reparations cases
the proliferation of possibilities
Reparations for Black Americans have been all over the news lately. The pursuit of what once seemed unlikely is beginning to take various forms. A range of institutions, including universities, as well as local and state governments, are attempting to reckon with what redress for specific histories of racial discrimination and/or chattel slavery might look like.
These programs move the discussion of reparations beyond the past promise of 40 acres and attempt to reckon with the legacies of slavery and/or anti-Black discrimination that echo throughout the present.
My brilliant colleagues and friends, Jenn M. Jackson, David J. Knight, and I have been researching reparations for a few years now, so it’s interesting to see the proliferation of so many reparations programs.
A few developments I learned about this week:
The owner of the British news outlet, The Guardian recently apologized for the paper’s ties to the Trans Atlantic slave trade. The paper will commit to a 10-year restorative justice program:
The restorative justice fund will support projects in the Gullah Geechee region and Jamaica over the next decade after consultation with reparations experts and community groups. The Scott Trust will appoint a programme director and is establishing an advisory panel to guide and review the work. The Scott Trust said a precise figure and allocation of funds would be reported in the next 12 months.
The rest of the wide programme of measures covers four areas: raising awareness of transatlantic slavery and its legacies through partnerships in Manchester and globally; media diversity; further academic research, and increasing the scope and ambition of the Guardian’s reporting.
In Evanston, local officials have designed a reparations program that began with funds to redress housing discrimination that occurred in the city from 1919 to 1969. The city has recently voted to support cash payments for reparations recipients.
In California, economists have calculated that the state owes $800 billion in reparations for a history of anti-Black discrimination— even as the state never endorsed slavery. This demonstrates the pervasive nature of anti-Blackness in the US.
The $800 billion is more than 2.5 times California’s $300 billion annual budget and does not include a recommended $1 million per older Black resident for health disparities that have shortened their average life span. Nor does the figure count compensating people for property unjustly taken by the government or devaluing Black businesses, two other harms the task force says the state perpetuated.
Though many institutions are considering what it means to redress past harm, many others are in deep denial about the role of present-day institutions in perpetuating anti-Blackness and the slave trade. In the below clip, a British Royal commentator suggests that it is African nations that participated in the slave trade that should be responsible for redress and not the British monarchy— a wholly delusional remark.
NPR published a piece reflecting on public opposition to reparations. They find opposition it is not rooted in the presumed cost, but the fact that people believe that descendants of slavery do not deserve reparations and that present generations have little to do with the slave trade.
It is exciting to see the development of innovative reparations policies. What I find most interesting about reparations as a conversation are the ways government becomes a tool, a means to a particular end. Rather than remain trapped by the empirical and observable world, reparations advocates ask: what could we establish? What could we create? And they then proceed, informed by the parameters of past harm, and, in the best cases, by the desires and needs of those impacted.
The adequacy of the material aspects of these reparations programs are neither here nor there (to me).1 I’ll leave calculating the full amount owed and the facilitation of re-payment to bureaucrats, experts, and survivors. I think what I’m most intrigued by is the approach to government— creating a state that is responsive to and responsible for occurrences of injustice. That is the unique window of possibility opened by reparations policy-making that could serve as a model of innovative governance.
In other news…
This week I participated in Jenn M. Jackson’s wonderful new book series “Proscecco, Prose, and Politics.” Jenn, Brendane Tynes, Forrest Evans, and I discussed a wonderful trio of books: Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother, Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned, and Emily Bernard’s Black is the Body. You can find a video of the discussion here.
Until next time,
J
I avoid the adequacy or inadequacy of reparations specificities in part because of their vast proportions. I’m convinced nothing less than a damn near eternal financial commitment and political overhaul can redress the harm of chattel slavery. But I am interested in what people choose to do along the way.