Reparations are much in the conversation, on the Dem side, in the run-up to 2020. Setting aside any question of whether such discussions are red herrings or serious conversations of what recompense is due; questions of how "fair" it would be (to whom??) to pay such monies or how the White majority would likely respond to any such payment, I want to share a few thoughts on why candidates who are dismissive of the idea won't get a second look from me and how i think reparations could be done.
First and foremost, there's the obvious question, the one you know folks are asking: why do we need to have this discussion at all? Why can't it be tabled for later?
In three words: now is later. In a four more words: if not now, when? Isn't 2019 'later' enough for us as a nation? It's been 400 years. C'mon people, it's time; time to stop dilly dallying and shilly shallying.
Any suggestion that talking about reparations is somehow divisive or otherwise unhelpful to national unity (hahaha!) is first, laughable and second, translates simply into "We don't really care what has been done to Black Americans historically even when we say we do. Certainly, we don't care enough to work at redress. Can't we all just get along? Kumbaya." Yeah well that kind of response is no longer going to satisfy.
There's a great deal of focus on 1619 as the beginning of the slave trade. Whether we agree or not that 1619 was the start of the inhumane trade we can, at the very least, agree that it's been at least 400 years since the trade and the brutality of White supremacy in this place made its first marks. Surely, at the 400th anniversary we should be ready to have this discussion; ready to take some kind of reparative action? Or maybe it's been 400 years because America #ReallyDontCareDoYou?
The data are pretty conclusive, the descendants of the enslaved have fared far worse economically than every other group - bar the Native Americans - who live on this land mass. That ain't no accident. And while the data usually focus on the facts and figures, I haven't seen too many researchers focus on the underlying whys, perhaps because answering the why question involves making inferences about motivation and that's not what researchers typically do. I am not a researcher however, I'm an essayist and I will infer the hell outta some findings.
Here's what I infer: White supremacy is the cause of the racial wealth gap; White supremacy is the cause of the ongoing economic insecurities of Black and brown families; hell, White supremacy is also why we don't have universal health care; White supremacy (with a healthy dash of nihilistic Christianity thrown in) is why we currently have a government that thinks defunding Planned Parenthood and the Special Olympics is good policy.
The data is out there and to me, it's pretty clear. But data only gets us so far. We have to choose to believe what the data is telling us, and many of us just don't. 97% of scientists, for example, say that climate change is real and yet climate change denialism is still a thing; voting against one's on best interests (unless that interest is the protection of unearned privilege) is a thing; voting for people who suppress others' right to vote (all while holding your nation up as a beacon of democracy) is a thing.
So yeah, White supremacy is the problem and reparations would be the beginning of a solution. Reparations need to be talked about and then we need to stop talking and we need to get to acting on that talk. The talk needs to occur despite the objections of heartland and frankly many liberal cities' White folx to Black people getting two coins. Cuz let's face it, that is at the root of the objection.
I'm not a politician dependent on peoples' votes, so I can say, "Screw 'em" and carry on. Buttigieg and others cannot. Frankly though, the politics are not my concern, the payment of the long overdue moral debt is.
It is past time to stop trying to make Whiteness comfortable with equity adjustments for Black people (no one has to explain lawsuits. Consider reparations a big ole lawsuit with a big ole settlement);
It is past time to stop feeling like an explanation of equity adjustments is even necessary (history books are free);
It's past time to stop pretending that "policies" that are broad and general will impact Black people the way they impact White people (don't play like y'all don't know how to game the hell outta any policy so that the intended beneficiaries gain the least. The data is out there. Go look and see who benefits the most from affirmative action. I'll wait.)
And it's surely past time to have some politicians who have the intestinal fortitude to hold these views.
If we are serious about economic inequality as a 2020 issue, some part of our focus has to be on the racial wealth gap; some part of our focus has to be on Black economic insecurity and the dual legacies of economic insecurity on account of discrimination and wealth theft on account of White supremacy. And all of this is why Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders who both blithely dismiss all considerations of reparations can get little love from me. And I say this as one who was #AllBernieAllTheTime in 2016.
I'm compelled to commit these words to 'paper' on this issue because Pete Buttigieg, my (former) front-runner candidate, was asked about reparations in an Esquire interview, and he totally and absolutely All Lives Mattered the response. Here's his response in full:
He said he hasn't seen a workable proposal? here's my back of the envelope, 5 minute plan. Sure this is basic and sure it'll need to be teased out and some ideas will be found to be unworkable but the enslavement and forced breeding of millions should have been unworkable too, no? If we can do that, we can do any-facking-thing.
First and foremost, there's the obvious question, the one you know folks are asking: why do we need to have this discussion at all? Why can't it be tabled for later?
In three words: now is later. In a four more words: if not now, when? Isn't 2019 'later' enough for us as a nation? It's been 400 years. C'mon people, it's time; time to stop dilly dallying and shilly shallying.
Any suggestion that talking about reparations is somehow divisive or otherwise unhelpful to national unity (hahaha!) is first, laughable and second, translates simply into "We don't really care what has been done to Black Americans historically even when we say we do. Certainly, we don't care enough to work at redress. Can't we all just get along? Kumbaya." Yeah well that kind of response is no longer going to satisfy.
There's a great deal of focus on 1619 as the beginning of the slave trade. Whether we agree or not that 1619 was the start of the inhumane trade we can, at the very least, agree that it's been at least 400 years since the trade and the brutality of White supremacy in this place made its first marks. Surely, at the 400th anniversary we should be ready to have this discussion; ready to take some kind of reparative action? Or maybe it's been 400 years because America #ReallyDontCareDoYou?
The data are pretty conclusive, the descendants of the enslaved have fared far worse economically than every other group - bar the Native Americans - who live on this land mass. That ain't no accident. And while the data usually focus on the facts and figures, I haven't seen too many researchers focus on the underlying whys, perhaps because answering the why question involves making inferences about motivation and that's not what researchers typically do. I am not a researcher however, I'm an essayist and I will infer the hell outta some findings.
Here's what I infer: White supremacy is the cause of the racial wealth gap; White supremacy is the cause of the ongoing economic insecurities of Black and brown families; hell, White supremacy is also why we don't have universal health care; White supremacy (with a healthy dash of nihilistic Christianity thrown in) is why we currently have a government that thinks defunding Planned Parenthood and the Special Olympics is good policy.
The data is out there and to me, it's pretty clear. But data only gets us so far. We have to choose to believe what the data is telling us, and many of us just don't. 97% of scientists, for example, say that climate change is real and yet climate change denialism is still a thing; voting against one's on best interests (unless that interest is the protection of unearned privilege) is a thing; voting for people who suppress others' right to vote (all while holding your nation up as a beacon of democracy) is a thing.
I'm not a politician dependent on peoples' votes, so I can say, "Screw 'em" and carry on. Buttigieg and others cannot. Frankly though, the politics are not my concern, the payment of the long overdue moral debt is.
It is past time to stop trying to make Whiteness comfortable with equity adjustments for Black people (no one has to explain lawsuits. Consider reparations a big ole lawsuit with a big ole settlement);
It is past time to stop feeling like an explanation of equity adjustments is even necessary (history books are free);
It's past time to stop pretending that "policies" that are broad and general will impact Black people the way they impact White people (don't play like y'all don't know how to game the hell outta any policy so that the intended beneficiaries gain the least. The data is out there. Go look and see who benefits the most from affirmative action. I'll wait.)
And it's surely past time to have some politicians who have the intestinal fortitude to hold these views.
If we are serious about economic inequality as a 2020 issue, some part of our focus has to be on the racial wealth gap; some part of our focus has to be on Black economic insecurity and the dual legacies of economic insecurity on account of discrimination and wealth theft on account of White supremacy. And all of this is why Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders who both blithely dismiss all considerations of reparations can get little love from me. And I say this as one who was #AllBernieAllTheTime in 2016.
I'm compelled to commit these words to 'paper' on this issue because Pete Buttigieg, my (former) front-runner candidate, was asked about reparations in an Esquire interview, and he totally and absolutely All Lives Mattered the response. Here's his response in full:
"I've never seen a specific, workable proposal. But what I do think is convincing is the idea that we have to be intentional about addressing or reversing harms and inequities that didn't just happen on their own. The cleanest way I can think of to do it are through policies. So we know in housing and criminal justice, to some extent in basic economic policies around wages and taxation, that some policy improvements that are also the right thing to do will have a disproportionate benefit to people of color. I think that's one way that we can be intentional and make a difference on this. I've just not seen a cash transfer mechanism that’s been laid out that you can envision working that most people would think is fair."Yeah, that's a no from me dawg. Nope. No. Nah.
He said he hasn't seen a workable proposal? here's my back of the envelope, 5 minute plan. Sure this is basic and sure it'll need to be teased out and some ideas will be found to be unworkable but the enslavement and forced breeding of millions should have been unworkable too, no? If we can do that, we can do any-facking-thing.
- Create lists: identify potential recipients. Not all Black people in America today are entitled. I, for one, am not. My reparations have to come from the Queen as an immigrant from a former British colony. So step one must be to identify recipients. This alone could take two decades.
- Calculate the value of forty good acres (note: I said *good*)
- Calculate a reasonable rate of growth that careful husbandry of the investment would have yielded. We love conservatism don't we? Let's determine what "conservative" estimates of growth would have been for the 40 acres' value. And before you even ask the question, no not all emancipated persons would have carefully and successfully managed their 40 acres, but that's not the point. The point is that they weren't given the opportunity to even try. They weren't given opportunity to build anything. As a matter of fact, their every attempt to build was frustrated. That's in your history. I'm not just making that up off the top of my pointy head. And God knows, even if they had been given opportunity to build, they would have been robbed of its yield. (see anything written about theft of sharecroppers' livelihoods or this about bad seeds)
- Divide by descendants
- Pay
I'll develop these ideas in my next essay. Hopefully I can get it done in a week.
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