THE YEAR IS 2010. Thousands of special "slavery reparations courts" have been set up across America to sort out who gets compensation for the wrongs of slavery, and who pays.
People are demanding government money based on some claim to African-American ancestry, even light-skinned people with a trace of African-American blood.
Others are there to challenge having to pay for the reparations, such as recent immigrants, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Caucasian Americans whose ancestors arrived in America long after slavery ended.
Sound far-fetched? Don't count on it.
Once an issue only pushed by radicals, compensating blacks for the slavery and discrimination of centuries past is more and more being championed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other mainstream civil rights groups. Rep. John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, has often raised the issue in Congress.
And the Democratic Party, while not explicitly endorsing reparations, seems to be warming up to the idea. A year ago, it adopted a plank supporting the establishment of a federal commission to study the long-term effects of slavery.
The fact that high-powered lawyers are preparing for the issue further confirms the real possibility of slave reparation payments. Charles J. Ogletree, a Harvard University law professor, heads a powerful legal team called the Reparations Coordinating Committee that includes Johnnie Cochran, of O.J. Simpson Fame. Other lawyers involved in the push for reparations include Richard Scruggs, a key architect of the tobacco settlement, and Dennis C. Sweet III, who reaped millions from the "phen-fen" diet drug lawsuit.
These are shrewd lawyers. They would not be taking up the issue if they did not think they eventually could make a huge amount of money off it. These lawyers no doubt have plans to sue every company still around that had anything to do with slavery, such as Aetna Life & Casualty Co, which sold insurance to slave owners to cover the slaves they owned.
They will also demand that the U.S. government grant all African-Americans large settlement payments. Reparations activist Robert Brock wants $500,000 for every black person. That would require a surtax of roughly $50,000 on each non-African-American man, woman and child in this country. The median family income isn't that high.
