Of course its symbolic. That doesnt make them less owed however. The people that were actually wronged would have passed that wealth down to my grandparents and put them in a better starting position in life and so forth and so on to me. I shouldn't have had to start further back because white people didnt want to take care of the debt when it occurred.
Blacks push for it today because its yet another issue whites pretend isnt relevant to the racial climate.
You're on something here. I agree completely with you that slavery was wrong.
What you're wrong about is who should pay for reparations, since it's not whites that enslaved blacks and brought them here. You want reparations, fine... when you return to Africa, you'll be exactly where you need to be to raise that question.