El-Sayed on Reparations: Should Talk About 'Debt That Was Put Upon Black Folks' 'That We Have Yet to Pay'

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed argued that “we need to have an honest conversation about the incredible debt that was put upon black folks as a function of slavery, that we have yet to pay, and I just think that’s fair.” And “if public policy created a level in which black folks disproportionately suffer everything from maternal mortality and infant mortality, to lack of access to jobs, I think it’s important for our country to have a conversation about how do we make people whole.” Host Jesse Watters asked, “Reparations, do you support that?” El-Sayed answered, “I think we need to have an honest conversation about the incredible debt that was put upon black folks as a function of slavery, that we have yet to pay, and I just think that’s fair. Like, if people are enslaved and forced into servitude, and then we don’t actually have a conversation about all that was owed, that our own country agreed was owed, I just think that it’s past time to have that conversation. That shouldn’t be a crazy thing. I understand that, like, for folks who really want to inflame [the] culture war, I just think it’s important to think about how do we make sure that communities like the city of Detroit, that have been segregated so that you have a disproportionate number of people, as a function of redlining, who are forced into certain communities, how do we make sure that their schools are made whole. I’ll just tell you this: In the city of Detroit right now, they just had $700 million invested in their schools, they’re still $1.7 billion behind. And a lot of folks want to say, oh, well, that’s profligacy, etc., etc. No, a lot of that has to do with public policy. And if public policy created a level in which black folks disproportionately suffer everything from maternal mortality and infant mortality, to lack of access to jobs, I think it’s important for our country to have a conversation about how do we make people whole.” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett