Resolved: The United States federal government ought to pay reparations to

African Americans.
Ought- having the moral obligation
Observation 1: If we tried to pay reparations to African Americans as
monetary compensation, the total debt to African Americans would be
astronomically. Therefore, for this resolution, reparations can be paid as
implementations of social programs that benefit the African American
community unless the Con proves that reparations in this way is useless.
Observation 2: By proving that the federal government has acted against the
African American community and that federal policies have favored other
races/ethnicities, creating disadvantages to the African American
community, the affirmative should take the ballot unless the negative proves
that the federal government has not acted against the African American
community in ANY way.
C1: Federal government has allowed the oppression of African
Americans.
The policies implanted by the federal government allowed the oppression of
blacks after the Civil War. As Ta-Nehisi Coates notes there was Ninety years
of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five of racist housing
policy.
Sub A: Housing Market Redlining
As we have stated, the federal government has the moral obligation to repair
the injustices done to the African American community. The federal
government failed to provide equal opportunities of home ownership to the
African American community in the 20 th century. After the Great Depression,
policies, such as the creation of the Federal Housing Administration, were
implemented to help Americans recover from the crash. In Coates (2014),
Thomas, J. Sugrue, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania [writes] that
in, 1930, only 30 percent of Americans owned their own homes; by 1960,
more than 60 percent were home owners. However, this did not become
reality for the African American community. Hernandez (2009) states Since
FHA financing aided both construction and sales of new homes, developers
of new communities in Sacramento during this period eagerly complied with
FHA mandates for racial restriction on residency by excluding blacks and
other non-whites from housing tracts in elite neighborhoods This practice
by the Federal Housing Administration is called redlining. To redline,
according to Merriam-Webster, is to discriminate against in housing or
insurance. African Americans were being discriminated against. Furthermore,
Greer (2012) writes that

Restriction on blacks in urban housing and employment markets and

access to public services and facilities soon followed. Denying the
growing black community access to credit, including home financing
was but one small piece of a set of discriminatory practices imposed on
the small but growing black communities in Northern cities.
Redlining not limited to San Francisco, but all over the country, including
Northern United States. African Americans were subject to the discriminatory
policies that were encouraged by the federal government through the
Federal Housing Administration. As is stated in Coates (2014),
Homeownership [has become] and emblem of American citizenship.
African Americans were deprived of the opportunity in taking part of the
benefits of being US citizens. Would it matter if you are a US citizen if you do
not have the same benefits as other US citizens? The federal government
created a disadvantage for African Americans, since, in a way, they are being
treated as second-class citizens. Furthermore McCarthy, Zandt, and Rohe
(2001) suggests that homeowners become better citizens, and that
homeownership accrues to job creation, the stabilization of national and
regional economies, and the promotion of economic growth without harming
the balance of payments. The federal government has prevented economic
input into the economy from African American homeownership. This is proof
that the US federal government is obligated to pay reparations to African
Americans because it deprived them from US citizen benefits and prevented
them from supporting the national and regional economies which is a harm
to all citizens, including whites and all minorities.