The “Last Week Tonight” host says it’s not about slavery in this case, but rather something much more recent.
John Oliver on Sunday night pushed for reparations for Black Americans.
“We’re not actually talking about reparations for slavery here. We should, but that is a different conversation,” he said. “We’re talking about housing discrimination.”
Home ownership, he pointed out, has been so defined by racism that many communities still technically have laws on the books that forbid the sale of homes to people of color.
And entire communities are still living with the legacy of tactics from a not-too-distant past such as redlining, blockbusting and overt discrimination in federal loans for home ownership.
“The only really strange thing about paying reparations to Black people is that we haven’t done it yet,” the host of “Last Week Tonight” said on Sunday night.
“When you deprive somebody of something, you make it right by paying what you owe,” he said, adding:
“Now, figuring out exactly how to pay might well get complicated. But realizing that you have to should be pretty simple because this is a wound that we are actively choosing not to heal ― and it is hurting real people every day.”
See more in his deep dive on the topic from Sunday night’s show:
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