Well thats because most European govts actually somewhat give a s#!t about their citizens.
Also probably at least a little bit in part because she had a direct causal relationship to the government's oppression and misdeed.
Reparations for slavery seems like a nice soundbyte and/or red herring depending on which side most people fall on. What does that even mean? Is it to all black people? Does Oprah's white chauffeur get his paycheck taxed and re-given back to Oprah? What about mixed race? How mixed? Even recent African immigrants? Is it to all minorities? If Hispanics are involved, does a son of a Chile bank CEO get reparations? Is it only black people who can prove their lineage to slave labor? Is it money? Is it programs? Do we possibly trust the government to, even if they have best intentions, efficiently execute them in a way that actually works? Is there good data that reparations is even helpful? If it's paid to individuals as an income stream, does that dis-incentivize work? If it's paid as a lump sum, does that expose people (Americans in general are wildly financially illiterate and lacking any sophistication) to a lot of predatory business opportunities like subprime lending?
Congress passed a reparations act for Native Americans after WWII and it was lauded as being a groundbreaking development and that Congress had actually properly listened. But bureaucracy made it impossible to implement and the whole thing was made a total mess of. They also didn't give control over all the money directly to the recipients due to a fear of them not necessarily having the competency for dealing with an appropriate amount of money given back (which there is an argument for; how many lottery winners go bankrupt? It's like giving a 14 year old in Driver's Ed a Ferrari).
North Carolina set aside 10mil for reparations to victims of a eugenics sterilizing program (victims were mostly poor, black and/or disabled), but so many conflicts over who was eligible and how it could be proven made it a clusterf#&%.
We paid reparations to Japanese put in internment camps after WWII. That's the best example we have, where in '48 we paid out 37 million to 26,000 claimants, and then in '88 we paid out $20,000 each to every Japanese American that was put in internment.
We've also had several reparation programs for African Americans over the last 50 years that have been helpful and harmful to varying degrees.
But those were all directly to direct victims. Not to an ambiguous history of descendents of something which legally ended several generations ago. I'm certainly open to legitimate plans of how/why details of a reparations bill, but I'm skeptical it's possible, practical, equitable or wise, and committing ourselves to a solution before we have any idea if it's workable or worthwhile is an irresponsible reaction to our racial dilemmas imo.
