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African Americans - and particularly the descendants of slaves - certainly deserve justice. But restitution isn't really the straightforward approach it sounds like.

The idea of restitution presumes there is a discrete group of people who have been harmed, and another group or body which bears responsibility. And here's where things get messy. Who is the aggrieved party? All African Americans? Not really; some Americans of African descent did not come here as slaves. Should a third-generation descendant of of Egyptian immigrants be eligible for reparations? Obviously not.

Well, then, perhaps we should limit reparations to the actual descendants of slaves. But how do we know who these are? Is it the responsibility of the claimants to document their descent from slaves? And how many of the deserving parties could actually do this? How "black" do you have to be to qualify? Thousands of Americans who think of themselves as white actually have slaves in their family tree; would they qualify for reparations? How about African Americans whose ancestors were slaves in the Caribbean, not in the U.S.? Do they get reparations?

Then there's the party responsible to pay. The obvious suspect here is the Government of the United States. The U.S. Treasury, however, is not limited to the tax dollars of white beneficiaries of slavery. In fact, a huge number of U.S. taxpayers are the descendants of immigrants who came here long after the Emancipation Proclamation. How about the descendants of those Irish immigrants whose first job on getting off the boat was to fight for the Union Army? Do they share in the guilt of slavery? And many are very recent immigrants. Think again about that grandson of an Egyptian immigrant: should he be paying reparations? Should a portion of Barak Obama's tax dollars go into a reparations check for, say, Oprah Winfrey? And of course, millions of U.S. taxpayers are themselves African American descendants of slaves. Should they be paying themselves reparations?

As simple as it sounds, any plan for reparations is bound to lead to unfairness, cases of gross injustice, and ugly arguments about who gets a check. And once the checks are written, then what? Will White society have "paid its debt" to African Americans? Certainly not. The effects of racism and generations of poverty will not be wiped out with the stroke of a pen. But one suspects that mainstream support for programs like affirmative action would rapidly dwindle after the big pay-off.

The only meaningful compensation to the victims of slavery is a society in which their descendants can live free from prejudice, with an equal shot at all the benefits of the wealthiest country on Earth. That's a goal that every American should commit to, and from which all Americans will benefit.

Learn more about this author, Scott Knickelbine.
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