Slave descendants deserve reparations

There are many specious ideas backed by incomplete and even invented "facts" in David Horowitz's "ad." I won't attempt to address all of those errors and insults. Contrary to Mr. Horowitz's view, it seems to me that the quest for reparations by African Americans is primarily an effort to gain full admittance into all facets of life in this country, once and for all.\nThe demand for reparations is not a demand for mere dollars and cents payment to every native-born African American in this country. Reparations could in fact be made in part by the U.S. government's acknowledgment of its commission of a crime against the enslaved people in this country.\nReparations would not be another "victimhood" for African Americans. The reparation movement is in fact being spearheaded by African Americans. It seems to me that European Americans are often the people who remain the most "separatist" by perpetually pointing out that Americans of African descent are "different" and are somehow in need of validation by Americans of European descent. I believe the federal government of the United States of America, which sanctioned the enslavement of people for much of its existence as a country, is obligated to make real restitution to the descendants of slaves in this country. The form of these reparations should be primarily decided by those slave descendants, not by the government, as if the government is a kindly and doting uncle who needs to take care of people who are like little children. \nI have thought long and deeply about many aspects of African Americans' position in this country, even before I attained my current job. I am an American, born of immigrant European families, yet it seems plain to me that any African American who can trace their family history in the United States back to a grandparent or great-grandparent, etc. who was either born to slave parents or born into slavery themselves, still bears the effects of slavery -- directly.\nTheir legacy from this country is not the same as that experienced by voluntary immigrants. African Americans do not owe a debt to this country; it is the other way around.