‘Jeopardy!’ Question About Reparations Has Fans Talking

A recent Jeopardy! question about reparations has had a lot of fans talking on social media. […]

April 8, 2021, 3:59pm

A recent Jeopardy! question about reparations has had a lot of fans talking on social media. During the episode in question, current interim host Aaron Rodgers posed the clue, “In 2015 Congress authorized payments of $4.44 million to each of these people, $10,000 for each day of their captivity.” All three contestants gave answers, and one by one, each of them was incorrect.

The first to provide an answer guessed it was “slaves.” This was not correct. The second contestant rang in, guessing “Guantanamo Bay prisoners.” This was also not the answer Jeopardy! judges were looking for to the question. Finally, the third contestant chimed in, guessing, “Japanese internment camp survivors.” Alas, this also was not the right answer for the specific question. Rodgers then revealed the correct answer to be “the Iran hostages” from the Tehran, Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981. The moment has sparked quite a bit of conversation online, with many different people offering a take on the moment. Scroll down to see what they are saying.

Videos by PopCulture.com

This is so funny to me. All three contestants heard the question as “who does America owe money to for its crimes?” And they all gave correct answers, but actually it was supposed to be about an official “bad guy” country for something absurdly tame in comparison. pic.twitter.com/SqjtGkUTiw
— Robert Kuschell (@RobinghamKusch) April 6, 2021

“I do want to live in JoBeth’s world, where we gave reparations 6 years ago and everyone has been really chill about it,” one person tweeted.

i uhhhhh really don’t think 4.4 million would cover that many 10000 dollar days for every slave.
— tycka (@_tycka) April 7, 2021

“Its really because it’s weird to think we’d give restitution to people that weren’t harmed by us,” a second viewer noted. “Generally, that’s not how restitution works.”

I also think this must have been a setup to highlight the wrongness… Because this is so well done, and their innocent faces… too innocent… too naive…
— RainyNight (@RainyNightDayz) April 7, 2021

“This seems like the most important tweet in America right now,” someone else wrote. “The collective unconscious acknowledgment that this country is a one long human rights violation.”

This is art pic.twitter.com/f3URQSgEFM
— jeremy (@jeremythunder) April 7, 2021

“So….that was awkward, lol. I can’t believe we’ve paid reparations for a thing we weren’t responsible for, while refusing to even consider it for the actual atrocities we’ve committed,” another user commented. “Flawless decision-making by our lawmakers, as usual.”

While the first three were US atrocities, the Iran Hostages refers to the US embassy workers who were held captive by Iranians during that upheaval (i.e not something the US did). Not sure if that makes this better or worse
— Dr Trey (Medley) (@MedleyTrey) April 7, 2021

“This woman thinks that not only did reparations already happen, but that they were paid $10,000 per day,” one other person tweeted, “incredible.”