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- Photo by James Wiseman on Unsplash I’ve always thought the idea of reparations was more than a little dumb. It’s not that I think slavery was a good thing or that we shouldn’t have tried to make it right at the time. My issue is very simple: None of the people calling for it were ever slaves, and the people they want to pay for it never kept slaves.
Tilting At Windmills is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In other words, the time passed, and I’ll be damned if I support being taxed to right a wrong for people who never experienced it.
Yet it seems that a strange group of people is totally down with reparations , though I don’t think they thought this through.
African and Caribbean governments have recently adopted a coordinated strategy to seek slavery reparations that also include formal apologies, financial compensation, debt relief, and “cultural restitution” from former slave‑trading states in Europe as well as the U.S .
The demands were part of a 19-point reparations plan endorsed at the end of a three-day conference in Ghana, whose U.N. resolution recognising transatlantic slavery as the “gravest crime against humanity” was approved in March despite resistance from Europe and the United States, countries which have a legacy in the sprawling human trafficking system that saw millions forcibly taken from their homelands.
The plan was adopted by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Commission on Reparatory Justice. It does not mention which specific countries should apologise.
It calls for the establishment of a Global Reparations Fund, comprehensive debt relief and cancellation for affected countries and reforms to international financial institutions to ensure fairer representation for nations in the Global South.
African and Caribbean nations jointly adopt a 19-point reparations plan in Accra, Ghana.
They are calling for formal apologies from countries that benefited from transatlantic slavery, comprehensive debt relief and creation of Global Reparations Fund. pic.twitter.com/yAFx1QJbyZ — Radar Africa (@radarafricacom) June 20, 2026 I would argue that the U.S. has already given plenty of money to these regions. A review of the numbers shows that since 1945, our nation has already spent $3.8 trillion in foreign aid , with $500-$700 billion directed to Africa and perhaps as much as $200 billion to Latin America and the Caribbean.
Americans are all tapped out when it comes to squandering more on corrupt governments and greedy, ineffective NGOs.
All of this is, of course, true, but there’s something else that needs to be remembered: The slaves who were victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade weren’t rounded up by white people. They were prisoners of war sold by African nations like the Ashanti Empire, the Aro Confederacy, the Kingdom of Oyo, the Kingdom of Kongo, and others.
In other words, if African nations want reparations for slavery, they need to look as much inward as outward.
Yes, the presence of a market for slaves was one thing, but we should also remember that Europeans had a long and storied history of enslaving their fellow Europeans before they ever took up shipping black slaves to the colonies. In fact, I suspect most of us would find a slave or two somewhere in our genealogy if we went far enough back. This isn’t to excuse the practice, of course, but a reminder that slavery was nothing new at the time and it happened all over the world. It still happens, unfortunately.
In fact, millions in Africa are still slaves to this day.
See, I don’t have a problem with acknowledging the sins of the past. I have a problem with people who were actively involved in the trade now claiming they deserve reparations. It’s bad enough when the people who were never slaves demand it from those of us who never owned slaves, but there’s something vile about the groups that sold them dismissing their own role in that while trying to hold us accountable. Either it all matters or none of it.
Africa has been referred to as the world’s PVP (player-versus-player, for you non-gamers) server, and it’s not wrong, but we’re not responsible for that. Europe isn’t responsible for that, either. The sins of the past are what they are, but the people of today are responsible for their own lot in life.
All this talk of reparations is really just Africa trying to get a handout from the West by playing on our guilt for slavery, and praying that none of us remember where the traders bought those slaves, just so the powers that be on the continent have a new source of funds to embezzle.
Frankly, I’m not interested in playing.
Luckily, there’s pretty much no way they can actually do anything to us. They can’t stand one another enough to really bond together for more than a few hours, so they’re not going to enforce anything on anyone else. Share Plus, too many of those who voted for this are, as we speak, kissing America’s posterior and pledging eternal friendship in the name of trying to get foreign aid spigots turned back on. It’s not about righting a past wrong.
It’s about putting zeros in the right people’s bank accounts and nothing else.
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