Reparations

It’s a tough subject on the campaign trail right now: Are African-Americans owed compensation for the injustices of slavery? And what form should it take? The first concept that comes to mind, of course, is money. Should checks be sent out? And to whom, exactly?


The root of the word “reparations” is “repair.” Anyone who has dealt with auto mechanics knows that throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily mean fixing it. If it were just about money, payment made to African-Americans in that form might allow us white people to feel that the debt has been settled somehow. The truth, of course, is that it’s a debt that can never be fully paid in such a fashion. 


Then there is the issue of whether current generations of whites are responsible for atrocities committed by their ancestors in past centuries. The original sin, so to speak, has left a stain that has bled through layers of time and persistent attempts to revise history. The white-dominated federal government did make a good-faith effort at reparations after the Civil War called Reconstruction. It just didn’t stick.


We do have an ongoing responsibility to compensate descendants for the economy that was built upon slavery and the vestiges that remain today. The precedent has already been set, both here and abroad. Not long ago, we compensated Japanese-Americans who were forced into internment camps during World War II. Germany and other European countries saw funds set up to compensate Holocaust survivors. Whether these attempts were adequate or not is a question, but they were at least gestures.


It would be nice if we could come up with quickie list of who gets paid, how, and when, but the answers are not simple. It may be up to a proposed commission to explore the questions of eligibility, the claims process, and what compensation should consist of. Cash payments may be one form, but might it also be about assistance with home loans, the payment of college tuition, or other things? The commission route would be a contentious and messy one, but it’s important that there is buy-in from a wide variety of quarters before any reparation program is launched.


Then of course, there is the issue of fairness, as members of other historically oppressed groups start asking when it’s their turn to get paid. But being fair is no excuse for doing nothing, especially when it’s about the “peculiar institution” that is part of this country’s definition, whether we like it or not.