I don't see these people demanding reparations also asking for higher wages to Nike's employee's in China, or clothing workers in Jamacia. People are working as many hours as the slaves in the foundling American republic and have a lower standard of living then the slaves did two hundred years ago. Almost fifty percent of East Asia's population lives on less than an american dollar a day, and if you think our money simply goes farther there you're forgetting the cost of food is universal, you can't change how much it costs for a bowl of rice on inflation, it only affects manufactured goods and services.
The fact of the matter is, there is more pressing issues concerning human suffering today then figuring out how much the government owes you if you're ancestors had sold their land, put all the money in the bank, compounded interest quartly at a conservative 3.5% for a hundred years. But if you'd like to, I'll tally it up for you. Not counting how many families lost their land to drought, pestilance, flood, fire, and poor financhial planning (you mean you don't have an uncle that never worked a day, spends all of his money on alchohol and gambling?), let's say your family made it to the roaring twenties as subsistance farmers. In comes the thirties and the Great Depression, when everyone lost everything to the rich elite. You mean you think all of the African-American farmers could have weathered that storm? Ok, fine, lets say they did. In come the forties and World War II. Momma recieves a letter that Daddy lost his life over in Germany or the Pacific, the little babies can't feed themselves, so Momma sells the farm to pay off the debts she's accumulated while Daddy's been away. Oh, you would have planned for that, fine. What about disease, or sickness. If your family did have that farm, you might have a whole branch added to your family tree. Rather than your great-great aunt dying of small pox or the flu, your family could have paid for the doctor bills... but those would have added up and your family might have had to sell the farm. Let's face it, there are too many factors over the past hundred and fifty years that you can assure youself your family would have been millionaires by now. If the government had wronged YOU, then demand reparations. If they had wronged your parents, a bit of a stretch but I'll give it to you. But if they had messed with your grand-parents, now you're getting a bit too far. If the people who were wronged were alive today, ok. If their children were around and had suffered greatly from their parents being deprived or whatever happened, ok, but once you get two generations of seperation there's too much to consider to say that it's owed to you. Children blow inhertiances all the time, they don't know how to spend it cause they didn't work for it.
This country couldn't have industrialized if people didn't migrate from the farms to the cities, no country could've. Everyone, as far as I'm concerned, got a clean slate during the depression. Very few people came out of that ahead, and most who did were already stinking rich to begin with. Don't concern yourself with the past, just qork for equitable treatment for everyone today. If something wrong happens, punish the perps who did it, but don't go punishing their great-great grandchildren or people who's family wasn't even there. Reparations is a selfish thought to be worrying about right now when slavery still exists in the world today, even in the US.