This statement needs to be taken seriously. I have heard otherwise conservative black people say things of exactly this sort. Since non-black conservative opinion refuses to take any part of the reparations issue seriously, only liberal opinion is addressing this concern. That's politically dangerous.
Here is a conservative response:
The legacy of slavery, in terms of the reparations issue, is being confined to the realm of economics. In that sense, the legacy we're speaking about is one of historical capital deprivation.
American history has demonstrated that collective solutions to such issues are doomed to fail, or even to create worse problems (witness public housing or the welfare system). Therefore any serious attempt to address this issue must occur at the individual level. The free market has proven by far the most effective means of addressing issues of capital. The free market thrives where the government limits its activity to enforcing property rights and contracts.
Therefore, any serious attempt to address reparations is going to leave the government out of the solution. Talk of tax money or collective economics should be ignored in favor of individually directed solutions. Perhaps Jack Kemp's old idea of creating "enterprise zones," with reduced taxation and government economic involvement rather than more deserves attention in response to collectivist liberal solutions.
Absolutely spot on....BUT the people who started this whole "reparations" idea in the first place; the very SAME people who keep the "debate" fresh in the public mind with opinion pieces like these, will NEVER CONSIDER A FREE MARKET SOLUTION. We all know why: they want money. They want to be handed cold, hard cash through some guilt-ridden, get-off-our-backs-already, feel-good government entitlement program, and they don't give a D@MN whether "the poor" actually benefit...just as long as the likes of Ra$$berry and Jack$on can use such programs for their OWN monetary benefit.