now that he's running again, and it is only now since he's been out of power is the extent of the issue come to light because his DoJ tanked it. It also ties into the Menedez matter which was unknown at the time as well.

That's what makes it news.

So I ask again, how did this make it to such prominent status on the front page, when the story about the $10m campaign contributoon Felonioys got from Egypt didn't even make it above the fold?
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Refugee from the NYT

12 hours ago


Nothing was found because the investigation was stopped. Exactly the reason he wants to get reelected: to try and stay out of jail. SCOTUS gave him immunity, maybe he wants to test the blanket presidential self-pardon theory as well.
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Va a hacer calor

13 hours ago

This is all we need right now, a hit job. A reporter wants to make a name for themself, so helps stoke a rumor that Harris is in favor of reparations, even though she has not proposed any such thing.
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JMcIver

1 day ago

A terrible idea for a variety of reasons, the most glaring being the burden to taxpayers who clearly have no complicity in the admittedly shameful treatment of Black Americans many generations in the past. The greatest gift America can provide folks that have been wronged culturally and economically is opportunity, not a pot of money.
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Nope60

1 day ago

This is so petty. The logistics just don’t work. All this discussion is doing is causing division in society. Is all this directed by Putin to destroy America?
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Marlowe Moon

6 hours ago

If they want Harris to lose, keep talking about her supporting reparations.
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mamerta

12 hours ago

What a stupid, unnecessary article that’s actually a hit piece on Kamala Harris. The Murdoch effect on the Washington Post is palpable, it’s now right down there with the Murdoch toilet paper: The New York Post.
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PIPER1308

15 hours ago

What a stupid article to publish. Now Fox News has something to talk about for the next two months.
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Scruffian

15 hours ago


Yeah. Another hit job.
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Windjammer2

15 hours ago



You can't blame this on Fox. Democrats have a supermajority in the California state legislature, and they have been pushing hard for reparations for some time.
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FDRHSTLBJ

13 hours ago
(Edited)

What a surprise! Harris is surging ahead of Trump and, right on cue, the WP goes full "Beware America, Harris is going to "you-name-the-racist-dog-whistle" non-issue that absolutely no one is talking about.

This is a perfect smear of Harris to follow up on that Trump normalizing-Harris bad editorial on Sunday.
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Astro Cat

15 hours ago

Nope! WAPO is actively advocating for Trump to win this election. Kamala's advisers need to steer her clear of false controversies. I hope they are reading the forum reactions to their editorials and commentary. We are her voters.
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countrybeforepoliticalparty

15 hours ago
(Edited)

This article has nothing to do with reparations. It is obviously another nefarious attempt by the WaPo to generate negative publicity for an issue which is not in the news at the expense of the Harris campaign.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" has become the goal rather than a warning at the WaPo.

Further evidence of WaPo's journalistic malpractice can be found in their recent editorial:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/01/harris-trump-policy-details-presidential-race/
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entropic_decline

12 hours ago

Anyone slinging reparations in this cycle is a paid Republican operative.
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KB Philadelphia

12 hours ago

Stop with the silly reparations talk. It’s the kind of silliness like “defund the police,” that keeps electing idiot Republicans. No one is ever writing a check for your ancestral bondage claims. It’s just never happening so why discuss it and give those talking points to Fox News!
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VWWV1

12 hours ago


Jim Crow "ended" in 1969
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thisisnotatest202

13 hours ago

Just effing stop. This is a non starter. It’s a wacky issue for the leftmost fifth of the party that makes the rest of the party look nuts and just causes them to lose votes.
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Fender54

13 hours ago


Having Harris lose votes is the only reason the Post published this story. Nobody interviewed has anything to do with the campaign. Reparations have nothing to do with the current election. The MAGAot at the Post just published this made up krap so Fox can cite the Post when it claims KH supports reparations, although she doesn’t.
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closer44

12 hours ago


That’s why the Washington Post is pushing the agenda, not Harris.
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breakthejam

14 hours ago
(Edited)

This is an issue that approximately zero people of all races are considering when they think about the November election. On the other hand there is an article about men in red states who are supporting abortion rights due to their wives losing their ability to have children or nearly their very lives due to the extremely poor medical care now available in their states as a result of abortion bans.

Reproductive freedom concerns nearly every family in America.

That story is buried far below.

What is wrong with this damn newspaper?
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William Brasky

14 hours ago

This storyline brought to you by the trump 2024 campaign
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FallsChurchVA

11 hours ago

Gimme a break on reparations. The country is not giving money to people for something that happened 150+ years ago. And for that matter, it's awfully hard to make the case that people alive today are worse off then if their ancestors remained in their homeland; a better case could be made for impacts from Jim Crow and other forms of discrimination, although the country has closed the gap considerably in the last 60 years. Immigrants came to America for all kinds of reasons, and almost all struggled, at least at first. Government help for all disadvantaged citizens has been and should continue to be part of their responsibility - but Government is not going to ensure outcomes.
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K Mitch

4 hours ago


A break will be given when reparations are paid. You can beat around the bush all you want but what America did to an entire race of people for hundreds of years must be addressed once and for all so that future generations won’t have it to deal with.
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Fourth down and 50

11 hours ago

Reparations are a zero sum game - take from one side and give to the other. There are better ways to help Blacks. Pushing this one issue now would sink Harris in the election.
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closer44

11 hours ago


The Post certainly hopes tying her to the issue will do so.
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No koolaide for me

5 hours ago


Do not worry she will sink herself by opening her mouth.
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CalDadVotes

11 hours ago

Way to go progressive lunatic! Let’s try to insert some absolutely bonkers wing nut wishlist item to try and thwart Harris and give Trump something to jabber about.
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We_are_Free_Minnesota

11 hours ago

WAPO trying to torpedo Harris/Walz day after day after day. Shame and more shame on this sham rag.
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soxcap

11 hours ago


Bingo. That’s the whole point of running this article on an issue that’s not part of Harris’s campaign whatsoever. What better way to rally support for Trump!
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entropic_decline

12 hours ago

Fake News! The Fleet Street Muppets continue to create controversies out of thin air for VP Harris. Reparations is a NON-ISSUE.
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There is no surer way to hand the election to Trump and the MAGAs than to start talking about “reparations.” It would be the greatest self-inflicted wound in Democratic Party history.
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George Spigott

12 hours ago


She knows.
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SadAbeLincoln

12 hours ago

What a joke. Attempting to portray a subject only a small handful of silly activists far outside the mainstream of the party are pushing, as somehow representative of the party or its nominee.

This is how media manipulates elections.

What a grotesque degenerate of its former self the Bezos WaPo has become.
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Susan A

13 hours ago

I'll get vilified for this but here goes

Elections have to be won before change can happen. If Harris starts talking about reparations she will alienate voters. It is not a popular topic. She will not win. And then I can guarantee that there will be no reparations.

Let her win and make your case. Reparations are a hard sell. I find when people start to think of reparations as something like the govt. covering tuition at HBCUs, rather than cash payouts they don't find it the concept so objectionable. (there are times when cash is the answer, but the GOP wants voters to picture checks going to "welfare queens.")

But that's not going to be conveyed between now and the election. I would beg the activists to back off until Harris wins. If they don't, she might not. Trump will go to town on this one. There are people in my area of rural Virginia who might be voting Harris. Mention reparations and those votes are gone.

Let her win. Please. Then make your case.
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George Spigott

13 hours ago
(Edited)


Well said.

True of so many issues.
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bobr1

13 hours ago


Harris is planning to win, and when she hopefully does, she will not line up behind such lunatic idea .
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FritzTerry

12 hours ago


In other words, bait and switch.
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JDWest

13 hours ago

The Trump campaign approves this message.
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tsomm19

13 hours ago


The Trump campaign created this message.
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thisisnotatest202

13 hours ago


Bingo my dude. As a left but not wacky left Dem, I often wonder if some of these nutter causes like reparations or defund the police are actually GOP psyops. Get a couple of plants to start something to get the extremists on board, then use that to discredit everyone else. Straight out of the 1960s CIA/FBI playbook.
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Cravingsomesanity

13 hours ago
(Edited)

The WP has succeeded in starting an argument over a topic Harris has not even made an issue of in her campaign. Really? Stop wringing your hands. Don’t fall for it folks.
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Trent Crimm

13 hours ago
(Edited)


This was brought up for vote in California. Democratic representatives actually invoked Harris and said that she needed to support it or they wouldn't get their vote or their constituents' votes.
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tsomm19

13 hours ago


Which Democratic representatives said that?
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Trent Crimm

13 hours ago


“We need to send a message to the governor. The governor needs to understand the world is watching California and this is gonna have a direct impact on your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This is going to have a direct impact, so pull up the bills now, vote on them and sign them. We’ve been waiting for over 400 years."
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Read More of this Conversation >

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George Spigott

13 hours ago


There's no argument.
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DGarms1994

13 hours ago

Not this BS again. Sick of defund the police and nonsense such as this along with not prosecuting and locking up violent criminals turning off middle of the road voters and keeping us from having control of Congress to make actual progress. Stop this insanity. We need to save our democracy and don't have time for BS.
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M3Man

14 hours ago

Hey WAPO. What's up for tomorrow? An interview with Louis Farrakahn? If he says anything nice about Harris, you can use that to really scare white people.

That seems to be your new mission.
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dclivejazz

14 hours ago
(Edited)

Hmmm, I wonder why the Post is pushing a story about a very controversial topic that was not high on most voters’ list of critical issues for the 2024 Presidential election? Could it have something to do with its latest right wing editorial leadership? Why, I think it does.
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GabsDaD

14 hours ago


It's not controversial. Just a whine from the left extremes which no one pays attention to.
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ancient mariner

14 hours ago

This isn't journalism. It's a naked, sensationalist stab at manufacturing a controversy to foment more division and damage the Democratic ticket. Right now there's no national momentum for reparations, regardless of their merit. I doubt that a bill would even make it out of committee, let alone pass the Senate and the House. Harris is being asked about it because she's black. Intrinsic in the question is a racist suspicion that she wants special treatment for "her people." That her policy views would be tainted by some kind of victim complex. That she couldn't govern dispassionately, professionally because of her black heritage. That she'd be black first and President second. Obama also suffered this bigoted nonsense. I thought it was behind us. Not.
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Ida Know

14 hours ago


Congrats! You broke the code of the Washington Post.
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Critical Realist

14 hours ago


Agree 100%. Except for the part where she say reparations should be considered “in some form.”
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Beau Vine

14 hours ago

One has to wonder if the authors of this article are working for the trump campaign?
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Hens79

15 hours ago

She won’t and shouldn’t even mention the word “reparations”. As a matter of fact, I haven’t heard Harris, Biden or really any Democrat utter the word reparations. Looks like WaPo had to search their rolodex of “activists” to do another “some say” hit piece on Harris.
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K Mitch

14 hours ago


The issue of reparations for 250 years of slavery has been raised ever since slavery ended. And will always be raised until it has been addressed.
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apparatchik

15 hours ago

Folks, have you heard anyone talk about reparations since Kamala started running for president, except the Washington Post? That should be your first clue about what is going on here.
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Windjammer2

15 hours ago
(Edited)



Yes, the Dems who control the California state legislature are talking about it all the time. They have been pushing for reparations for quite some time.

And oh yes Kamala is from California. Their main home is in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.

-
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JustACommenter2023

15 hours ago


California is a state. Kamala is running for President, and any such reparations would have to get past Congress. California has a supermajority and won't have to worry about turning red.
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AntiPopulist

15 hours ago


They also aren't going to pass it California. Some idiotic commission recommended it but the legislature won't take it up.
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YeahItsNotOK

16 hours ago

WaPo seriously wants me to drop my subscription. This is a Kamala Harris and Democratic hit piece. Please show me where on the Democratic Platform where they are calling for reparations as a priority:

https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

STOP THIS. Report on Trump's interview on Fox News last night, where he said: “Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it,”

Readers Beware.
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QueenLilly

16 hours ago
(Edited)

Idiotic article. The odds of Harris embracing reparations are nil. It would sink her campaign. Any article with a headline beginning "Advocates hope...." has no business appearing in a serious newspaper. Why does the Post waste space on irrelevant "journalism" like this? Because it excites the Post's online readership?
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Allophone

16 hours ago


Poe's Law applies to the article. It's impossible to distinguish progressive posturing from right-wing trolling.
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Starik in Georgia

13 hours ago


The Post used to be a great newspaper. Then it became a "woke" advocacy paper. Subscribers were lost. This next change to pro-Trump will cost even more subscribers.
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GettingRealFromSeattle

18 hours ago
(Edited)

Formula for handing votes to Trump, talk about reparations.
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TreeLady

1 day ago

Reparations for slavery will never draw majority support. Yes, it was evil, but the number of actual slave owners was always small, compared to the total population. And it 159 years ago. Six or eight generations back. “You owe me money because someone who looks like you committed a crime against my ancestor” is a tough sell.

Reparations to specific people whose land was taken or who suffered other particular harms may be possible. Basically, would a person of non-African descent deserve reparations for that same injustice?
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Rhop704

1 day ago

Solid no for reparations. Harris will lose if this becomes part of her platform. If she wins and chooses to endorse reparations as president, she will not win relection. This is a losing issue. There are, and have been, a plethora of economic policies aimed at addressing populations living in poverty - minorities among them. Were not giving African Americans 40 acres and a mule, and were not giving the land back to the Native Americans. The Democratic party needs policies that win elections, not lose them, and reparatio s is a sunk ship.
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anghiari

1 day ago


First, you can’t speak for Kamala Harris, and you don’t speak for me. One of the difficulties of the reparation discussion is that this country is becoming fuller and fuller of immigrants who have come here from other countries and who have suffered their own difficulties. If they are Naturalized citizens and have a vote on this issue, I think they may not know enough about it to be supportive. Both the Indigenous peoples of America and the Blacks whose enslaved worked for nothing for 300 years must be heard. You have no right to say no for them, and you certainly cannot speak for the rest of the country. What you were doing is giving your personal racist response to the discussion of reparations. By the way, I noticed that blacks who support Donald Trump have never been heard to talk to Republicans about reparations. This issue will not go away for any president after Kamala Harris if it’s not resolved. I don’t know that reparations in the manner in which they are being asked for today is the solution. But I do know this country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans who were made to work and were never paid for that work. That is pure fact.. It wasn’t your experience And you have no say in how people should go about this discussion.


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Daniel Deagler

1 day ago


What nonsense. Everyone would have a say on how a trillion dollars of tax money would be redistributed. You’re delusional as well as self-righteous.
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ob7245

1 day ago


you forgot to mention that not only was this country built on the backs of enslaved Africans but it was also built on land that belonged to the Native Americans! If we even start to discuss reparations I'm pretty sure that the Native Americans should be first in line.
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TreeLady

1 day ago


No Black person has worked for 300 years without being paid.
The complaint is that their ancestors worked 30 to 70 years each without being paid.

Slavery ended 159 years ago.
Nobody now alive was ever a slave or even a child of a slave.
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itsnick

11 hours ago

This is an extremely polarizing issue. I assume the WaPo is trying to scuttle Harris's election by raising it.

Congrats or something on the British tabloid style the new management is bringing to The Post.
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MVP2024

12 hours ago

Dems - you want to lose an election? Start talking about reparations.
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closer44

12 hours ago


Dems aren’t. Just the click-seeking, Trump-normalizing Washington Post.
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MVP2024

12 hours ago


This paper has gotten all trumpfied
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HBCUalumnus

11 hours ago


Nostradamus speaks?
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aibohphobia

13 hours ago
(Edited)

If it's not part of her manifesto, why are you bringing it up, if not to smear her? When she comes out in favor of reparations as a candidate, then you can report factually and accurately what her position is. This is simply yellow journalism. Raise your game, or lose your readership.
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Fender54

12 hours ago


She has never supported reparations & she is not going to start now.
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SadAbeLincoln

12 hours ago

Raise your game, or lose your readership.

They already chose the latter.

I'll erase useless comments later

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

Authors & comment section

Washington, D.C.​

Researcher
Education: American University, MA in journalism and public affairs; University of Rochester, BA in international relations

Aaron Schaffer is a researcher on The Post's News Research team. He previously was assistant editor of The Post's 202 newsletter franchise, where he helped edit The Early 202 and edited The Cybersecurity 202 newsletter. Before that, he was a researcher for The Technology 202 and Cybersecurity 202 newsletters. Before joining The Post, he wrote a newsletter on Middle East lobbying in Washington for Al-Monitor.

Emmanuel Felton​

New York City​

Race and Ethnicity Reporter
Education: Columbia University, MS in Investigative Reporting; Emory University, BBA in Finance

Emmanuel Felton is the race and ethnicity reporter on the America desk at The Washington Post. Felton came to The Post from BuzzFeed News, where he was an investigative reporter on the inequality desk. Before BuzzFeed, Felton covered the intersection of racial inequality and education at the Hechinger Report, where he produced an award-winning investigation into the federal government’s failure to enforce school desegregation orders. He also serves as an assistant adjunct professor at Hunter College, where he teaches a course on investigative reporting.

Spoiler: Comment Section of article

Mr. Felton - this is a distraction.
The future of American democracy is on the ballot in November.

The question of reparations can be addressed after we secure some democratic norms. America needs a functioning government - first - to debate these issues. We can’t do that under an authoritarian regime.

If you need to write on issues of race - given that’s your “beat” - consider writing about the tangible threats to Black people (and Asian, and Hispanic, and White people, too) if Trump wins.
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Opothleyoholo

1 day ago


Hear, hear.
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Gonzotic

1 day ago


In other words... This is a political loser at the ballot box, so shush!
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Stargell

1 day ago


You have to win if you want to govern.
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Mr_Jones_Barn_Cat

15 hours ago


True. Squish. Anything else helps the diametric opposite.
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Java Man

14 hours ago


There was nothing to shush here. Harris did not make a new statement on reparations.

Why is the Post not writing about all the things that Trump considered years ago but on which he has not made a recent statment?

Let's have an article about Mexico paying for the wall. Or an article on Covid being a hoax. Or an article about Trump praising protestors in Charlottesville who goosestepped down the street.
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CDW-50

13 hours ago


Exactly!!!
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MRHD

3 hours ago


Because they're desperately digging up anything they can to try to blunt Democrat's momentum. We're probably going to see them run a greatest hits of Democrat's most unpopular ideas of the last thirty years from now until election day.
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Jack Q Doe

1 day ago


Beyond just a distraction. This is the WaPo's Murdoch-trained editors trying to introduce a divisive topic into the conversation to derail Kamala's candidacy.
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apparatchik

15 hours ago


Exactly and it won't be the last. Read the comments. People are posting as if Kamala is pushing reparations when that is not the case. This is nothing but innuendo intended to plant seeds of doubt about Harris. It's despicable.
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DGarms1994

13 hours ago


Not this reparations BS again. Sick of defund the police and nonsense such as this along with not prosecuting and locking up violent criminals turning off middle of the road voters and keeping us from having control of Congress to make actual progress. Stop this insanity. We need to save our democracy and don't have time for stupid looney BS that not even the majority of democrats support. This stupid nonsense is like a hitjob on the Harris campaign many of us are working so hard for.
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Critical Rationalist

13 hours ago


Now we know the next nonsense Fox talking point about Harris.
Just watch....
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Trustje

5 hours ago


Amen. They are using all hands on deck yo derail us. Stay watchful.
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Brian1234C

16 hours ago


What a disgraceful comment. You are seriously blaming the author for writing this article? Instead of suggesting we ... you know, ferret out the candidates' positions on important issues, so voters can make an educated choice?

You say the "future of American democracy is on the ballot." OK. So your point is that since Trump wants to be a self-appointed king, we should focus ONLY on that, and ignore any stories about other political issues, since they are collateral. Is that right?

OK... So does that mean the Post shouldn't write any stories about Trump's anti-choice stance, or his dismantling of Roe v. Wade, or plans to further restrict abortion rights? Or his plans to dismantle environmental protections, or to put immigrant children in jail to keep their parents away, or to re-ban Muslims from entering the country, or to restrict trans rights?

Hmm, I don't seem to posts in THOSE WaPo columns, chastising the author for pointing out Trump's hateful positions on these other issues.

Sounds like it's pretty much just those issues -- or maybe issue, singular -- where you want Harris to be able to hide her position from the voters, so she can spring it on them only after she's elected, since honesty might hurt her chances. Sound about right?

You're literally advocating victory via voter deception. You know it, I know it.

And that's the most liked comment too. Shameful. Trump is obviously unelectable, but the level of dishonesty on the far left would make even a MAGA voter blush on their behalf.
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Jennifer Lynn Prior

15 hours ago


Pfft.
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DGarms1994

13 hours ago


The only disgrace is suggesting utter looney reparations BS and trying to pin that garbage on Harris so we can lose the election.
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Adom

14 hours ago


Need functioning government first? It's democrats government now for last 3.5 years. And Democrats had government for 12 years in last 16 years. So what's your point?
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Citizen of the Untied States

13 hours ago


That 4 years of Trump was more destructive than 12 years of Democratic presidents.

Destruction is always speedier than construction and development. A forest may take hundreds of years to grow, but a wildfire can demolish it in a few days. Trump is a human wildfire.
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Adom

10 hours ago


oh really? that's why Trump was ahead of Biden by double digit in economy, immigration, foreign policy and still ahead significantly of Kamala in those areas by double digit in most polls. If destruction means 2% inflation, 2% mortgage rate, $2 gas, secured border and no wars, I am ready for that 'destruction' again!
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Lexilocutor

14 hours ago


Well said! This article seems misguided in the current political and historical reality. It would be less surprising to see a version of it on Fox News (albeit with less purported objectivity and more code words).
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GentilNivaquine

13 hours ago


I will add mine still. Well said
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Poli101

12 hours ago


It’s amazing how naive this writer is. Meanwhile, hundreds of civilians killed today in two strikes alone and a dozen or so more in the past 6 hours in Ukraine, but not a peep from the Washington Post. Their obsession with Israel continues though.
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James Kidney

1 day ago

“The poll found large racial gaps in support for reparations. While 75 percent of Black Americans support federal reparations, only 15 percent of White Americans and 36 percent of Hispanic Americans agree. That has made some leery of Harris making the issue part of her argument for the presidency.”

That says it all. Reparations is a political dead letter and always will be. Give it up.
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spamspamspamspam

19 hours ago


As usual, Asians don't count. I wonder what they think about it.
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WaPoUser

14 hours ago


100%. In SF, for example, reparations for Black Americans were considered, even though SF/CA never had slavery, while in SF/CA in the 1800s laws and ordinances were passed to prevent Chinese American children from attending public schools, to force the closing of Chinese businesses to benefit white businesses, to criminalize living in the conditions there were forced to live in, etc. For that, the city issued a nice apology. It's lunacy.
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TheRadicalCentrist

13 hours ago


Articles like this one - which couldn't have been crafted any better by the Trump campaign - are precisely why I have cancelled renewal of my subscription to The Washington Post.
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I Fits I Sits

1 day ago

The headline should read "Election is Harris's to lose; reparations advocates hope she will push extreme and massively unfavorable policy and lose"
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JustMeToo1

1 day ago


May I propose “Election is Harris's to lose; MAGA supporters and the Washington Post hope she will push extreme and massively unfavorable policy to support their agendas to stop this momentum.”
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JP PEARSON

1 day ago

Oh here we go again. Shame on you Wash Poo for throwing up this hackneyed and divisive non-issue in the race to insight independent and undecided voters. Pathetic.
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JP PEARSON

1 day ago


Incite.
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hmmmok

23 hours ago


It's truly WP baiting people. This issue is a joke unless you're coming from a fringe progressive bubble. It's a dead horse, and rage bait.
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Emme24

16 hours ago


It's baiting a dead horse.
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btw215

16 hours ago


Just waiting for Trump to run with this, maybe tonight on Truth Social. Maybe blasting it all over the debate. Very thoughtful, WP.
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Backboneinabox

16 hours ago


Editors saw the dwindling numbers and determined that the only way to make a profit going forward is to have Trump return to office, then write about the carnage that will follow.
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Java Man

14 hours ago


Editors are stupid then. If the Post keeps up this kind of journalism, no subscribers will be left to read the articles about the carnage that will follow.
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Sandsley

14 hours ago


They can write about the carnage all they want. Many of us will refuse to read it and unsubscribe. See how profitable that is.
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GPRAof1993

13 hours ago


All three comments posted immediately above this one are really, really stupid.
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justsaynotodictators

14 hours ago


Reparations is a sure loser issue. That large sucking sound is the sound of air following the rush of moderates out the doors to abandon Harris if this becomes an issue.
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nkulasingham

1 day ago
(Edited)

Uh Democrats should avoid this issue if they want to be a nationally viable party in the future.

You can't advocate for policy that polls 18% with White voters and 36% with Hispanic voters and expect to win the EC or Senate any time soon.
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Opothleyoholo

1 day ago
(Edited)

I am African American, and I am proud to be so. I strongly oppose reparations. Why?

1. In the current presidential election, the survival (or not) of our democracy, our constitution, and our very freedom are on the ballot. For Americans who want to preserve our way of life, seeing to it that the Democratic ticket wins the presidency is our one and only priority. Promoting the reparations issue will simply make a Democratic win in November much less possible.

2. Many Americans have a legitimate argument to make, that their forefathers came to the US after the time of slavery, and therefore they should not be held liable for that slavery.

3. Reparations makes the Black community look "needy." It makes us appear as being incapable of pulling ourselves up out of poverty by ourselves. That fits into a disgusting stereotype that is simply not true.

4. The equivalent of reparations has existed for decades in the form of all of the government programs that have provided our communities with educational and job opportunities. Until recently, affirmative action was part of that equation.

The average American would ask why the Black community would need reparations when billions of dollars have been spent already. Further, many millions of Black people exist in the middle class. Many more are working and moving upward into the middle class.

I encourage my fellow Black Americans to drop this issue.
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Jamie VA

1 day ago


A lot of the polling is also deceptive in the cherry picking of results. If a choice is not binary (reparations or no reparations) and instead include structural changes like down payment assistance, tuition grants, and other programs, the cash version drops significantly in popularity. People want change, not a band-aid.
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Opothleyoholo

1 day ago


Yes, those are valid points.

Cheers.
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Amador

1 day ago


been doing that along with affirmative action the last 60 years .
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NewYorkIndependent

1 day ago


Well said.

The trillions of dollars in Welfare, Food Stamps, rent control and assistance, and endless entitlements paid out to minorities have created a new form of slavery — four generations of Black Americans dependent on the state , locked into their failed and terrible schools, on a treadmill to nowhere.

More handouts will mean more failurel
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fecamfield

15 hours ago


And as I have pointed out to people before, "define black." A very large percentage of us are a blend, A black person once told me that i was passing, Well, then, so are a large number of other people.
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ChapelThrill23

1 day ago

Do they want her to lose?
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Ordet

1 day ago


No but WAPO does for publishing this.
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But I Digress

17 hours ago


WaPo wants clicks, pure and simple. And by publishing a stupid story like this, they give it an air of legitimacy. Look for Fox News to be hyping it tonight even though it's a huge nothing burger.
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fecamfield

15 hours ago


As a publisher once said, "the purpose of a newspaper is to make money."
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m_r_m_

17 hours ago


WaPo definitely wants her to lose.
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bobfbell

1 day ago

Want to drive away more white working class voters? Make a big deal out of promising reparations. Do the math. It ain't pretty or is it feasible.

No one is denying the horrigle injustice of 400 years of slavery and denied equal rights but if one is a student ofr history they soon discover other "second class" citizens came here and were likewise denied a fair shot for a long time. The Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, etc. etc. etc. all were exploited and denied rights guaranteed to them and their offspring by our Constitution.

The best way to begin leveling the playing field is to invest in education, job training and, yes, increasing voting and civil rights on a massive scale. She can make a persuasive case for all of those with many of us who are not Black but IMHO reparations are a non starter with too many whites who can make the case their ancestors got a short straw also. And, finally, when you are being beat over the head with a false argument you are a "socialist" the last thing you want to do is get behind what would become the largest most expensive case of social spending in our history.
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TreeLady

1 day ago


Women suffered terrible discrimination for centuries as well.
Is anyone offering reparations to women?
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bobfbell

1 day ago


TreeLady, women have never been a "protected class" as my wife and two grown daughters keep reminding me. I do my bit to make up including recently voting almost solidly Democrat vs. forty years on the dark side but there is no way I could ever come up with a "settlement" to please them.
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TreeLady

22 hours ago


Maybe I am wrong, but I think that women are a legally protected class, as in “race, creed, color, sex or national origin”.
Not very well protected, but that is a different issue.
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1 over 137

1 day ago


Not to mention, nobody calculates a dollar amount with an iota of logic. We hear the constant refrain of “denied generational wealth”. OK, what does the average person inherit from their parents in the U.S.? The answer is a few tens of thousands of dollars, not 5 MILLION dollars, like we hear many Californians calling for.

My Irish Ancestors came her with no more, nor no less job skills and money than slaves freed after the Civil War. They worked in mines, on railroads, as maids, and all sorts of lower class jobs. I was the first in my family ever to graduate college. When my father died, I inherited his debts, and when my mother died earlier this year, she left us less than $20k in home equity.

Lastly, giving people cash money is just a bad idea. Most of them would just blow it on a new car, expensive vacation, or some other silly thing, and nothing would change. The country would be far better served to just give everyone a free education, to whatever level they could achieve.
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hmmmok

23 hours ago
(Edited)


Exactly!

Massive investments in economically marginalized areas? YES PLEASE.

Fund all school districts the same, instead of 90% of the money to wealthy areas? YES, LET'S GO.

Cash payments to people based on skin color, so they can buy a new TV? NOT GONNA HAPPEN. EVER.
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fecamfield

15 hours ago


Ah, yes - free education. The original Mississippi state constitution guaranteed people a free education to the age of 21 - I saw a copy once before it got hidden. Then, oops, schools were integrated. The whites in control removed that provision, and formed private academies for their children. We finally got away from that, but the free education never came back beyond high school. I just paid $2,700 for a young person's tuition at a community college for the fall school term. Taxes keep going up, but the money vanishes somewhere.
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laxer68

20 hours ago
(Edited)

People who were never slaves demanding money from people who never owned slaves.
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David Dove

19 hours ago


That kinda says it all.
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walterhart

1 day ago

If you want Harris to lose the election, push this agenda.

It's that simple.
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makawaka

1 day ago


Which ones? The one's aiding and abetting Trump's return to the White House because of their one-issue preoccupation that's sure to divide the Harris coalition? This is a niche issue being dredged up to throw a wrench in the growing support for the Democratic ticket.

Harris would be wise to continue to ignore the question but be prepared for it to come up in the debate. I can see Linsey Davis---yes, the "black" moderator for the September debate----asking Harris, "According to an article in the Washington Post, there is a movement gaining increased support to pay reparations to black people. How will you do this in a Harris administration and where will you get the money to fund this program?"

This is a race-baiting time bomb being served on a silver platter by the WaPO for those wishing to stop the Harris/Walz momentum. Ten foot pole, Ms. Harris.
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Cinnamon Girl

1 day ago


Yes! I can easily envision the debate question as you predict it.
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K T5754

1 day ago

What about reparations to Japanese Americans who were interred during World War 2? What about reparations to Native Americans who were decimated as a people and forced to and still live on Reservations? What about reparations to women, who weren't even allowed to vote until 1920?
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I Fits I Sits

1 day ago


What about the women who have died or been seriously injured because of abortion bans?
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Nyghthawk

1 day ago

The best reparations for all poor Americans, Black, Brown, and White would be a truly equal education. Inner cities, rural areas. Don't make school finance dependent on property tax. Equal opportunity begins in Pre-K, continues K-12, and on to college or trade school, or apprentiships.

Monetary reparations would be short-lived and ineffective. Give them the gift of knowledge. The world will open up like a shucked oyster.
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Clevbrian19d

1 day ago


Where I live in Cleveland, the city school system spends over $20k per student per year. This is higher than almost all of the suburban systems in the area. They continue to have the lowest graduation and, attendance rates as well as low test scores. The issues are a lot more than money.
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Nyghthawk

1 day ago
(Edited)


I have no idea what other factors are in play in Cleveland. I live in Texas. Some school districts here get 2-3 times what inner city and rural districts get. There is no universal pre-K. Poor children often start 1st grade unable to read. Nothing you do from that point will ever get to "equal opportunity."
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Blondie12511

1 day ago

Let’s see: money paid to people who were never slaves by people who never enslaved them.
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Lord Peter

19 hours ago


Jim Crow lasted through the 1960's. There are people alive today who were ordered to sit in the back of the bus, denied jobs, denied mortgages, denied entrance to schools, stores, theaters, restaurants, etc.
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Ace2727

16 hours ago

This is the third reparations article in three days. This has not been an issue on the campaign nor is it in any way realistic.

What is WaPo doing?
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Carrots and Peas

16 hours ago


Trying to boost Trump. He's losing.
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Ace2727

16 hours ago


They had a higher revenue when Trump was President.
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Carrots and Peas

16 hours ago


They also had a well respected Executive Editor, Martin Baron, but he retired in 2021.
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Starik in Georgia

16 hours ago


I don't the Post has any idea what it's doing.
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C Elliot Friday

15 hours ago


Trying to get don-old elected, that's what WaPo is doing.
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Windjammer2

16 hours ago



Well it's black people who keep bringing up reparations, and Kamala Harris happens to be black.
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Alieninvader2

16 hours ago


All black people think alike?
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Starik in Georgia

13 hours ago


No they don't. A large number are integrated and assimilated, and prospering.
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Inquiring Mind2

16 hours ago


Provoking.
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Joel Levi 1969

20 hours ago

Washington Post stirring the pot and trying to create a story out of nothing.
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ChesaG

1 day ago

Reparations is a non starter. Never going to happen. There have been billions spent on Social welfare programs to assist. But I can't see the American public showing preference for any race to get Reparations.
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kindness1

12 hours ago

Reparations aren't a Democratic plank. They appear no where in the plan. Yet here the WaPo depicts activists as they are the party.

Why is the WaPo going out of it's way to try and elect Trump?
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JustACommenter2023

12 hours ago


Bezos needs another tax cut.
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George Spigott

12 hours ago


Please.
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pat99again

12 hours ago


Exactly.
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j_ray

12 hours ago
(Edited)


This journalist (as representing the Post) has completed an assignment to develop accurate and responsible reporting on the needs and desires of a constituency group, in this instance those who support extending tangible assets to blacks and the communities where they live, that were harmed by individual incidents as well as America's systemic racism.
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soxcap

12 hours ago


Because a Trump Administration would be very good for Bezos’s tax rate?
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nativeson7

18 hours ago

Would never pass Congress and would never survive a court challenge but it certainly would doom Harris' candidacy if she seriously entertained the notion for even one minute.
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Va mid-roader

17 hours ago


... which no one says she has.
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btw215

16 hours ago


But rumors can spread fast. We know where this one started.
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The Mask

1 day ago

I’ve been waiting for reparations from the Romans for awhile now.
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IrishHeart4094

21 hours ago


And me as well from the Brits.
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ventsyv

19 hours ago


What have the Romans ever done for us?
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1 over 137

15 hours ago


You’re just trolling for a Monty Python fan to trot out the inevitable answer…
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How did this make it to such prominent status on the front page, when the story about the $10m campaign contributoon Felonioys got from Egypt didn't even make it above the fold?
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closer44

12 hours ago


WaPo’s election agenda.
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bronco99

12 hours ago


Because the $10M Egypt story was on the front page years ago. It was investigated and nothing was found. Just because some Dems decide they want to hold a hearing doesn’t make it true or front page news. Same playbook Reps use. It gets old on both sides.
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Putins Losing - Bigly

12 hours ago
(Edited)


It's more relevant now that he's running again, and it is only now since he's been out of power is the extent of the issue come to light because his DoJ tanked it. It also ties into the Menedez matter which was unknown at the time as well.

That's what makes it news.

So I ask again, how did this make it to such prominent status on the front page, when the story about the $10m campaign contributoon Felonioys got from Egypt didn't even make it above the fold?
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Refugee from the NYT

12 hours ago


Nothing was found because the investigation was stopped. Exactly the reason he wants to get reelected: to try and stay out of jail. SCOTUS gave him immunity, maybe he wants to test the blanket presidential self-pardon theory as well.
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Va a hacer calor

13 hours ago

This is all we need right now, a hit job. A reporter wants to make a name for themself, so helps stoke a rumor that Harris is in favor of reparations, even though she has not proposed any such thing.
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JMcIver

1 day ago

A terrible idea for a variety of reasons, the most glaring being the burden to taxpayers who clearly have no complicity in the admittedly shameful treatment of Black Americans many generations in the past. The greatest gift America can provide folks that have been wronged culturally and economically is opportunity, not a pot of money.
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Nope60

1 day ago

This is so petty. The logistics just don’t work. All this discussion is doing is causing division in society. Is all this directed by Putin to destroy America?
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Marlowe Moon

6 hours ago

If they want Harris to lose, keep talking about her supporting reparations.
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mamerta

12 hours ago

What a stupid, unnecessary article that’s actually a hit piece on Kamala Harris. The Murdoch effect on the Washington Post is palpable, it’s now right down there with the Murdoch toilet paper: The New York Post.
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PIPER1308

15 hours ago

What a stupid article to publish. Now Fox News has something to talk about for the next two months.
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Scruffian

15 hours ago


Yeah. Another hit job.
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Windjammer2

15 hours ago



You can't blame this on Fox. Democrats have a supermajority in the California state legislature, and they have been pushing hard for reparations for some time.
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FDRHSTLBJ

13 hours ago
(Edited)

What a surprise! Harris is surging ahead of Trump and, right on cue, the WP goes full "Beware America, Harris is going to "you-name-the-racist-dog-whistle" non-issue that absolutely no one is talking about.

This is a perfect smear of Harris to follow up on that Trump normalizing-Harris bad editorial on Sunday.
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Astro Cat

15 hours ago

Nope! WAPO is actively advocating for Trump to win this election. Kamala's advisers need to steer her clear of false controversies. I hope they are reading the forum reactions to their editorials and commentary. We are her voters.
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countrybeforepoliticalparty

15 hours ago
(Edited)

This article has nothing to do with reparations. It is obviously another nefarious attempt by the WaPo to generate negative publicity for an issue which is not in the news at the expense of the Harris campaign.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" has become the goal rather than a warning at the WaPo.

Further evidence of WaPo's journalistic malpractice can be found in their recent editorial:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/09/01/harris-trump-policy-details-presidential-race/
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entropic_decline

12 hours ago

Anyone slinging reparations in this cycle is a paid Republican operative.
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KB Philadelphia

12 hours ago

Stop with the silly reparations talk. It’s the kind of silliness like “defund the police,” that keeps electing idiot Republicans. No one is ever writing a check for your ancestral bondage claims. It’s just never happening so why discuss it and give those talking points to Fox News!
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VWWV1

12 hours ago


Jim Crow "ended" in 1969
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thisisnotatest202

13 hours ago

Just effing stop. This is a non starter. It’s a wacky issue for the leftmost fifth of the party that makes the rest of the party look nuts and just causes them to lose votes.
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Fender54

13 hours ago


Having Harris lose votes is the only reason the Post published this story. Nobody interviewed has anything to do with the campaign. Reparations have nothing to do with the current election. The MAGAot at the Post just published this made up krap so Fox can cite the Post when it claims KH supports reparations, although she doesn’t.
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closer44

12 hours ago


That’s why the Washington Post is pushing the agenda, not Harris.
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breakthejam

14 hours ago
(Edited)

This is an issue that approximately zero people of all races are considering when they think about the November election. On the other hand there is an article about men in red states who are supporting abortion rights due to their wives losing their ability to have children or nearly their very lives due to the extremely poor medical care now available in their states as a result of abortion bans.

Reproductive freedom concerns nearly every family in America.

That story is buried far below.

What is wrong with this damn newspaper?
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William Brasky

14 hours ago

This storyline brought to you by the trump 2024 campaign
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FallsChurchVA

11 hours ago

Gimme a break on reparations. The country is not giving money to people for something that happened 150+ years ago. And for that matter, it's awfully hard to make the case that people alive today are worse off then if their ancestors remained in their homeland; a better case could be made for impacts from Jim Crow and other forms of discrimination, although the country has closed the gap considerably in the last 60 years. Immigrants came to America for all kinds of reasons, and almost all struggled, at least at first. Government help for all disadvantaged citizens has been and should continue to be part of their responsibility - but Government is not going to ensure outcomes.
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K Mitch

4 hours ago


A break will be given when reparations are paid. You can beat around the bush all you want but what America did to an entire race of people for hundreds of years must be addressed once and for all so that future generations won’t have it to deal with.
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Fourth down and 50

11 hours ago

Reparations are a zero sum game - take from one side and give to the other. There are better ways to help Blacks. Pushing this one issue now would sink Harris in the election.
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closer44

11 hours ago


The Post certainly hopes tying her to the issue will do so.
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No koolaide for me

5 hours ago


Do not worry she will sink herself by opening her mouth.
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CalDadVotes

11 hours ago

Way to go progressive lunatic! Let’s try to insert some absolutely bonkers wing nut wishlist item to try and thwart Harris and give Trump something to jabber about.
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We_are_Free_Minnesota

11 hours ago

WAPO trying to torpedo Harris/Walz day after day after day. Shame and more shame on this sham rag.
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soxcap

11 hours ago


Bingo. That’s the whole point of running this article on an issue that’s not part of Harris’s campaign whatsoever. What better way to rally support for Trump!
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entropic_decline

12 hours ago

Fake News! The Fleet Street Muppets continue to create controversies out of thin air for VP Harris. Reparations is a NON-ISSUE.
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There is no surer way to hand the election to Trump and the MAGAs than to start talking about “reparations.” It would be the greatest self-inflicted wound in Democratic Party history.
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George Spigott

12 hours ago


She knows.
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SadAbeLincoln

12 hours ago

What a joke. Attempting to portray a subject only a small handful of silly activists far outside the mainstream of the party are pushing, as somehow representative of the party or its nominee.

This is how media manipulates elections.

What a grotesque degenerate of its former self the Bezos WaPo has become.
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Susan A

13 hours ago

I'll get vilified for this but here goes

Elections have to be won before change can happen. If Harris starts talking about reparations she will alienate voters. It is not a popular topic. She will not win. And then I can guarantee that there will be no reparations.

Let her win and make your case. Reparations are a hard sell. I find when people start to think of reparations as something like the govt. covering tuition at HBCUs, rather than cash payouts they don't find it the concept so objectionable. (there are times when cash is the answer, but the GOP wants voters to picture checks going to "welfare queens.")

But that's not going to be conveyed between now and the election. I would beg the activists to back off until Harris wins. If they don't, she might not. Trump will go to town on this one. There are people in my area of rural Virginia who might be voting Harris. Mention reparations and those votes are gone.

Let her win. Please. Then make your case.
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George Spigott

13 hours ago
(Edited)


Well said.

True of so many issues.
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bobr1

13 hours ago


Harris is planning to win, and when she hopefully does, she will not line up behind such lunatic idea .
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FritzTerry

12 hours ago


In other words, bait and switch.
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JDWest

13 hours ago

The Trump campaign approves this message.
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tsomm19

13 hours ago


The Trump campaign created this message.
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thisisnotatest202

13 hours ago


Bingo my dude. As a left but not wacky left Dem, I often wonder if some of these nutter causes like reparations or defund the police are actually GOP psyops. Get a couple of plants to start something to get the extremists on board, then use that to discredit everyone else. Straight out of the 1960s CIA/FBI playbook.
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Cravingsomesanity

13 hours ago
(Edited)

The WP has succeeded in starting an argument over a topic Harris has not even made an issue of in her campaign. Really? Stop wringing your hands. Don’t fall for it folks.
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Trent Crimm

13 hours ago
(Edited)


This was brought up for vote in California. Democratic representatives actually invoked Harris and said that she needed to support it or they wouldn't get their vote or their constituents' votes.
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tsomm19

13 hours ago


Which Democratic representatives said that?
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Trent Crimm

13 hours ago


“We need to send a message to the governor. The governor needs to understand the world is watching California and this is gonna have a direct impact on your friend Kamala Harris who is running for president. This is going to have a direct impact, so pull up the bills now, vote on them and sign them. We’ve been waiting for over 400 years."
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Read More of this Conversation >

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George Spigott

13 hours ago


There's no argument.
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DGarms1994

13 hours ago

Not this BS again. Sick of defund the police and nonsense such as this along with not prosecuting and locking up violent criminals turning off middle of the road voters and keeping us from having control of Congress to make actual progress. Stop this insanity. We need to save our democracy and don't have time for BS.
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M3Man

14 hours ago

Hey WAPO. What's up for tomorrow? An interview with Louis Farrakahn? If he says anything nice about Harris, you can use that to really scare white people.

That seems to be your new mission.
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dclivejazz

14 hours ago
(Edited)

Hmmm, I wonder why the Post is pushing a story about a very controversial topic that was not high on most voters’ list of critical issues for the 2024 Presidential election? Could it have something to do with its latest right wing editorial leadership? Why, I think it does.
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GabsDaD

14 hours ago


It's not controversial. Just a whine from the left extremes which no one pays attention to.
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ancient mariner

14 hours ago

This isn't journalism. It's a naked, sensationalist stab at manufacturing a controversy to foment more division and damage the Democratic ticket. Right now there's no national momentum for reparations, regardless of their merit. I doubt that a bill would even make it out of committee, let alone pass the Senate and the House. Harris is being asked about it because she's black. Intrinsic in the question is a racist suspicion that she wants special treatment for "her people." That her policy views would be tainted by some kind of victim complex. That she couldn't govern dispassionately, professionally because of her black heritage. That she'd be black first and President second. Obama also suffered this bigoted nonsense. I thought it was behind us. Not.
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Ida Know

14 hours ago


Congrats! You broke the code of the Washington Post.
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Critical Realist

14 hours ago


Agree 100%. Except for the part where she say reparations should be considered “in some form.”
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Beau Vine

14 hours ago

One has to wonder if the authors of this article are working for the trump campaign?
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Hens79

15 hours ago

She won’t and shouldn’t even mention the word “reparations”. As a matter of fact, I haven’t heard Harris, Biden or really any Democrat utter the word reparations. Looks like WaPo had to search their rolodex of “activists” to do another “some say” hit piece on Harris.
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K Mitch

14 hours ago


The issue of reparations for 250 years of slavery has been raised ever since slavery ended. And will always be raised until it has been addressed.
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apparatchik

15 hours ago

Folks, have you heard anyone talk about reparations since Kamala started running for president, except the Washington Post? That should be your first clue about what is going on here.
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Windjammer2

15 hours ago
(Edited)



Yes, the Dems who control the California state legislature are talking about it all the time. They have been pushing for reparations for quite some time.

And oh yes Kamala is from California. Their main home is in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.

-
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JustACommenter2023

15 hours ago


California is a state. Kamala is running for President, and any such reparations would have to get past Congress. California has a supermajority and won't have to worry about turning red.
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AntiPopulist

15 hours ago


They also aren't going to pass it California. Some idiotic commission recommended it but the legislature won't take it up.
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YeahItsNotOK

16 hours ago

WaPo seriously wants me to drop my subscription. This is a Kamala Harris and Democratic hit piece. Please show me where on the Democratic Platform where they are calling for reparations as a priority:

https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

STOP THIS. Report on Trump's interview on Fox News last night, where he said: “Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it,”

Readers Beware.
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QueenLilly

16 hours ago
(Edited)

Idiotic article. The odds of Harris embracing reparations are nil. It would sink her campaign. Any article with a headline beginning "Advocates hope...." has no business appearing in a serious newspaper. Why does the Post waste space on irrelevant "journalism" like this? Because it excites the Post's online readership?
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Allophone

16 hours ago


Poe's Law applies to the article. It's impossible to distinguish progressive posturing from right-wing trolling.
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Starik in Georgia

13 hours ago


The Post used to be a great newspaper. Then it became a "woke" advocacy paper. Subscribers were lost. This next change to pro-Trump will cost even more subscribers.
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GettingRealFromSeattle

18 hours ago
(Edited)

Formula for handing votes to Trump, talk about reparations.
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TreeLady

1 day ago

Reparations for slavery will never draw majority support. Yes, it was evil, but the number of actual slave owners was always small, compared to the total population. And it 159 years ago. Six or eight generations back. “You owe me money because someone who looks like you committed a crime against my ancestor” is a tough sell.

Reparations to specific people whose land was taken or who suffered other particular harms may be possible. Basically, would a person of non-African descent deserve reparations for that same injustice?
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Rhop704

1 day ago

Solid no for reparations. Harris will lose if this becomes part of her platform. If she wins and chooses to endorse reparations as president, she will not win relection. This is a losing issue. There are, and have been, a plethora of economic policies aimed at addressing populations living in poverty - minorities among them. Were not giving African Americans 40 acres and a mule, and were not giving the land back to the Native Americans. The Democratic party needs policies that win elections, not lose them, and reparatio s is a sunk ship.
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anghiari

1 day ago


First, you can’t speak for Kamala Harris, and you don’t speak for me. One of the difficulties of the reparation discussion is that this country is becoming fuller and fuller of immigrants who have come here from other countries and who have suffered their own difficulties. If they are Naturalized citizens and have a vote on this issue, I think they may not know enough about it to be supportive. Both the Indigenous peoples of America and the Blacks whose enslaved worked for nothing for 300 years must be heard. You have no right to say no for them, and you certainly cannot speak for the rest of the country. What you were doing is giving your personal racist response to the discussion of reparations. By the way, I noticed that blacks who support Donald Trump have never been heard to talk to Republicans about reparations. This issue will not go away for any president after Kamala Harris if it’s not resolved. I don’t know that reparations in the manner in which they are being asked for today is the solution. But I do know this country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans who were made to work and were never paid for that work. That is pure fact.. It wasn’t your experience And you have no say in how people should go about this discussion.


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Daniel Deagler

1 day ago


What nonsense. Everyone would have a say on how a trillion dollars of tax money would be redistributed. You’re delusional as well as self-righteous.
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ob7245

1 day ago


you forgot to mention that not only was this country built on the backs of enslaved Africans but it was also built on land that belonged to the Native Americans! If we even start to discuss reparations I'm pretty sure that the Native Americans should be first in line.
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TreeLady

1 day ago


No Black person has worked for 300 years without being paid.
The complaint is that their ancestors worked 30 to 70 years each without being paid.

Slavery ended 159 years ago.
Nobody now alive was ever a slave or even a child of a slave.
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itsnick

11 hours ago

This is an extremely polarizing issue. I assume the WaPo is trying to scuttle Harris's election by raising it.

Congrats or something on the British tabloid style the new management is bringing to The Post.
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MVP2024

12 hours ago

Dems - you want to lose an election? Start talking about reparations.
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closer44

12 hours ago


Dems aren’t. Just the click-seeking, Trump-normalizing Washington Post.
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MVP2024

12 hours ago


This paper has gotten all trumpfied
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HBCUalumnus

11 hours ago


Nostradamus speaks?
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aibohphobia

13 hours ago
(Edited)

If it's not part of her manifesto, why are you bringing it up, if not to smear her? When she comes out in favor of reparations as a candidate, then you can report factually and accurately what her position is. This is simply yellow journalism. Raise your game, or lose your readership.
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Fender54

12 hours ago


She has never supported reparations & she is not going to start now.
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SadAbeLincoln

12 hours ago




They already chose the latter.

I'll erase useless comments later

Comments read like a BGOL political thread.

 

[Fuckallyall]

Yeah WTF is he talking about? The morality is obvious. We’ve had studies conducted already. What we need is action. Thus far, neither of the presidential candidates have committed to any meaningful action regarding reperations.

Taking money from those who never owned slaves and giving it to people who neve been slaves isn't moral in any way, shape or form. Especially when we ignore totally the fact that America didn't start the business, as fellow Africans were the slavers (and still are), and the Europeans were just customers. This is just a money grab, and the Welfare mind state in a different package.

 

[^SpiderMan^]

Taking money from those who never owned slaves and giving it to people who neve been slaves isn't moral in any way, shape or form. Especially when we ignore totally the fact that America didn't start the business, as fellow Africans were the slavers (and still are), and the Europeans were just customers. This is just a money grab, and the Welfare mind state in a different package.

Reported

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

Taking money from those who never owned slaves and giving it to people who neve been slaves isn't moral in any way, shape or form. Especially when we ignore totally the fact that America didn't start the business, as fellow Africans were the slavers (and still are), and the Europeans were just customers. This is just a money grab, and the Welfare mind state in a different package.

So who inherited, owns, and controls the wealth that was created from slavery in America?

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

Taking money from those who never owned slaves and giving it to people who neve been slaves isn't moral in any way, shape or form. Especially when we ignore totally the fact that America didn't start the business, as fellow Africans were the slavers (and still are), and the Europeans were just customers. This is just a money grab, and the Welfare mind state in a different package.

Uh first off, its called INHERITANCE.. THE CHILDREN INHERIT THE SINS OF THE FATHER...

cacs GOT THE HOMESTEAD ACT.. and we got JIM CROW....

and told we were going to get 40 acres and a mule...

all we got was the Mule the fuckin democratic party.....

FUCK DAT SHIT..

We gonna need them forty acres or its monetary equivalent...

and if we dont get it,

pale face will see that his suicide rate and birth rate has intensified and

NOT in the direction pale face wants..

So SAVE YOURSELVES by SUPPORTING REPARATIONS FOR TRUE AMERICANS..

YOU WILL FEEL SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT LIFE!!!

 

[Flawless]

Taking money from those who never owned slaves and giving it to people who neve been slaves isn't moral in any way, shape or form. Especially when we ignore totally the fact that America didn't start the business, as fellow Africans were the slavers (and still are), and the Europeans were just customers. This is just a money grab, and the Welfare mind state in a different package.

The fuck???

 

[Fuckallyall]

Reported

Bitch, running to mommy “he’s not being nice mommy!”

 

[Fuckallyall]

Uh first off, its called INHERITANCE.. THE CHILDREN INHERIT THE SINS OF THE FATHER...

cacs GOT THE HOMESTEAD ACT.. and we got JIM CROW....

and told we were going to get 40 acres and a mule...

all we got was the Mule the fuckin democratic party.....

FUCK DAT SHIT..

We gonna need them forty acres or its monetary equivalent...

and if we dont get it,

pale face will see that his suicide rate and birth rate has intensified and

NOT in the direction pale face wants..

So SAVE YOURSELVES by SUPPORTING REPARATIONS FOR TRUE AMERICANS..

YOU WILL FEEL SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT LIFE!!!

The southern homestead act had 1 in 4 black farmers owning their own farm by 1900. Do some research. And you didn’t suffer slavery in any way, shape or form. The most dangerous places for black people to be is in their mother’s womb or around each other up to the mid thirties. Fuck your greed for other people’s shit. Go get your own. It has, and can be done . Going to White folks looking for a handout is like a mouse going to the cat looking for affection (I think Malcolm X said that).

 

[Fuckallyall]

So who inherited, owns, and controls the wealth that was created from slavery in America?

It’s been diffused into the greater economy, which is far larger now than it was then. Take a look at the richest families or companies from 1924. I think less than 10 may still exist.

 

[Fuckallyall]

Uh first off, its called INHERITANCE.. THE CHILDREN INHERIT THE SINS OF THE FATHER...

cacs GOT THE HOMESTEAD ACT.. and we got JIM CROW....

and told we were going to get 40 acres and a mule...

all we got was the Mule the fuckin democratic party.....

FUCK DAT SHIT..

We gonna need them forty acres or its monetary equivalent...

and if we dont get it,

pale face will see that his suicide rate and birth rate has intensified and

NOT in the direction pale face wants..

So SAVE YOURSELVES by SUPPORTING REPARATIONS FOR TRUE AMERICANS..

YOU WILL FEEL SO MUCH BETTER ABOUT LIFE!!!

Also, the same constitution that you use to lobby for reparations forbids the sins of the father’s nonsense. It just creates conflict that never ends. Also, it’s easy to claim that nonsense when you don’t know what YOUR father may have done. It’s bullshit. And remember, the Africans were (and still are) the slavers that started this whole mess, and they weren’t any different than anyone else. The difference the west has is that this was the first society to attempt to end it. Prove me wrong.

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

It’s been diffused into the greater economy, which is far larger now than it was then. Take a look at the richest families or companies from 1924. I think less than 10 may still exist.

So that means it's still there.

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

The southern homestead act had 1 in 4 black farmers owning their own farm by 1900. Do some research. And you didn’t suffer slavery in any way, shape or form. The most dangerous places for black people to be is in their mother’s womb or around each other up to the mid thirties. Fuck your greed for other people’s shit. Go get your own. It has, and can be done . Going to White folks looking for a handout is like a mouse going to the cat looking for affection (I think Malcolm X said that).

You're posting false information. Where are you getting that the southern Homestead Act had 1 in 4 Black farmers owners their own farm by 1900? That act was repealed in 1876.

And heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death for Black Americans, just as they are for your people.

 

[Fuckallyall]

So that means it's still there.

Then go for it. It won’t stop anything, as the damage to get will likely be larger than what you will get. I have come to believe most people don’t want justice, just advantage and will use “justice “ as a skin suit to get advantage. It’s no different than the feminist movement. They want the degrees and jobs, I’ve yet to hear them complain about not being subject to the draft, or complain that they’re aren’t enough women swinging off the back of garbage trucks.

 

[Fuckallyall]

You're posting false information. Where are you getting that the southern Homestead Act had 1 in 4 Black farmers owners their own farm by 1900? That act was repealed in 1876.

And heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death for Black Americans, just as they are for your people.

You’re being redundant, as I’m black too. Oh, that’s right, if I don’t think like you. I’m not in the club. I was just looking at the source. Give me a minute.

 

[DC_Dude]

 

[^SpiderMan^]

Reparations is not just for slavery. One of the many things that affect black folks today is Redlining. Black folks were not allowed to buy homes in the most valuable and fastest appreciating areas. Most Americans’ incomes are in their homes. Redlining wasn’t outlawed until just 56 years ago.

 

[Heavenlywings77]

Taking money from those who never owned slaves and giving it to people who neve been slaves isn't moral in any way, shape or form. Especially when we ignore totally the fact that America didn't start the business, as fellow Africans were the slavers (and still are), and the Europeans were just customers. This is just a money grab, and the Welfare mind state in a different package.

Whose manz is this?

 

[VAiz4hustlaz]

You’re being redundant, as I’m black too. Oh, that’s right, if I don’t think like you. I’m not in the club. I was just looking at the source. Give me a minute.

Then why are you posting false information?

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

Also, the same constitution that you use to lobby for reparations forbids the sins of the father’s nonsense. It just creates conflict that never ends. Also, it’s easy to claim that nonsense when you don’t know what YOUR father may have done. It’s bullshit. And remember, the Africans were (and still are) the slavers that started this whole mess, and they weren’t any different than anyone else. The difference the west has is that this was the first society to attempt to end it. Prove me wrong.

Da FUCK are you talkin bout??

what da fuck do Africans have do to

WITH THE WAY WE WERE TREATED HERE???


fact is, we treated them italians an irish like family..

and they fuckin became kkkops and agents....

to keep us contained...

THEY OWE US MORE THAN ANY FUCKIN BODY......

THEY LITERALLY SOLD US THE FUCK OUT, even went as far

as to give us the ultimate fuck you..

and BURN DOWN ONE OF OUR ORPHANAGES as if to say.. WE aint never

being down with yall ever again..


then they became this delusional shit called "white" with their pale asses!!!

they GOT SOME HEAVY KARMA COMING.......

THE MEMORY IS STARTING TO COME BACK!!!

but aint no fuckin African... Enforced Jim Crow or started the KKK

to TERRORIZE US OFF OUR LAND!!!

Africans have nothing to do with

CHATTEL ENSLAVEMENT thats a PURE

HYBRID EURO THING!!

you dont know REAL HISTORY ENOUGH, to discuss this with

Me..

Ya gotta get yo weight UP SON!!!