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Reparations are a slippery slope - how should a government decide who is worthy of them? If the black community in Tulsa get some, who’s to say all black Americans who were disenfranchised and mistreated by their government for centuries don’t deserve them? And what about other minorities? The Native American people whose homeland was taken from them? How do you even begin to balance and scale such suffering and history of oppression? And when you do give people cash who are historically disenfranchised, how do you know that the government/society has provided these people with the means and education to invest this capital wisely?

We see this effect too often with those who win the lottery, as many winners are lower class Americans who were not provided with the proper financial curriculum and as a result squander their payment in a few short years. A lump sum payment would be ill advised, and could even cause severe inflation with such a large cash infusion in the economy (because, as stated earlier, if you approve reparations for one marginalized group, all the other ones should logically be entitled). A payment structure could be more feasible, but you still face the issue of a lack of financial literacy and the extreme, bankrupting nature such a large program would have.

I believe the solution, as Tulsa’s government has wisely decided, is to invest in the communities that have been affected by the past injustices or indifference of the state. This way, future generations can be provided with the means for the equal opportunity their ancestors were denied, without the state whitewashing its past or trying to pay off its sins. Is this fair to the people who are in their current situations due to the injustice of the past? No, but unless the government has a time machine, there is no way to right those wrongs.

Scars fade, but you can’t just cover them up, they need to be in the open. Throwing a check at the problem helps no one but the racists who would latch on the moment beneficiaries of reparations squander their payments. Instead, governments should be focused on providing marginalized communities with the resources they need for their next generations to have the opportunities their ancestors were denied, via urban renewal projects, education reforms, and investment in minority-owned businesses. These practices would serve to increase the amount of generational wealth within communities and let them regain what was taken from them.

Black Wall Street can only live again if Black Americans are given the tools to be successful. A lump sum payment doesn’t do that, but a program that includes small business loans, free school lunch programs, increased teacher salary, and improved public transportation (etc.), does. It isn’t fast, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Strategic investment in the community consistently proves to work better than broad payments. Building a new public park, mixed use residential areas, and renovating a local school for the same price as lump sum reparations would maybe not payoff in the short term, but the increase in property values, child welfare and education, and overall quality of life would encourage far better chances of sustained economic growth within minority communities, building up the generational wealth these groups deserve.