There were an estimated 410 billion hours of enslaved labor contributed in the United States between 1619 and 1865.[0] There are about 41 million African Americ

There were an estimated 410 billion hours of enslaved labor contributed in the United States between 1619 and 1865.[0] There are about 41 million African Americans in the United States. That would be 10 hours of labor per person. This does not even account for the fact that many self-identified white people are also descendants of enslaved persons.[1] If we multiply by an order of magnitude to arrive at an estimate, 100 hours of labor at a wage of 100 USD per hour would be around $10,000 per person living today, or about $410 billion for the entire United States, but that estimate is also low, because $10,000 today would not even begin to make up for the disparities that are observed even today even in the narrow area of health outcomes. This solution seems fraught, as financial compensation for slavery alone would be a lower amount than most expect and does not compensate for the legacy of racism that persists today. In the end, that would leave all parties dissatisfied. I think a better solution might involve something like what Desmond Tutu did in South Africa to address the legacy of Apartheid. I think any real solution would take several decades at least and would involve multiple anti-racism interventions at scale, including implicit bias training. That said, redresses like the return of Bruce’s Beach to the original family are laudable, and in line with existing patterns of legal justice.[2] References 0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/ 1. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/12/22/7431391/guess-where-white-americans-have-the-most-african-ancestry https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/12/22/7431391/guess-wh... 2. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-signs-law-to-return-bruces-beach-black-family https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-30/newsom-s...