We affirm that The United States Federal Government ought to pay reparations to

African Americans.
Observation 1: The definition of ought.
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ought is
Merriam-Webster
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ought
Used to express obligation, advisability, natural expectant, or logical consequence.
Observation 2: The definition of reparations.
According to Dictionary.com, reparations are
Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reparation
The making of amends by wrong or injury done.

Contention 1: Blacks were kidnapped from their homes in

Africa, brutalized by the Unites States Federal
Government, and face racism and oppression every day.
Over 12.5 million slaves were kidnapped from their home country by
Europeans. Over 2 million slaves died on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They
were thrown overboard and killed by sharks, murdered for defiance, and died
due to poor conditions on the ship and European diseases. Slaves were
dropped off in the Caribbean, South America, and the United States. Slaves
were beaten, raped, sold, tortured, and killed. Families were separated and
never reunited. When slavery ended, Blacks owned nothing.
From http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery#
Professor of history at Harvard, Annette Gordon-Reed, Ph.D., stated:
People criticize the Black family but its outsiders who imposed, from the
time in slavery, this notion of the nonexistence of the Black family, that the
ties werent there. That kind of attitude is something that has helped shape
the way people view the Black family and unfortunately the way we see
ourselves. Because white supremacy if its powerful enough, it affects the
way Black people view one another. So we have to constantly fight this, not
just on the outside of the community, but in the way we view ourselves.
African Americans face racism and oppression everyday.

From
http://legacy.fordham.edu/campus_resources/enewsroom/inside_fordham/feb
ruary_25_2013/news/effects_of_slavery_s_90308.asp
From police brutality and racism in the workplace, to being followed around
stores by owners, Blacks are constantly fighting the battles of racism and
discrimination. One of the most startling facts is that African Americans are
32% of unarmed victims of police brutality. Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice and
Oscar Grant are just very few people who were murdered for no apparent
reason by officers. Many of these officers have had previous racial
complaints and even sexual assault complaints made against them.

Contention 2: Subsidized housing, welfare, affirmative

action, etc., have failed because society has failed to come
to grips with its own racism and discrimination.
Although these have benefitted SOME Blacks, they have further degraded the Black
community. The results of welfare policies discouraging marriage and family were
dramatic, as out-of-wedlock birthrates skyrocketed among all demographic groups
in the U.S., but most notably African Americans. Welfare not only increases
illegitimacy and poverty in the short term, but it inflicts long-lasting, even
permanent, handicaps on children who are raised in welfare-dependent homes. Dr.
June O'Neill and Anne Hill, comparing children who were identical in terms of such
social and economic factors as race, family structure, neighborhood, family income,
and mothers' IQ and education, found that the more years a child spent on welfare,
the lower the child's IQ. A similar study by Mary Corcoran and Roger Gordon of the
University of Michigan concluded that the more welfare income a family received
while a boy was growing up, the lower the boy's earnings as an adult.
From http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1672
They have also benefitted other groups such as Whites. In fact, 40.2% of welfare
recipients are White and 25.7% are Black. Therefore, they do not address the claims
based on slavery.
From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/28/food-stampdemographics_n_6771938.html
Redlining is the practice of denying key services (like home loans and insurance)
or increasing their costs for residents in a defined geographical area. This was used
to force minorities into particular areas. Redlining began with the National Housing
Act of 1934 which created residential security maps to determine the safety of real
estate investments in selected areas. Existing black neighborhoods were lined as
unsafe, and thus ineligible for financing. , blacks were all but banded from entering
white neighborhoods, if not by restrictive racial covenants (which forbid property
sales to African Americans and other minorities) then by violence and intimidation.
From <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/13/how-we-built-theghettos.html

Subpoint A:
How would reparations be given?
Reparations can be given in an abundance of ways to benefit many different groups
of African Americans based on income and geographic location. Reparations can
include financial compensation to individuals and families, healthcare, education,
housing, and job training. African Americans only make up 13.2% of the population,
which does not require any absurd amount of money to be given immediately.
From https://www.ictj.org/our-work/transitional-justice-issues/reparations

Subpoint B:
Many minorities have been given reparations by the United States Federal
Government such as Japanese Americans and different tribes of Native Americans.
In 1990 the Federal Government gave $1.2 billion to Japanese Americans. Over
$1,985,500,000, 44 million acres of land, plus educational benefits have been given
to Native Americans.
From https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~kmporter/historyreparations.htm