Reports are coming out that Barack Obama is publicly opposing a proposal to offer reparations for descendants of slaves. This is a position he has taken since 2004.
This has been his position since 2004 when he was running for the Senate and in fact on a questionnaire for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) he stated "I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say, 'We've paid our debt,' and to avoid the much harder work."
Obama was not opposed to the U.S. Congress' vote to apologize for slavery but he states that he believes that reparations are not the answer to helping, but that providing good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed, are the best type of reparations lawmakers could provide.
This puts Obama on the opposing side of this issue of the NAACP and the large union of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as cities around the country, including his home, the city of Chicago, who have all endorsed the idea of reparations.
A law professor at the University of Dayton, Vernellia Randall, who is a proponent of reparations declares that she thinks Obama is "dead wrong", saying "People say he can't run and get elected if he says those kinds of things. I'm like, well does that mean we're really not ready for a black president?"
When Obama was pressed for answers, he said he was more interested in helping people get by and he concluded by saying, "If we have a program, for example, of universal health care, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because they're disproportionately uninsured. If we've got an agenda that says every child in America should get — should be able to go to college, regardless of income, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because it's oftentimes our children who can't afford to go to college."
Since the House has voted on the resolution to apologize for slavery, some two dozen members of Congress have co-sponsored legislation that wold create a commission to study reparations, which would be payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.
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