The implicit insult in the colonial-legacy argument deserves to be stated explicitly. When reparations advocates attribute Caribbean poverty almost entirely to the colonial legacy, they are implying that sixty-plus years of Caribbean self-governance has made essentially no difference to outcomes, that Caribbean governments and people have been unable to improve their own situations in any meaningful way since independence, and that the determining factor in Caribbean life today is still what European powers did four centuries ago.
This is a remarkably low assessment of Caribbean agency. It treats Caribbean people as passive victims defined entirely by their historical suffering rather than as people who have been making their own history, for better and for worse, since independence. The most respectful position toward Caribbean people is one that takes their post-independence history seriously, including its failures and its achievements, rather than treating them as perpetual victims of colonialism unable to shape their own destiny.
