These are just some of the recommendations made by a city-appointed reparations committee tasked with a thorny question: What would it take to atone for the centuries of U.S. slavery {Bullshit. Slavery in the United States existed for less than 100 years: 1776 to 1865 is not "centuries"} and generations of systemic racism that continue to keep Black Americans on the bottom rungs of health, education and economic prosperity, and over-represented in prisons and homeless populations?
Apparently some Black Americans are just completely unaffected by all that systemic racism holding them down. Oprah Winfrey, Clarence Thomas, Barrack Obama, Ben Carson, Colin Powell, and others managed just fine. George Washington Carver had demonstrated, as had dozens of other notable achievers that doing, not whining is the key to success, just the same as it is for people of any color.
While 'generational wealth' is a nice springboard for some, most of that is gone by the 2nd or 3rd generation, so there are no guarantees anyone is going to start out any better than the next person, and some of the most successful started with little more than an idea and built on that--and built empires in a generation.
You want education? Go to the Library and learn.
You want success? Work hard, learn how to make the fruits of your labors work for you, and don't piss them away on trinkets and superficialities. If only I had known then what I know now.
But beyond the money, wealth is more than just stuff, it's family, it's that next generation with one or two inspired to carry a torch forward for the benefit of all, not just every man for himself.
Iron bars do not a prison make nor chains a captive. Until those who claim to suffer from bondage free themselves from the notion that their success depends on anyone but themselves (and perhaps The Almighty), they will not be free, and no amount of money will ever change that.
