I don’t see any material weaknesses in his argument. The indignities heaped upon blacks occurred in federal law long after slavery ended, with evils like “separate but equal” legally lasting for 58 years because of the Plessy Supreme Court decision. Or what he does mention, the locking out of FHA and other loans by the federal government until the end of 1960’s. When you have Senator Tillman of South Carolina openly bragging on the Senate floor of having completely repressed the black vote so no black was federally elected until 1928, or President Wilson segregating the federal workforce, then black repression is violently in full force after the Civil War ended.

The lynchings were not often criminally investigated. The federal government was not investigating extrajudicial murder by rope for 70 years until the Emmet Till case and the Freedom marches. How is that a democracy that protects the “inalienable rights” of all? The point of reparations is to reverse all the federal laws and actions whites have perpetrated on blacks, during and after slavery, and make payment for work done and opportunities denied to blacks.

Yes, I’m white. So, what will I get out of it? How about the proud democracy we were all promised instead of centuries of federally approved and sanctioned violence against black citizens (who by the way became citizens July 4, 1776 along with everyone else under the colorless Declaration of Independence that gave inalienable right to all.) If we don’t fight for independence peacefully then we slip into autocracy hopelessly, like Russia has done the last 22 years, ending up in violence and war.