You say that &quot;these issues were caused by White people, but they cannot be solved by any action White people might take.&quot; But then you admit that whites continue to &quot;have their own problems with racism that we must solve.&quot; At the least, wouldn&#x27;t ending that white racism help blacks going forward?<p>Your claim that reparations and affirmative action lead to entitlement and self-hatred in blacks is unsubstantiated armchair psychology that, surely you&#x27;ll agree, would sound awfully convenient -- not to mention condescending -- to an aggrieved black. The follow on assertion that it would also lead to JUSTIFIED resentment in whites betrays your inability or refusal to see that blacks have suffered concrete, economic damages for which justice requires reparations. Any resulting resentment from whites is simply sour grapes.<p>Your unsubstantiated claims that any efforts by whites to unring the bell of hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination will only aggravate difficulties for blacks is not the get out of jail free card you want it to be.<p>No, perhaps the bell cannot be unrung, but that does not obviate the moral obligation to make blacks whole in whatever ways we can. The truth is that the magnitude of the injustice is gigantic and far beyond the ability of whites to redress in full, but it does not follow that we should do nothing. There are many reasonable steps we can take to redress black grievances. For one, we could fix the enormous discrepancy in the quality of public education received by black and white children. We could address the huge underfunding of public defenders that tips the scales of justice in favor of anyone with the resources to hire a private attorney. It is not even necessary to resort to explicitly racial reparations like affirmative action. A huge amount of good can be accomplished simply by addressing poverty since it has been one of the primary consequences of white prejudice.<p>If anyone cannot imagine reparations that would move blacks in America forward beyond the racial divisions of our past, it is for lack of imagination or effort.  The true obstacle is UNJUSTIFIED white resentment that reparations might engender, which is why some black thinkers have suggested that black inequality be addressed by tackling inequality writ large.<p>Suggesting that whites can do nothing is sleight of hand that shifts responsibility for the black plight from white racism to an implied black shiftlessness. It is victim blaming, simply put.