Reparations

John Hawkins: Do you believe reparations should be paid for slavery?

Thomas Sowell: The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them. If those who were enslaved were alive, they would deserve huge reparations and their captors would deserve worse punishments than our laws allow. But death has put both beyond our reach. Frustrating as that may be, creating new injustices among the living will not change that.

Just so. I've always thought that the way descendants should honor the suffering of their ancestors is to stay in school and succeed in the very society those ancestors were forced to help build. If revenge is important as a driving motivation, then it comes out the same, because success is always the most satisfying and productive form of revenge.

Byron