Response on the Case for Reparations

Dear Colleagues/Students/Friends:

                  I'm sure many of you are aware of the current and growing discussion and debate on Reparations started by the African American journalist and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Coates, a senior editor with The Atlantic Magazine, has been called the greatest essayist of our times.  I have been following the reparations discussion he has ignited for some time now. I saw his first national tv appearance to discuss his essay on MSNBC's ALL IN with Chris Hayes, and I've seen him on several shows since then, including an interview with the legendary Bill Moyers this past Sunday.  He makes a powerful and eloquent case.  Sadly, it's likely one that may never happen.  If many White Americans, as a number of surveys show, don't support "affirmative action", especially when it is defined as preferences, then the White collective seems demonstrably unified in opposition to the concept of "reparations".   

               Indeed, among the policy and programmatic initiatives often discussed to address America's racial injustices, particularly as it pertains to Blacks, the discussion of, the thought of, reparations seems to inspire the most intense opposition from many White Americans.  A discussion on the Melissa Harris Perry show, May 24, 2014, noted that polling of Whites regarding reparations for Blacks showed opposition as high as 95%.  In fact, white political thought and movement leaders who want to attack a public policy or program and want to rally Whites against it, know that it helps this objective if they identify the policy or program as reparations.  Much of the continuing opposition to the ACA (Obamacare), especially to expanding Medicaid, is because it is viewed as reparations for African Americans who are disproportionately uninsured and will benefit. 

                Interestingly, Coates' excellent piece, see here, http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/, 'strategically' was not focused mostly on slavery.  Rather, he largely makes the case for reparations addressing more contemporary and continuing racial injustices faced by African Americans.  This is important history to remember, if not new.  Ira Katznelson' authoritative work, "When Affirmative Action Was White" powerfully documented the role of government policy in advantaging Whites over Blacks.  (see http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393328511/ref=rdr_ext_tmb and http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/books/review/28KOTZL.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)   I understand the narrative and appreciate the strategic approach Coates takes in focusing on 20th century racialized government policy and actions.  Nevertheless, I am of the view that the reparations claims by African Americans for the 'peculiar institution' are altogether just and righteous and need not be minimized, even if the claim is unrealizable because of White opposition.  The enormity of the plunder of black wealth cannot be overstated and while this debt certainly does not end with the formal slavery experience, it comprises a significant portion of it.  This is why I commend and recommend the book by Randall Robinson called, "The Debt: What America Owes Blacks".  It is scholarly sourced and wonderfully written.  You can read an excerpt here: http://www.randallrobinson.com/excerpt_debt.html.

                 One of the instructive things that Coates does in his essay is to discuss the experience of Germany and the Jews of Israel with reparations.  Israel received approximately 7 billion dollars in today's value and it was significant to the material development of the Jewish state.  Comparatively, the amount of wealth stolen and accumulated off the labor of Blacks over several centuries is calculated in the trillions.  An interesting study, Measuring Slavery in 2011 Dollars, see http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php, found that as of 1860 the aggregate value of total slave wealth was close to 10 trillion dollars.  Keep in mind that's stopping at 1860 and not considering the additional century-plus plunder that should rightly be included given Coates' analysis.  

             This question of reparations has been with us for centuries and yet this country, at least through its formal legislative body--the U.S. Congress--won't even take up the task of merely studying it.  Congressman John Conyers' bill, HR 40, see http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hr40ih/pdf/BILLS-113hr40ih.pdf,  just to establish a commission to study reparations, has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in every Congress for 25 years now, when both Democrats and Republicans have been in control, and yet it has never seriously been considered.  Nevertheless, the claim for reparations by African Americans is righteous and just.  While I frankly don't hold out much hope that Ta-Nihisi Coates' excellent essay will have much impact in making Whites more receptive to reparations, I am hopeful that it will provide African Americans, and other supporters, with the intellectual foundation necessary to make the case.  And so the struggle continues.

---Marshall Rose
President, AAAED