Rape-arations: The Clear Case For Reparations For Black People in America

The Nation That Raped Its Way Into Productivity

William Spivey
8 min readFeb 19, 2024

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My stance on reparations has evolved over the years, as has my infuriation regarding the failure of America to acknowledge that the growth of the nation was directly tied to increasing the cheap labor supply via the forced breeding and rape of enslaved women and girls. I never thought to connect the two issues together until listening to a group of Black Republicans led by a white woman discussing reparations.

The white woman made clear she was against reparations. She said slavery was global, that America was founded at a time enslavement happened to exist, and that she and her children weren’t born into debt to Black people because of something that happened over a hundred years ago. She also refused to acknowledge that she benefited in any way from slavery in America’s past.

I used to believe reparations were desirable but impractical. I’ve since decided that they are very doable; all that’s required is the will. Germany has paid out over $90 billion in reparations to Jewish people since 1952. $1.4 billion came just last year, mainly to people not in concentration camps who were previously ineligible for grants.

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