Here it is:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/361631/
Really worth a read if you want to speak intelligently about this subject.
I've started in on this a few times in the past and have never finished. Coates is an excellent writer, so that's not the problem. I just keep seeing links to it when I don't have a lot of extra time at that moment. I'll try again this weekend.
My initial thought about race-conscious policies, including reparations, is that they seem like a terrible idea if they're supposed to be sustained and ongoing. I could see a case for a one-time reparation -- it would have been extremely strong 150 years ago, and it weakens a bit with each passing year, but maybe it's still viable.
Ultimately, though, in the long run, I think we want a society in which race doesn't matter. Not just because that would be nice in its own right, but because it's important for democracy in general.
Scandinavian countries are known for having robust social safety nets that have popular support among their citizenry. One of the reasons for the broad support, it's been suggested, is that the people in Norway (for example) view each other as part of one big happy country, almost like a big family. They view the safety net as being there for people who are down on their luck, to be used by people who are otherwise just like them (but for the grace of God).
In the United States, by contrast, a lot of people view our welfare system as a way for one class of people to exploit and free-load off of another class. It's not "we're all part of one big family." It's more like "we're divided into different classes, and I don't want your class to free-load off of my class." I think race-consciousness feeds into that attitude.
When we use the political process to try to benefit one race at the expense of another race, whether it's indirectly associated with race (welfare) or directly associated with it (affirmative action), it causes people to emphasize identity politics and it exacerbates tribalism in a number of ways. That really can't be part of what we want society to look like in 2050, IMO. We need to arrive at (or at least move towards) color-blindness rather than race-consciousness in the long run.
How we get there is another matter. Maybe temporary race-conscious policies should have a role. Maybe including reparations. I don't know.
But in the long run, I'd hope that we strive toward unity rather than divisiveness, which I think means keeping government policies as race-neutral (even race-oblivious) as possible. Otherwise, as long as there are race-based rents to seek, people will form coalitions along racial lines in order to capture them, and that seems likely to have bad results for our democracy.
