In his Tuesday column, Steve Bien-Aimé is absolutely right when he says many blacks would benefit from more education and from endowments to make that education possible. This is true for all people in all countries, not just blacks in America.

However, there is a basic problem with such a large endowment. Mr. Bien-Aimé's plan deals with the complexity of distributing reparations by creating a community endowment, but he does not discuss where this money should come from. Should it only be collected from people whose families had a direct involvement in slavery? Or perhaps all white Americans should be asked to contribute to this fund, since they earn more on average than blacks for the same education? And if the money comes from a government fund, it ultimately comes from every American who pays taxes, regardless of whether they have children in college or not.

All of these options seem unfair to me in some way, even though so many would benefit from this endowment. Until Bien-Aimé can work out where to raise the money for his endowment, he only has half the solution for the reparations issue.