America the Great, as we know it today, was built on the backs of African slave laborers for over two and a half centuries. A deep wound that has remained open for centuries due to racism, inequality, segregation and discrimination. Slavery was officially abolished in the United States in the year 1865 with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Bill of Rights. However, even in 2015, most African Americans face the challenges of racism, inequality, and discrimination every day. Many African Americans believe they should receive compensation today for the grotesque acts that happened more than a century ago to their ancestors. While these acts were monstrous, the African Americans living in the United States today were not the ones breaking their backs every day trying to survive and the whites of today were not the ones imposing slavery. African Americans should not be allowed to receive a tax write-off for slavery due to the fact that these actions were not done against them and because there are better ways to account for the backbreaking labor of their ancestors than through monetary values. plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In 2008, National Public Radio published an article about a woman named Amanda Jones. She is the daughter of a slave and at the time she experienced “two world wars, a great depression and the arrival of jazz, television and antibiotics” (Burnett). Both of Jones' parents were emancipated from slavery and took their master's name. Although Jones grew up free, she faced the difficult times of Jim Crow laws and segregation. The first president she voted for was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and of course she was forced to pay a poll tax to do so. At that age she was married, and she and her husband picked cotton to save enough money just to vote. In 2008, Jones could see a miracle, she saw a black man become president and to her, everything she and her family had been through was now worth it. Jones' struggle is something most African Americans today can't say they have ever experienced. Even if someone was born in 1865 right before slavery was abolished, technically making them a slave, they would be 150 years old. Research shows that there is no living former slave alive today, but unless they are wrong no one but them should receive any compensation, because they have done nothing to get reparations. As an African American in the United States, there are many stigmas and stereotypes associated with skin color, no matter who you are. On December 13, 2014, Fox News posted a link on their Twitter page to a new article written titled "Andrew Cuomo Meets with Ex-Crack Dealer Jay-Z to Discuss Police Politics." The article begins like this: “When you need advice on a topic, go to an expert. Governor Andrew Cuomo did just that when he held a policy meeting on the topic of how cops enforce the laws with hip-hop mogul Jay Z – who gained much of his experience in crime as a crack dealer” ( DeRosa). Although Shawn "Jay Z" Carter admits to formally being a drug dealer when he was much younger and living in the Brooklyn projects, he is now a multimillionaire worth over $485 million alone and over $1 billion dollars, bordered by his wife Beyoncé, according to Forbes magazine (Greenburg). Jay - Z, phenomenal entrepreneur and businessman, demonstrates to.