Racial problems will endure in America with or without reparations

Though I actually agree with Mr. Harkleroad that reparations in the form of money to African-Americans in our country are not necessarily a good idea, I found the reasoning in his column offensive and infuriating. Mr. Harkleroad obviously has no knowledge of race relations in this country, and I understand why. Like him, I am from Overland Park, KS, whose population of 150,000 is 90.6% white and only 2.5% black according to the 2000 census. It becomes quite easy to ignore a problem if you never see it face-to-face.

Mr. Harkleroad clearly does not understand, or even recognize, the great advantages that he has in this country simply bestowed on him from being born white. True, we have made much progress in the past 100 years, but we have not come nearly far enough. We can celebrate this progress all we want, but those who choose to focus on our continuing problems instead do not "stubbornly refuse to acknowledge" it. Frankly, that's a horrible thing to say.

I'm quite sure Mr. Harkleroad has never entered a retail store and been followed and closely watched just because of the color of his skin, as one of my friends in high school was unapologetically instructed to do by her manager. Mr. Harkleroad has never been a victim of the stereotype threat, a social-psychological theory of Claude Steele in which research has shown that simply checking a box indicating their race before taking a standardized test will dramatically inhibit the academic performance of blacks. In this great state of New Jersey that we reside in during college, Mr. Harkleroad has probably never been stopped while driving his car for the offense commonly referred to by civil rights advocates as DWB — Driving While Black. Because he has never personally experienced any of these common practices, he — and I myself as well — will never truly understand what it is like to be black in America and the continuing discrimination, in smaller, less obvious ways, that exists in society. We don't have separate water fountains anymore, which is a big step towards equality, but it is naive and offensive to say that since we eliminated slavery and segregation, our job is done. Reparations do not seem to me to be the answer, but we have serious problems that we need to address, and Mr. Harkleroad's anti-reparations column trivialized those important issues.

It is true that black Americans today were not born slaves and white Americans not slave owners, and I agree that one group who did not do anything wrong should not have to simply write a check to a group that was not victimized. However, Mr. Harkleroad did not express his opinion on reparations by recognizing why some people believe in them, refuting that position, and proposing alternative solutions to the problems they seek to address. He did it by denying those problems exist, and I personally believe that those who ignore race relations and think "reparations have already been paid to black Americans" are the racist ones.