Mr. Keynatta, this is my answer to your 10 questions.

Personally, I do not believe in forgiveness, which asks the target of cruelty and injustice, to “give” the perpetrator a “get out of jail free card”. Worse yet, in white ideology, forgiveness insists that a victim who withholds forgiveness, makes them lesser people. I have no use for forgiveness.

I believe in amends. When I harm someone, I’ve taken something away from them. I make amends by acknowledging responsibility for the harm I’ve caused, then doing what is necessary to make them whole again.

Amends is a two-way street. Until I make amends, I am chained to my wrongs. To free myself, I must make amends (and pay my debt). However, what will make someone whole again, is not mine to decide. The only person who truly knows what is needed, is the person that I’ve harmed.

White people owe reparations to Native Americans and African Americans – period, end of story. We took and took and took and it is time to pay people for what we took away from them. That said, the most important thing we can do, is stop adding to our debt, by guaranteeing there will be no repetition of past injustices – ever again. We fulfill that guarantee, by cleaning racism out of our systems (all of them, including our financial system, justice system, education system, healthcare system, land-use system, etc.). This isn’t rocket-science. Everyone can help. For example, here on Medium and other platforms, people identify the roots of racism in our systems every single day.

When it comes to reparations, white people freak out so badly, you’d think someone was asking them to support ten people all by themselves. The source of this freak out is an odd one.

Most cultures, revolve around the laws of nature, including the original cultures on both the American and African continents. In fact, this seems to be the norm throughout all human history (on every continent). White European culture is the exception.

White culture revolves around ideologies. While nature makes sense, ideologies do not need to make sense and they never do. Nonetheless, white people are controlled by ideology, chained to ideology, driven by ideology and live and die for ideology. Without ideologies, white culture collapses. There is nothing else holding white people together – not land, not children, not love, not family, not country, not faith, not even the need for food, water, air and shelter.

Since ideologies are pure abstraction, and not real, they are easily manipulated. Right now, most everyone “assumes” the money to pay reparations must come from white American taxpayers. That assumption is a diversionary trick, designed to keep us from following the money. Lets break the rules and follow the money.

Land stolen from Native Americans, then labour stolen from African Americans, and then the white ideology of scientific racism, generated massive amounts of wealth that was systematically concentrated in the hands of a very small number of white people. When those wealthy few died, their wealth and their ideologies lived on in heirs, corporations, foundations, land, buildings, institutions, banks, artwork, jewelry – and the law.

Off the top of my head, the obvious include… Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and the EH Harriman family of the American Eugenics Movement fame. JP Morgan and Marcus Goldman of banking fame. Henry Ford, Russel Sage, John Huntington, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller of “family foundations” and “philanthropic institutions” fame.

Now the uncomfortable obvious. The Catholic church, Protestant churches, insurance companies, railroad companies, manufacturing companies, and Ivy League Universities (e.g. Harvard, Princeton, Yale). Let’s not forget the infamous, like the Sackler family of opioid addiction fame.

The list of people whose wealth was generated by slavery, colonialism, imperialism and all the subsequent harms it brought, is long. The people are dead, but their wealth kept their ideologies alive (in the minds of white Americans).

It will get complicated, and the rich and powerful will scream bloody murder, but they did not earn their money and it is time to pay those who did.

Sure, a nice lump sum of money, might seem like a good idea. But America is a capitalist country where money makes money. Take the Carnegie Foundation and the Harvard University Endowment for example. For generations on end the capital investment held by these foundations remained intact and continued to earn interest. That interest was used to promote their founder's ideologies, and ambitions, through so-called charitable work. That is just one of many ways, dead people continued to control and promote white ideologies, like racism.

The capital currently held by nonprofit foundations alone is over a trillion dollars. I honestly believe a sizeable percentage of the returns-on-investment capital, can, should and must be allocated to reparations for current, and future generations of Native Americans and African Americans (until the playing field has been levelled).

Moreover, I believe the same about corporations, financial institutions, churches, and other bad actors who derived their wealth from slavery, land theft and racism.

Likewise, the wealth acquired by white Christian institutions involved in slavery, land theft and racism is quite simply, incalculable.

Before long, reparations would enable people in poor urban neighborhoods, rural communities and reservations to build schools, hospitals and community centers. They could build infrastructure, including mass transit, trees, high-speed internet, sidewalks, and parks. Rental housing would be made energy efficient and safe. Zero interest home and business loans would become available. Thousands of people could be educated in any field they wished. Abandoned buildings, empty lots and farm land would be productive again. A modern, well-educated and technologically competent police force could protect and serve people by solving crimes. And millions of acres of land would be returned to the stewardship of Native Americans who cherish, revere and understand it.

A lot of white people think philanthropists are saints. I am not one of those people. Moreover, I am not the only white person who thinks philanthropists have deliberately and systematically failed to resolve social problems in poor communities (i.e. unemployment, addiction, unsafe housing, bad schools, no healthcare and the absence of basic necessities like clean water, grocery stores, fresh food, pharmacies, transportation, high-speed internet, doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers).

I will end with two excerpts from the Carnegie Institute of Science 2021 apology to black people– and I quote:

“There is no excuse, then or now, for our institution’s previous willingness to empower researchers who sought to pervert scientific inquiry to justify their own racist and ableist prejudices. Our support of eugenics made us complicit in driving decades of brutal and unconscionable actions by governments in the United States and around the world. As the President of the Carnegie Institution for Science, I want to express my sincere and profound apologies for this organization’s past involvement in these horrific pseudoscientific activities.”

Take note: the Carnegie Foundation has been handing out returns on capital for one hundred and eighteen (118) effing years. They still have every dime they started with.

In 2021, the APA also issued an apology to Black, Indigenous and People of Color for Its Support of Structural Racism – and I quote:

“Today, the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the oldest national physician association in the country, is taking an important step in addressing racism in psychiatry. The APA is beginning the process of making amends for both the direct and indirect acts of racism in psychiatry. The APA Board of Trustees (BOT) apologizes to its members, patients, their families, and the public for enabling discriminatory and prejudicial actions within the APA and racist practices in psychiatric treatment for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).”

Take note: Not only was Harvard University deeply involved in the American Eugenics Movement, they taught scientific racism ideology in their medical and psychiatric programs - as late as the 1990s.

Allocating a sizeable percentage of Ivy League University endowments towards reparations is long overdue.

For now, I look forward to your thoughts.

As time permits, I will address your questions regarding Jews in a separate comment.