*A white British TV host’s push for reparations for Black Americans Sunday night has piqued the interest of the Internet.
“We’re not actually talking about reparations for slavery here. We should, but that is a different conversation,” began John Oliver on his HBO series “Last Week Tonight” Sunday. “We’re talking about housing discrimination.”
Oliver said that racism has permeated homeownership so profoundly that many communities still have laws that forbid the sale of homes to people of color. Entire communities continue to feel the sting of real estate shenanigans instituted decades ago, including redlining, blockbusting and overt discrimination in federal home loans.
“The only really strange thing about paying reparations to Black people is that we haven’t done it yet,” Oliver said.
“When you deprive somebody of something, you make it right by paying what you owe,” he added.
“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.”
Watch Oliver’s entire segment below:
