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A Duke University professor offered his plan to give $14 trillion in reparations to Black Americans during an episode of Dr. Phil, but the daytime talk host shut down the notion as an "absolute disaster."
On Tuesday (April 18), William Darity, Duke University professor and co-author of "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century," sat on Dr. Phil's reparations panel to discuss how Black Americans should be compensated for the long-lasting effects of slavery, per Fox News.
Darity made the case for a $14 trillion reparation program, which would dole out roughly $350,000 to every Black American whose ancestors were enslaved in the U.S.
"The amount should be dictated by the disparity in wealth between Black and White Americans, which at the current moment amounts to in excess of $840,000 per household," Darity said on Tuesday's episode of Dr. Phil.
The Duke professor added that his "objective" is to "eliminate the racial wealth gap in the United States," which "would require an expenditure of $14 trillion, which would be distributed evenly across the 40 million Black American descendants of U.S. slavery. That would be approximately $350,000 per person."
"Where would that money come from?" Dr. Phil questioned in response to Darity's suggestion.
"Money would be paid by the federal government," Darity said. "It would be paid by the federal government in the same way in which the federal government has met the expenses that were paid out for the purposes of trying to deal with the great recession and also, most recently, with the economic downturn associated with the great pandemic."
Several members of the reparations panel challenged Darity's plan, including Dr. Phil himself.
"I can tell you from a psychological perspective that if you take $350,000 or $840,000, and you write a check to any group of people— Black, White, poor, homeless, whatever— you give any group of people that much money and say, ‘There you go. Best of luck.’ You come back in six months. They’re going to be broke," the talk show host said. "Whatever reparations are done, that would be an absolute disaster, as opposed to guidance and help in creating generational wealth, as opposed to income."
Darity continued to defend his idea, saying "No one ever says that there’s going to be mismanagement of funds when we’re talking about the distribution of reparations payments to other communities."
"I just said it," Dr. Phil responded. "I just said, ‘you give that money to anybody, they’re going to mismanage it. They’re going to blow it.’ Look at the fraud that just occurred with all of the money that was given in support of COVID."
Watch the full discussion below.
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