How does a country recover from centuries of slavery and racism? In the US, a growing number of voices are saying the answer is reparations.

Reparations are a restitution for slavery – an apology and repayment to black citizens whose ancestors were forced into the slave trade.

It’s a policy notion that many black academics and advocates have long called for, but one that politicians have largely sidestepped or ignored.

But increased activism around racial inequalities and discussions among Democratic 2020 presidential candidates have thrust the issue into the national spotlight.

This week, talk of reparations made headlines after a Fox News contributor argued against the policy by saying the US actually deserves more credit for ending slavery as quickly as it did.

“America came along as the first country to end it within 150 years, and we get no credit for that,” Katie Pavlich said on Tuesday, adding that reparations would only “inflame racial tension even more”.

In 2014, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates brought similar ideas into the national conversation with his piece The Case for Reparations.

Coates detailed how housing policy and wealth gaps in particular most clearly illustrate the ways black citizens are still affected by America’s past.

Decades of segregation kept black families away from white areas, which had better access to education, healthcare, food and other necessities, while institutionalised discrimination hindered black Americans’ economic development.

“As we go further back in our history, one can see it as explicitly violent,” Prof Hamilton says. “Now it might be implicitly violent.”

Subconscious racism in police forces, enduring bias against black Americans in the courts and financial institutions are some examples of that subtle violence, he adds.

…and a case against it

But support for reparations today remains largely divided along racial lines.

A 2016 Marist poll found 58% of black Americans were in favour of reparations, while 81% of white Americans opposed the idea. A 2018 Data for Progress survey also found reparations to be unpopular among the general public, and especially so among white Americans.

One argument against reparations echoes what Fox’s Ms Pavlich said – that they would only build walls between Americans.

Some contend that the reason reparations have worked elsewhere, namely Germany, which has paid billions to Holocaust survivors since the end of World War Two, is because the reparations are between nations, not within one.

“For the United States to do the same for the descendants of slaves would be to imply that afterward, we will be going our separate ways, with no special obligations on either side,” columnist Megan McArdle wrote for the Washington Post.

“A one-time payment, and then nothing more owed…That is the only conception of reparations that could possibly be politically viable. It would also be utterly toxic, ultimately widening divisions that we’re trying to shrink.”

Even for some black activists reparations seem an unreasonable ask.

Bayard Rustin, who organised the March on Washington and was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr, called it a “ridiculous idea”.

“If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he’s dead and gone and nobody owes me anything,” Mr Rustin told the New York Times in 1969.

He later expanded on the views, writing that a payout would demean “the integrity of blacks” and exploit white guilt.

“It is insulting to Negroes to offer them reparations for past generations for suffering, as if the balance of an irreparable past could be set straight with a handout.”

How would reparations work?

A monetary payout to black Americans usually comes to mind when discussing reparations in the US. And critics are quick to point out such a payment would cost the US trillions.

But just throwing cash at the issue, advocates say, would not address the root of the problem.

Prof Hamilton told the BBC he supports a payout mostly as a symbolic gesture.

“In any case where there’s an injustice, to achieve justice not only do you need the acknowledgment, you need the restitution.”

“We need to couple it with an economic justice bill of rights,” he adds. “Simply paying the debt doesn’t address the structural problems America has, with certain classes of Americans being able to extract and exploit.”

But acknowledgement isn’t “trivial”, he says – it would help refute existing narratives that dehumanise black Americans as lazy or dysfunctional.

Economist William Darity has also suggested a “portfolio of reparations” that would combine payments with black-oriented policies focusing on funding black education, healthcare, and asset building as well as ensuring that public schools properly teaches the full impact of slavery.

What have Democratic candidates said?

President Barack Obama never endorsed a reparations policy – nor did 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton – but next year’s presidential contenders have been more outspoken, if vague.

Senator Kamala Harris has said she is in favour of “some type” of reparations.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has also expressed support for reparations, calling racial injustices “a stain on America” that has “happened generation after generation” at a CNN town hall this month.

Senator Bernie Sanders saw some backlash during the last presidential election over rejecting the idea, but he maintains that a reparations cheque would not fix the problems.

Senator Cory Booker, like Mrs Harris, has proposed a “form of reparations”.

Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro said the idea of reparations was something “worth” discussing.

Author Marianne Williamson has said she supports a reparations plan.

To Prof Hamilton, regardless of policy, the fact that these conversations are happening is a step forward.

“The conversation in and of itself is valuable. It’s opening the door to reframe our understandings of racial inequality overall.”

Additional reporting by Paula Hong.

Source: Read Full Article