They said America has run out of money for reparations. Funny how “no money” suddenly means there is enough federal power to try to freeze a $25,000 housing grant for Black descendants of slavery.
In Evanston, Illinois, N’nanba (Robin Rue Simmons) helped build the nation’s first municipal reparations program. It gives Black residents whose families were harmed by discriminatory housing policies a $25,000 housing grant, and Rue Simmons is spreading the model to more than 100 communities. Then President Donald Trump’s Justice Department received permission from a federal judge to intervene in Judicial Watch’s lawsuit. DOJ claims the program violates the 14th Amendment and the Fair Housing Act. Its actual job is to stop local repair while Washington supplies no repair of its own.
Trump told supporters in September: “They want to steal your money for reparations. Our country doesn’t have that kind of money.” More than 120 countries supported a U.N. resolution calling the trafficking of enslaved Africans the gravest crime against humanity. The United States was one of only three countries voting against it. Bullshit. Slavery robbed generations of Black Americans of freedom, the fruits of their labor, and any fair chance to build wealth. The descendants are not being handed somebody else’s pocket change. This is recognition, responsibility and repair for a theft the government has never repaid.
Look at the pattern. DOJ warned leaders in Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, off creating their own programs. After Trump returned to office and signed an anti-DEI order, Harvard fired the team that identified nearly 500 living descendants of people enslaved by Harvard’s past leaders. Harvard still has not provided redress. Georgetown kept its scholarship program. Virginia’s state law still requires descendant scholarships.
So the costume comes off. “Equal protection” is the public reason; the operative result is keeping the old debt unpaid while local repair gets tied up in federal court. They are trying to use federal power to block local action. They would rather leave the debt open than put federal money and power behind a repair.
We do not need another presidential ceremony. We need housing, school money, and an honest reckoning. Put federal money and power behind the repair instead of pretending the bill does not exist. They want America to remember slavery and forget responsibility. Damn right they do. Fuck that. Go to hell.
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