Let’s begin with the basic definition of reparation. When one party has harmed another, it’s healthy for both parties if the perpetrator acknowledges and apologizes for the harm inflicted and to then offer to somehow repair the damage inflicted upon the harmed party. That’s the meaning of reparation. It’s to acknowledge and make amends, allowing for healing and restoration. The U.S. has paid reparations to native Americans, former slave owners, and Japanese Americans. However, African Americans had their promise of 40 acres and a mule revoked soon after President Lincoln was assassinated. The issue of reparations is once again a topic of discussion.
In the United States, it is impossible to deny that African Americans who are the descendants of slaves have suffered tremendous harm throughout the history of this nation. Some people (like me) believe African Americans are owed something for the 243 years of legalized slavery followed by Jim Crow segregation and legalized discrimination in addition to targeted oppression and destruction of Black lives and livelihoods in almost every sector of American life. At its inception 65% of African Americans were locked out of receiving Social Security benefits as farm workers and domestics and African American veterans were denied GI benefits that subsidized college and housing after WWII. At every turn, U.S. policies denied African Americans the right to equitable pursuits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is no wonder that African Americans today have one tenth the net worth of their white counterparts. Even college educated blacks earn less on average than white persons with only a high school diploma.
There are those who argue that nothing is owed because they were not personally responsible for slavery since they were not alive and had nothing to do with the systemic racism that continues to harm black people in general and African Americans in particular. Some even contend that systemic racism is a myth that should be banished from our vocabulary.
I will address those people later. But for the purpose of reparations, I make a distinction between black people and African Americans. “Black people” is an all-encompassing term for people with black heritage while African American refers specially to black people who are the descendants of United States slaves. I make the distinction because of a divergent history of trauma and harm suffered at the hands of the American government and its citizens. Many black immigrants were not subjected to the pre-civil rights era trauma caused by legalized terror, blatant discrimination, and ridicule heaped upon African Americans. However, it cannot be denied that their black skin today subjects them to lingering systemic racism, covert discrimination and physical danger. For this reason, I contend that all black people in this nation are “owed” reparations, with the greatest amount to be reserved for African Americans.
Some would say that the U.S. has already paid reparations in the form of Affirmative Action. And to some extent, I would agree. Affirmative Action certainly opened the door to opportunities that had been previously closed. However, one requirement of Affirmative Action is that the candidate for college admission or a certain job has to meet the “qualifications” to be given preferential treatment for selection. Only a few African Americans who could actually meet the qualifications because they lacked access to the academic rigor, mentorships, and experiences necessary to gain those requisite qualifications. It is often argued that the greatest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action were white women and Asian Americans.
In previous posts, I detailed my personal journey through K-12 and how academic expectations and opportunities in this country are distributed along economic, ethnic, and racial lines. As author Jonathan Kozol reports, children in low-income areas are offered considerably fewer academic resources than others and absent parental advocacy and participation in those schools, the children receive an inferior education. The top 10% of those students may “qualify” for college admission when grades are given priority over SAT scores, but many of them will struggle to catch up academically and socially during their first years of college.
Not surprisingly, the very vocal opposers of Affirmative Action call it “reverse discrimination” citing the struggle of these students as a failure of Affirmative Action and a disservice to the students, most of whom are black or brown and poor. These short-sighted naysayers will argue that Affirmative Action weakens workforce competency and dumbs down higher education by including these sub-par individuals into spaces they really don’t belong. In reality, the actual failure is the systemic racism that denies these workers and students access to the living conditions, K-12 education and experiences that would adequately prepare them for well-paid jobs and college coursework. I know this from my own career in education.
In my experience, most of these college students will make it to graduation if they receive adequate moral and financial support and if they are willing to spend extra hours studying. They won’t have the highest grades at graduation because of their initial struggle, but they will eventually catch up and thrive. For example, I mentored a black male student who wanted to become a doctor. He was a top student athlete at his urban high school and was admitted to our university as a biochemistry major because he was pre-med. I recall his dismay when he first encountered the periodic table and realized that all his classmates were already more than familiar with it, having had the opportunity at their high schools to take chemistry and even AP chemistry courses. His high school didn’t offer chemistry and he had never been in a lab. This student quit the football team to concentrate on catching up. Today he is a physicians’ assistant. The opponents of Affirmative Action are decrying the access points but ignoring the possible upward mobility of people who are given opportunities because of it. Most will thrive in their jobs and classrooms when given the opportunity along with accompanying support.
Affirmative Action was reparations for people like me, who because of my family situation and my mother’s advocacy were able to take advantage of it. For me, it was an open door that I was prepared to enter. Other people like my student, who despite the failures of his K-12 education was able to show enough promise and to study hard enough to overcome the hurdles that poverty and an inferior K-12 education placed before him. However, Affirmative Action does very little for most African Americans because the vast majority lack the fortitude or funds to persist in college or worse, they lack the opportunity to gain the necessary qualifications for admission. Affirmative Action alone is nowhere near adequate reparations for African Americans.
Instead, I am advocating for reparations in the form of a substantial investment in predominantly black pre-K-12 schools. These schools need everything from highly qualified teachers, state of the art school facilities, and school resources comparable to schools in high property tax areas. Second, I would offer paid college or trade school tuition and books to every African American student. And I would forgive the student loan debt of those earning less than $75,000 per year. Third, I would offer interest free government loans to black business owners to establish and expand businesses within predominately black communities as well as subsidies to major retailers to open much needed shopping centers in black communities that lack them. Fourth, I would offer a $40,000 cash payment to African Americans above the age of fifty with a bonus of $20,000 payable to the children or grandchildren of WWII veterans who were denied GI Bill benefits; a $30,000 cash payment to African Americans from age 41 to 50; a $20,000 cash payment to African Americans from age 20 to 40; and a $1,000 cash payment up to $20,000 for black Americans who have lived in the U.S. for each year of citizenship up to 20 years. Fifth, reparations must be made to former prison inmates who were either over-sentenced or wrongly accused. Those who served out their sentences should have their voting rights restored. Those who were exonerated should be compensated at a rate of $50,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment and provided free job training or college tuition and fees. And those whose sentences are deemed to be excessive compared to non-black inmates for similar crimes should have their sentences reduced and if the excess time has already been served, they should be compensated for their extra years of incarceration at a rate of $40,000 per year, payable to survivors if the situation warrants. And finally, sixth, every African American living today should receive free healthcare as reparation for government sanctioned environmental toxins, illicit drug infestation, and a history of inhumane medical experimentation on African American bodies.
As a reasonable person, I dismiss the argument that nothing is owed. The fact is that every white person in this country benefited from the mistreatment of African Americans in one way or another. Even though white Americans living today were not personally responsible for the original sin of slavery nor the terrorism, discrimination, systemic inequality and bigotry that followed it, it should be evident that a great portion of the infrastructure, medical breakthroughs, generational wealth, and social status they enjoy today can be attributed to it. Reparations is the right thing to do. It will make amends for the damage this nation has done to the lives and livelihoods of blacks and African Americans in its quest to build wealth and dominate on the world stage. And most certainly, reparations will help improve our collective lives as it will ultimately address our mental health crisis along with the poverty and the crime that plague this nation.
Instead of hiding from our history (because it makes people uncomfortable), we should acknowledge the wrongs of the past and make amends so that we can heal and prosper together. Reparations is a way forward toward healing and unity of an entire nation, with truth as the path toward freedom and release from the chains that bind us to our past failures. It would be a better lesson for our children to learn that the nation hurt African American people, but it apologized and made amends by repairing the damage.