The United States has already compensated nonblack groups for comparable harms
Evidence
Getting to Reparations proceeds in three parts. Part I presents the four instances when the United States paid cash compensation to nonblack people for harms similar to those experienced by black people. These include reparation payments to enslavers in Washington, DC, Italian lynching victims, Tribal Nations for land theft and economic exploitation, and Japanese Americans for their mass incarceration. Our history of compensating other groups demonstrates that the complexities of such a massive undertaking can be worked out. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 49
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: This is the precedent-architecture that Brown’s legal brief leans on; the four precedents map onto the reparations case for black Americans.
Related
- The United States has precedent for cash reparations to nonblack victims (similarity 0.95)
- The US government has paid reparations to non-black groups but never to black Americans. (similarity 0.89)
- The federal government has compensated every harmed group except black Americans (similarity 0.88)
- Prior federal cash compensation establishes legal precedent for Black reparations (similarity 0.84)
- Reparations are a completion of American democracy rather than a departure from it (similarity 0.83)
- Compensatory payments for loss are deeply embedded in American practice (similarity 0.82)
- Prior federal payments totaling $2.5 billion create legal precedent for reparations (similarity 0.82)
- Compensation paid for Japanese internment was never paid to black Americans (similarity 0.81)
- Non-black precedent plus post-slavery history can win majority support (similarity 0.81)
- Black harm spans all case-study types, demanding community-based reparations not just cash (similarity 0.81)
- Black harms span multiple categories requiring community-based reparations beyond cash (similarity 0.81)
- Every reparations program pays far less than the actual harm suffered (similarity 0.80)
- Black American harms are uniquely total and systemic, warranting collective remedy (similarity 0.80)
- Any awarded reparations will fall short of the actual loss sustained (similarity 0.80)
- Brown redefines reparations to include payments to white enslavers and Tribal Nations (similarity 0.80)