I don't think that's a winning argument. Many (perhaps most) people will be able to show that they did not benefit from any inherited wealth. Many people (inclu

I don't think that's a winning argument. Many (perhaps most) people will be able to show that they did not benefit from any inherited wealth. Many people (including black people!) did not have ancestors in America at the time. For example, under this argument, would Obama be entitled to reparations, given his mother was white and his father an international student from Kenya? Should people have to prove they had enslaved ancestors? What if a black person's ancestors were themselves slaveowners? It seems much simpler and more honest to say: black people face systemic racism today and therefore we're going to pay each person identifying as black $x every y or at one time. This way you only have to win two arguments: that systemic racism exists, and that people deserve reparations because of it. You don't have to put people on the defensive about their ancestors and whether or not they should feel guilty and in some way personally responsible for reparations, nor do you have to worry about people proving they had ancestors personally affected by slavery or racism. This will be pretty divisive by itself - a few people don't believe systemic racism is a meaningful concept, or will argue it applies to other groups as well, including white people, and special treatment of any group of people solely because their race will never be very popular. But your approach is extremely divisive and polarizing: putting people on notice that it's their fault and they benefited from this system (whether they did or not, and most people will be quite convinced they did not, and some of them will be right) is about as polarizing as you can get. I don't see any advantage to it. It will foster extremism on both sides.