QUOTE (gatnom @ May 27, 2014 -> 06:47 PM)
I might have just missed it because I didn't really have time to do anything but give it a quick glancing over while at work, but It doesn't seem to me that he really ever puts forth a legitimate plan for how reparations would work. Where would the money come from? How would it be used? Furthermore, I don't think that just throwing money at the problem will actually solve it the way he thinks it would.
What he actually proposes in the article is that the bill that John Conyers puts to the floor every single year (Bill H.R. 40: http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm/reparations) be passed.
What the bill actually does is it would form a committee to study slavery and its after-effects on current Black Americans, and would propose "appropriate remedies".
Coates isn't a policy wonk and I don't think an article like his requires the actual solution laid out, his point was to make the case that the idea of reparations should not be considered outside the bounds of social discourse.