"If you have two people running in a mile race around a track and one has a ball and chain tied around his leg for three laps, you can't take the ball and chain off for the final lap and still expect him to win" Jesse Jackson's aide, Frank Watkins once stated. Many African Americans in the United States have demanded that our nation must confront and render reparations for the past injustices of slavery. The U.S. government has not yet awarded reparations to African Americans or made a formal apology for the involvement of this act. Essentially, this topic has arisen controversy for numerous years. Reparations cannot truly make up for past injustices
             Dealing with a highly complex and contended issue, many key factors contribute to my opposition of reparations. This complicated issue brings up many questions. For example, the last slave ship that arrived in the U.S. was in 1808. It is statistically likely that an individuals white ancestor immigrated to the U.S. post 1808. Should white immigrants that arrived after 1808 exclude themselves from helping pay for reparations? Should descendants of blacks that arrived in the U.S after 1808 be exempted from the reparations granted? Should all taxpayers bear the cost of reparations, or only those who are descendents of slave owners or from those who lived in the slave states?
             Although the United States was, in fact, a large contributing region for the housing of slavery, African tribes sold their neighbors in to the trade and sailors of the Spanish and Portuguese transported the slaves. This horrendous crime had other contributing factors than just the U.S., which received most of the blame for this crime. The payment of reparations would logically not make sense because how would anyone be able to divide the blame of slavery into the different contributing countries, regions, and tribes. Also, if reparations did exist, how would the decedents of slave owners or...