Based on this comment, it’s clear you don’t want to have serious discussion unless everyone agrees with you 100%, but I’ll play along…

1.) Why should the apology be done on behalf of present-day citizens based on their race (or perceived race)? Why shouldn’t the apology focus on the historical reality of how the U.S. government has continued to uphold and perpetuate white supremacy?

2.) Yes, reparations have been given to other groups. It doesn’t change my original question: were people of Jewish descent or Japanese descent awarded reparations due to their heritage per se? Or were they awarded them because those governmental crimes were directly inflicted against them?

5 .) Incidentally, you similarly confront the same question I was trying to ask: how do we determine the morality of who gets to have a statue sculpted in their honor or a building named after them? Who gets to be the ultimate arbiter of that? What’s the barometer for measuring whether someone is “good” enough to qualify them or whether they were “bad” enough to be disqualified?

8.) You are absolutely right, here: I should have said “chattel slavery” rather than “the African slave trade.”

10.) I agree with you that the United States has been a worse offender of the defense industrial complex than many other nations. I’m not saying every single nation is equal, here. But “worse than” the governments of North Korea, Afghanistan, Russia, Sudan, Cuba, Syria, China, Venezuela, Libya, Honduras, Belarus, Zimbabwe – nope. Not buying it, Sunshine.