ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author supports the thesis that it is just reparation to afford preferential treatment in the areas of employment and higher education to black Americans who are and have been the victims of institutional injustice. He suggests that because of unjust institutions and holding transfers, such as bequests to children and inheritances, whites have benefited from injustices done to blacks even if they did not personally perpetuate the injustice. Traditionally people who have been concerned with the justice of compensation have worried about placing the burden on the innocent or creating a distribution that is unfair. These feelings are enforced by the way we view theories of distributive justice. The usual worry associated with the idea of giving reparations is not that one doesn't know that an injustice has occurred or who committed the injustice.
