Mehdi Hasan Proves That Reparations Are a Stupid Idea

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has joined the liberal chorus calling for reparations to black Americans. 

It’s a common enough position among liberals, who find the idea enticing because they believe it serves to lock in black voters as supporters of the Democrat Party (who doesn’t want free money?) and because it serves as a powerful signal of their kind, compassionate, and virtuous nature. 

ISLAMIFICATION: The DSA’s Islamic Marxists like Abdul El-Sayeed push reparations because they know they’ll further divide us. pic.twitter.com/ZsLZXoI8DP

— @amuse (@amuse) August 26, 2026

It is also an intellectually incoherent position, backed not by reason but by feelz. 

The idea has a certain surface plausibility we should acknowledge. Many, although not all, black Americans are descended from slaves, and undoubtedly the history of slavery and discrimination impacts contemporary lives and attitudes of blacks in America. 

Of course, it’s also true that most people alive today are descendants of people whose ancestors have faced horrors, and many of whom have much more recent family histories or even faced these horrors themselves. First-generation Hmong, for instance, lived through a horrific war, and many American veterans have deep scars today from their service in war. 

There are many problems with the case for reparations, the most obvious being that the demand comes down to making people who never held slaves pay reparations to people who have never been slaves. Many Americans, including myself and my family, have family roots in this country that go back to the early 20th century, more than three generations after the practice of slavery ended. 

There are no exact figures, but somewhere around half of all Americans or more are descended from people who immigrated well after slavery ended, although with all the intermarriage, many of them no doubt have some ancestry from pre-Civil War times. 

But all that is beside the point for proponents of reparations. The case for reparations is based more on the idea that white supremacy is really the sin that is being punished and compensated for. 

Which brings up the question: if reparations are the proper response to historical injustice, what other injustices and by whom, should reparations be paid?

Let’s do a thought experiment: if white Americans should pay reparations for the European slave trade, then should Muslims pay reparations for their own participation in the African slave trade? After all, Muslims created the African slave trade, having invented it 700 years before white Europeans ever took advantage of the already-existing trade that was created by Muslims in the 7th century. 

Muslims enslaved far more Africans than Europeans ever did, and Europeans almost never captured African slaves, but were sold those slaves by African rulers who raided other tribes. Venturing into Africa to capture slaves was far too dangerous for Europeans, who died from violence or disease, and many never even left the boat. 

Muslims often participated directly in the capturing of slaves, including Europeans. The United States Marine Corps was stood up to fight Muslim slave traders. 

And just like that Mehdi Hasan accidentally proves reparations are completely retarded.

Perfection. No notes. 10/10. pic.twitter.com/etYm8h2ovD

— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell) August 26, 2026

Well, Mehdi Hasan doesn’t think so, and obviously Abdul El-Sayed agrees with him. I have heard nothing about how Islamic countries, whose slave trade preceded and succeeded the European slave trade — slavery was legal in many Muslim countries well into the 20th century, and still practiced in some without actual legal sanction. 

Nobody, as far as I know, argues that Muslims or the descendants of African slave traders from Africa should kick in to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. 

In fact, Hasan argues it is racist to even expect such a thing. It is blaming all Muslims for a practice they did not directly participate in. 

Few people who argue for reparations are actually interested in reparative justice; what they want is the redistribution of wealth, increased power, and to punish white people for the crime of being white. 

The sad truth is that of the eight billion or so people who live on Earth today, nearly all are descended from people who oppressed others or, more likely, were themselves oppressed, since the latter were far more numerous throughout history. 

Should the Nordics pay reparations for the depredations of the Vikings, who rampaged throughout Europe and the Mediterranean for centuries? Should the Mongolians work to repay the descendants of Genghis Khan’s victims? Should the Turks repay the Greeks for kicking them out of Anatolia? What about the Armenians, whose great-great-grandparents suffered through an actual genocide?

Who is doing the accounting for all this? Whose suffering counts, especially when nobody alive today experienced the actual suffering? Do 70 years of Affirmative Action count toward the reparations? 

This is all grievance-culture nonsense, not because the prior suffering has no resonance today, but because focusing on past sins and grievances does nothing to solve the real problem: how do we create a society where everybody has a chance to succeed?

Mehdi Hasan’s implicit admission that only white people need to pony up because you can’t punish a whole class of people for crimes committed by distant ancestors tells you everything you need to know. 

This isn’t about justice. It is about punishing people you dislike for existing. 

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it’s spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there’s nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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