Biden privately tells lawmakers not to expect much on reparations legislation

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. Agreed, and they should be pursued. But I support some direct payment reparations also

History is littered with injustices that stretch well beyond any time horizon, so trying to individually make right all the wrongs of the past to every descendant of those once persecuted would open a Pandora's box that could not be closed. However there is a simple and internationally widely accepted standard that exists for asserting ancestral rights; proof of direct lineage to a grandparent from a specified group of people. Many nations (Ireland for example) allow you to qualify for dual citizenship if you can proof that one of your grandparents was born in that nation. I just miss out personally. My great grandmother moved here from Ireland as a young woman and my grandmother was born here soon after.

I think the horror of human slavery in particular is so heinous that formal explicit direct payment of reparations is required as part of a formal acknowledgement of our prior national sin. It's true that only a tiny percentage of African Americans living today would qualify under the above standard, but the number who still do is hardly insignificant. For example, a child born into slavery in 1863, who then gave birth at age 50, would have a son or daughter born in 1913. If that child also gave birth at age 50 (in 1963), that person would now be 58 and would qualify for direct reparations as the grandchild of a former slave.