Payback

 

The recent observance of the 100th anniversary of the massacre of African-Americans and destruction of property in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has brought renewed focus on the touchy question of reparations. There seems to be little question that they are deserved, but what form they should take and how they are distributed remains a fairness – and maybe even a legal – minefield.

We can start with the principle that apologies alone are simply not enough. But then there is the question of payments to victims or their descendants. In Tulsa, there are only a handful of survivors of the atrocity still living. Already, there are formulas being discussed about how members of their families should be compensated based on where they fall in the line of succession. Greenwood, though it appeared to be the most serious race riots of its time, was not alone, and the history of many such incidents has been suppressed or ignored.

The next principle is that payments, like those made to Japanese-Americans interned in US camps during World War II, would be symbolic only. Duke University professor William Darity, who has studied reparations, estimates that if African-Americans were fully compensated for slavery and its follow-on effects down through the years, the price tag would be $11 trillion. While an increasing number of Americans support the concept of reparations, there is just no way to pay that bill.

 If and when an amount is agreed to, there is then the problem of getting the payments out. If you go by our recent experience with COVID stimulus payments, that would be something of a rocky road. And what about other minority groups that have been mistreated?

To my mind, there is one serious drawback to cash reparations. Once the checks are cashed, so to speak, do white people get to say, we’re even now, you’ve been paid?

Clearly, the reparations process involves way more than money, or even legislation. If there are racial prejudices built into our systems of finance, housing, education, and government, certainly these structures must be changed accordingly. But we do have to recognize that prejudices are lodged very deeply in many of us. The good news is, they are habits of feeling, thought, and behavior, which we can recognize in ourselves and change, but that will take time. Meanwhile, we can raise future generations that, hopefully,  may not have to wrestle with these issues. There will be plenty of other things to occupy them.