Gerad Leval says that reparations for slavery is a sham and a shame

In this editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Gerad Leval discusses the reasons NOT to pay reparations to descendants of slaves some 150 years after the cessation of slavery. Two key passages follow below.

"It is appropriate to punish a perpetrator or exact restitution from an individual who may have benefited directly from the acts of the perpetrator. Yet more than 1½ centuries’ distance makes such punishment for slavery incompatible with justice. Similarly, individuals separated by many generations from a vile act suffered by distant ancestors can’t have a justiciable claim for suffering they didn’t endure directly or indirectly."

"The best and most equitable reparations lie not in cash payments but in remembering and teaching the lessons of slavery—of its terrible consequences and of the suffering of those who endured it. Such an approach is fundamentally just, constructive and unlimited by time."