This article would, in my opinion, be stronger if it concentrated on economics rather than race. By focusing on race, the author implicitly endorses the idea of collective and inherited guilt, a way of thinking that will backfire.

After all, most white Americans did not own slaves. Some white Americans strongly opposed slavery and even died--some abolitionists were murdered--for their views. While the US government did not fight the Civil War to end slavery, some of the men in the trenches did. What about them and their descendants? Are they included in this collective white guilt, too? What about the white people who were arrested, beaten, and sometimes murdered during the civil rights era?

Yes, the actually guilty should be held accountable and that accountability should include reparations.

But it will open no end of legal and ethical problems to make people *collectively* as opposed to *individually* responsible for their actions.

On the other hand. I freely acknowledge that white people benefited because African Americans were too often prevented from getting their share of the economic pie. Less competition meant more wealth for the people who were allowed to participate freely in the economic system.

There should be a way, using the tools of modern economics, to estimate the amount of economic harm that racism has inflicted on African Americans and to arrange compensation based on demonstrated harm and not on race itself.