Reparations for Black Americans: Justice Beyond “Woke” Politics

Conservatives have made “woke” and “crime” their favorite wedge issues, hoping to scare voters and keep white supremacy in power — politically and economically. But let’s examine the facts.

The leader of the MAGA movement is not only a convicted felon but the same man who pardoned insurrectionists who attacked this nation on January 6th. He rails against immigrants while being the child of one himself. He demonizes Black and brown communities while ignoring that the greatest threats to public safety in recent years — from mass shootings to political violence — have overwhelmingly not come from us.

This obsession with attacking “wokeness” is nothing more than a cover. It is about holding onto white male power in a country that is growing younger, browner, and more diverse by the day. MAGA fears that change, and so it lashes out.

As a Black man, I cannot allow my pain or the pain of my ancestors to be disregarded. Our ancestors were enslaved in conditions they did not choose, stripped of dignity, wealth, and opportunity. Their labor built the foundation of white wealth in America — a wealth passed down for generations while Black families were systematically excluded. That exclusion — through slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration, and urban disinvestment — is the root of the racial wealth gap we live with today.

And yet, instead of addressing these realities, conservatives distract. They blame “woke” culture, they point to crime, they demonize the very communities who have suffered the most. But let’s be clear: Black communities are not the ones storming banks, shooting up schools, or plotting insurrections. Our struggles with crime stem from poverty and lack of resources — conditions imposed by racist policies.

In the final analysis, Black people did not create slavery. We did not create Jim Crow. We did not create the policies that robbed our neighborhoods of wealth. But we continue to pay the price for them every day.

That is why reparations is not about guilt or charity — it is about justice. It is about restoring what was stolen, repairing the harm, and creating a future where Black Detroiters and Black Americans can own, build, and thrive.

MAGA can rage against “wokeness” all it wants. But the truth is this: justice is coming. Equity is coming. And no amount of fear mongering can stop what God has in store for a people who have endured, resisted, and survived.