“What America Refuses to Owe: The Price of Black Suffering”
In the heart of every empire lies a contradiction. In America, it is this: We teach about justice, but we rarely practice it for the people who built the foundation of this country—enslaved Africans and their descendants.
America has written checks for tragedies abroad. But for slavery—a horror that happened here, in the soil, sweat, and blood of the South—there is no apology, no compensation, no closure.
When Injustice Was International, America Opened Its Wallet
Let’s look at the historical receipts.
- After the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan received billions in aid, development grants, and favorable trade agreements. A nation devastated by American military might was helped back onto its feet.
- Following the Holocaust, Germany began reparations in 1952. To date, it has paid over $90 billion to Holocaust survivors and the Israeli state. An atrocity committed in Europe.
- Even Japanese Americans, who were unjustly interned during WWII on U.S. soil, received a formal apology and $20,000 per survivor in 1988.
Yet descendants of enslaved Africans—whose entire existence was commodified and whose labor built the wealth of the United States—have received nothing.
Why?
The American Lie: That Slavery Is Over, And Therefore Forgotten
Slavery was not merely a period—it was a system of trauma. For 246 years, Black people were whipped, raped, auctioned, beaten, and banned from reading and writing. Their children were sold. Their backs bore the burden of a nation’s ascent.
But the injustice didn’t stop in 1865. It mutated.
From Jim Crow laws to redlining, from COINTELPRO to mass incarceration, America has continued to extract from Black communities while denying restitution.
Meanwhile, schoolchildren are more likely to learn the names of European dictators than the enslaved people who shaped their country’s highways, railroads, and economy. To add insult to injury, in some states, teachers are banned from even discussing this legacy with nuance.
We are forced to learn about atrocities that happened elsewhere, while those that happened here are buried beneath patriotic myth.
How Much Is Owed? The Rough Numbers Tell a Billion-Dollar Truth
Economists and scholars, including Dr. William Darity, estimate that the U.S. government owes Black Americans anywhere from $13 trillion to $17 trillion when adjusting for stolen labor, compounded over centuries, and exclusion from land ownership and wealth accumulation.
Compare that to the $90 billion Germany has paid for the Holocaust—an atrocity the U.S. had no direct part in causing.
Let’s be clear: reparations for one people should never preclude reparations for another. But the refusal to acknowledge Black suffering while uplifting other global tragedies reveals a truth too many are afraid to face:
America is more comfortable condemning crimes it didn’t commit than atoning for the ones it did.
What Can Be Done? Here’s Where the Cry Gets Louder
If we want justice, we must demand it. Silence has never saved us. Politeness never bought us freedom. We need more than conversations—we need disruption.
Take Action:
- Email your representatives: Demand support for reparations legislation like H.R. 40.
- Speak up locally: Press school boards and libraries to teach the full truth of slavery and Reconstruction.
- Vote with purpose: Elect candidates who aren’t afraid to talk about systemic repair.
- Support Black-led orgs fighting for economic equity and educational justice.
- Use your platform—podcast, IG, YouTube, or block parties—to spread truth, not silence.
🖤 America doesn’t have an amnesia problem—it has an empathy problem.
And until this country sees Black pain as worthy of repair, the debt remains.
Let the cry get louder.
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