David Horowitz's article does make some good points regarding the incongruities inherent in payment of reparations to African-Americans. Unfortunately, he also glosses over the valid point that some African-American leaders are motivated to demand reparations based on the fact that slavery instituted a system of white privilege which all whites -- not just the descendants of slaveowners -- benefit from. My family came from Poland 30 years after the end of the Civil War, and I have never doubted that I have benefited in many ways from my skin color. I don't think that I would have been unable to achieve my goals, but I do know that my life would have been made more difficult.

The answer to rectifying the imbalance that white privilege has established is not monetary reparations, though. It is by distributing opportunity more evenly and ensuring the construction of a strong black middle class -- as strong and as universal as white middle class. If this construction requires affirmative action, so be it.

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