Why draw a distinction between the working class and the white working class?

[Garrett78]

80. As I said, it's not an easy sell, but it needs to be done. The framing is key.

The US has set a precedent of giving reparations to Native Americans, Japanese Americans, Holocaust victims and others...and long, long after the crimes were committed.

What's truly aggravating is that the US government gave reparations to slave owners following emancipation. Seriously, slave owners received reparations due to the loss of income resulting from emancipation.

So, I wouldn't worry about slippery slopes. The term "reparations" doesn't have to be used, though I use it for the purpose of this discussion. Because, yes, some hear the term and all they can think of are cash payments. Americans of African descent have a uniquely horrifying history (including recent history). Americans have been conditioned to not see what the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent can plainly see, and that conditioning must be combated. The longer we delay the more difficult the task will become.

While some are not open to an education, there are those who can come to understand that historical injustice (and ongoing injustice) has had a devastating impact on the present.

"The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a must-read if you haven't already read it. As the subtitle reads, "Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole."

As for your point about Gates and others, Democrats should certainly be making the point that there are no self-made people (that's a dangerous notion to Republicans, who promote individualism in an effort to dismiss the collective--this is central to right wing ideology). We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before, as well as our contemporaries--we all rely on "the commons." Jonathan Rowe in Our Common Wealth wrote about how patents and copyrights were originally intended to last for a short duration. He also wrote the following:

Corporations were limited in size and function and their charters expired after a preset number of years.

It takes more than 100,000 gallons of water to make one automobile, but automakers don't pay for damaged water tables. What looks like growth is depletion in disguise.

Ben Franklin wrote, "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad to serve others by any invention of ours."