African American
In reply to the discussion: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Bernie Sanders, and Reparations [View all]sahel
(87 posts)in the same category of unattainable. Single payer or something resembling it is more or less the default position of most other western countries. No other common law country has ever paid significant reparations to its indigenous people, although in this instance we are talking about vicitms of slavery and not indigenous people. For some reason not even the American left talks much about compensating native americans.
However, given that Coates does in fact appear to concede that reparations are politically unattainable and that not even john conyers would support them if he ran for president, you have to wonder what this column is ultimately all about, unless it is basically an elaborate case of sour grapes or more accurately the pony syndrome (if I can't have my pony fuck that other guys pony).
The latter proposition seems plausible when you consider that coates spends his time writing for publications like harpers and atlantic whose paying readerships are all 95% white and upper middle class. Coates has always said that he's surprised by the fact that his readership is largely white, you'd think having taken this many paychecks he would have gotten over his surprise by now.