UN Panel Urges U.S. To Pay Reparations
United Nations DEMANDS U.S. Pay Reparations To African Americans
The U.N.’s Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, which reports to the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, presented its findings to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday. The panel, which visited the U.S. on a fact-finding mission in January, wrote in a statement that it was “extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African Americans,” stating that there has been no real commitment to reparations, truth and reconciliation for people of African descent.
The panel laid out recommendations for the U.S. to assist in “its efforts to combat all forms of racism, racial discrimination, Afrophobia, and related intolerance,” which included the “profound need to acknowledge that the transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity.”
“Past injustices and crimes against African Americans need to be addressed with reparatory justice,” the panel wrote.
“In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” the report read, according to The Washington Post.
The expert panel didn’t specify what form reparations would take, yet it did offer a few suggestions for how America could owe restitution to blacks. These suggestions included, according to The Washington Post, “a formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities… psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation.”
