Here Are Some Alternatives to ‘Slavery Reparations’ That Would Help Low-Income Americans

Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, is critical of so-called slavery reparations. Star explained in a Daily Wire interview why she believes Democrats are pushing this idea now and why reparations are impractical and inappropriate.

“DW: Reparations have become one of the hot topics among the Democrats running for president. Even several years ago, the idea of reparations wasn’t really brought up in major debates. What is your opinion on the now-mainstream Democratic position that we need to formulate a plan to provide reparations?

“PARKER: The reason the Democrats are talking about reparations today is because the Democrats are losing their grip on the black community. They see the same polls that everyone sees, that a third of African Americans have told pollsters for 20 years that they’re evangelical and conservative. They see the same polls that all the rest of us see, that just in very recent history, within the last year, 22% of African Americans say that they are conservatives politically. Therefore, Democrats understand that if these black conservatives start voting their values, they will lose every election.

“Because right now, when you think about the ethnicities – in the Asian community, 29% poll as conservative and 29% vote Republican. The same numbers are present in the Latino community, 29% poll as conservative and 29% vote for Republicans. It’s only in the black community that 22% poll as conservative, but only 8% vote for Republicans. The Democrats recognize that the 14% could slip away overnight, so all of a sudden, reparations is the number one challenge that they are going to discuss.

“Also, their playbook was determined 50 years ago and they don’t move from it. They just bring it up when it’s the appropriate time to play the race card to divide America because it’s a political season.

“DW: Why do you think reparations aren’t feasible?

“PARKER: Well, it’s obvious that they’re not feasible. We’re talking about a diverse society, and there’s just no way you can calculate which American was of African American descent that had ancestry in slavery.

“Now, are there possibilities that you could attempt to determine at the hand of government? Yeah. You can take the playbook of Germany and line up everybody that looks like they have some ethnicity in them, and force them to take some tests to determine if they have a certain percentage of black slave blood in them. I mean, most of the records even of slavery were destroyed during the Civil War. It’s just a political ploy. This is not practical.

“If they really were serious in saying they want to do something about the income gap – which is where they say they’re trying to help – they wouldn’t want the government writing a check for reparations. If they were really serious, they would personalize Social Security because personalizing Social Security would allow one generation to pass their wealth to their heirs instead of sending it to the IRS. They would allow people to take their payroll tax and put it in an IRA instead of sending it to the IRS.

“So, they’re not serious – this is just a political ploy to racially divide us so that the black people that the Democrats know are open to the messaging of Donald Trump on those social issues, that are open to the messaging of Donald Trump and are feeling the economic benefit of the policies of Donald Trump, are starting to slip away. They know that, and that’s why we’re all of a sudden having hearings on reparations.”

Star talked about alternatives to reparations that would empower black Americans. Read the full interview here.