The Case for Reparations
August 18, 2020
Above: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Cory Booker at the June 19, 2019, hearing on HR 40 (click here for brief video).
Our August 18 conversation will be based primarily on the following complementary essays. Written by important Black authors, one in 2014 and the other in 2020. They are lengthy, but very effectively make the case for meaningful reparations.
The June Issue of The Atlantic featured this essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Case for Reparations. It was widely and enthusiastically read by many, and it brought well deserved praise for Coates. He makes a strong case for reparations and his is one of the primary essays we will discuss. Access the article directly by clicking on the photograph (left) or read the pdf below.
The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic.pdfThe second key essay is a much more recent one (New York Times Magazine, June 20, 2020) by Nikole Hannah-Jones: What is Owed? Hannah-Jones is a recent recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for her lead essay in the Times' 1619 Project. Click the photo on the right for direct access or read the pdf below.
From the Magazine_ ‘It Is Time for Reparations’ - The New York Times.pdf
Both of the essays make a point of quoting President Lyndon Johnson, from his 1965 speech, “To Fulfill These Rights”:
“Negro poverty is not white poverty… These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they are a constant reminder of oppression. For the white they are a constant reminder of guilt. But they must be faced, and they must be dealt with, and they must be overcome…”
Not everyone is in agreement.
Conservative columnist George Will speaks out against reparations in this Washington Post article from March 6, 2019. Click here to directly access the article or read the PDF below.
Reparations Opinion _ Will the Democratic push for reparations benefit Trump_ - The Washington Post.pdf
Reparations is a global issue.
On Sunday, August 9,the CBS Sunday Morning program featured a segment titled A historical reckoning for the global slave trade. The article (click photo on the left) reviews the piece. Take a look at the embedded video, Britain examines its slave-trade past (6:51), for a number of interesting stories about reparations, records, and who is actually being compensated.
Background and Context
Slavery has long been identified in the national consciousness as a Southern institution. The time to bury that myth is long overdue. Slavery is a story about America. The nation's wealth, from the very beginning, depended on the exploitation of black people on three continents.
-- Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Forward to Complicity, 2005
If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, that's not progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress comes from healing the wound that the blow made. They haven't even begun to pull the knife out... They won't even admit that the knife is there.
-- Malcolm X, interview, 1964
Brookings Reparations.pdfBrookings Policy 2020 project released the report "Why we need reparations for Black Americans" in April, 2020.
After a brief summary highlighting the importance of the racial wealth divide, the report provides a "history of reparations in the United States, missed opportunities to redress the racial wealth gap, and specific details of a viable reparations package for Black Americans."
At our last meeting we discussed Susan Neiman's book Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil and its references to public memorialization (see Our Picks here). Below are two reviews of the book that highlight Neiman's goal to "encourage a discussion of guilt and responsibility as serious as the German one.” Her belief is that "the moral precedent for American reparations to its black citizens is rooted in Germany’s post-World War II compensation for its past crimes. If one believes German reparations were justified, how can one oppose them in America?"
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Bryan Stevenson have both suggested Germany as a model for the U.S. In his article above, Coates says "Reparations could not make up for the murder perpetrated by the Nazis. But they did launch Germany's reckoning with itself, and perhaps provided a road map for how a great civilization might make itself worthy of the name."
From the New York Review of Books, November 7, 2019, A Heritage of Evil, by Michael Gorra. Click here or view the PDF below.
A Heritage of Evil _ by Michael Gorra _ The New York Review of Books.pdfFrom the New York Times Book Review, August 27, 2019, Slavery and the Holocaust:How Americans and Germans Cope with Past Evils, By Deborah Lipstadt. Click here or view the PDF below.
Slavery and the Holocaust_ How Americans and Germans Cope With Past Evils - The New York Times.pdfThe Black Lives Next Door.pdfDavid Reisen shared this op-ed from the New York Times (August 14, 2020) that details chronic discrimination in the real estate market and introduces possible reparations-like private initiatives. Link directly to the essay here or read the PDF on the left.
Yom Kippur, 2020
Mary Haskell shared this wonderful sermon given at her synagogue on September 28, 2020.
20200928 Rabbi Jaffe sermon on Reparations .pdf