Global Courant 2023-05-19 23:43:42
Photo illustration: Mark Harris for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images
What is going on
States, cities and leaders across the US are calling for reparations for Black Americans to compensate for the lasting damage of slavery. Recently Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., introduced the Reparations Now resolution, proposing that Congress at least $14 trillion in reparations descendants of enslaved Africans.
Bush says the trillion dollar amount in the resolution includes the value of black cotton produced and the lack of repayment since slavery.
“We need to push this now,” Bush said said the Carrot. “It’s 2023 and the US federal government has still not acknowledged this administration’s atrocities.”
The figure is consistent with estimates by economist William Darity Jr., a professor of public policy at Duke University, who concluded recently that reparations for black Americans with enslaved ancestors could cost between $13 trillion and $14 trillion.
While Bush acknowledges it will be difficult to get a Republican-led congress to accept or agree to reparations, she says, “We have to keep the conversation going.”
Earlier this month, a nine-member California reparations task force approved its final report recommending monetary payments, policy reforms and a public apology for black Californians. According to the New York TimesBlack Californians could receive nearly $1.2 million per person if California Governor Gavin Newsom signed reparations.
“The extent of the damage, it’s terrible, it’s huge. It’s astronomical,” task force member and attorney Donald Tamaki told Yahoo News. “I think people have this idea that reparations are just a check. Well, it’s about compensation. But what matters is that everyone else fixes the systems and culture that created this in the first place.
At the federal level, House Resolution 40, a bill that would create a committee to study and develop reparations, has been in limbo for decades since it was first introduced by the late Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., in 1989.
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Last year, D-Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee called on President Biden to sign an executive order to set up the committee for HR 40.
“HR 40 has been on the books for 38 years, waiting for someone to say yes,” Lee said last year at a two-day conference on reparations in Evanston, Illinois. “For once, I want the history of the journey African Americans have taken to be accepted as an accepted reality in America.”
Why there is discussion
As the debate over reparations heats up, public opinion continues to be unfavorable to the concept. A 2021 study by Pew research center found that over 60% of Americans oppose restitution to descendants of enslaved people. a another opinion poll on reparations 2021 found that 62% of Americans oppose the idea of reparations, according to findings from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and WCVB-TV.
For many, reparations are a worrying and risky proposition because of the monetary compensation. Some taxpayers say they shouldn’t be paying for their ancestors’ misconduct. Reparations could also create an equity problem because it’s unclear how reparations at the city and state level would affect the rest of the country.
“In reparation program management, if you rely on individual states and municipalities to set up the programs, everyone is going to be different,” Darity told Yahoo News. “In fact, there will be municipalities and states that do nothing.”
Investigators also don’t know how to make reparations successfully and who they should or should not involve. Some critics argue that pursuing reparations could open the floodgates for other marginalized groups to seek compensation.
Reparations supporters, however, believe that America has a duty to remedy the damage of slavery that has caused generations of racist laws and practices that have hindered Black Americans’ ability to thrive.
Perspectives
California cannot pay reparations
“The Reparations Task Force has already pledged that nearly 80% of California’s 2.6 million black residents will receive reparations. The task force cannot achieve this goal – even if it were legal, which it is not. First, the math just doesn’t work. Consider: If all “eligible” blacks in California got just $1,000 in reparations, the cost to California would be more than $2 billion. But that compensation would in no way equal the staggering claims of the racist alarmists who are pushing for reparations. $1,000 would be a pittance of the injuries Blacks say they suffered in California,” Horace Cooper, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, to Fox News.
Black reparations will not close the wealth gap
“In two to three years, that wealth would end up in white hands because our wealth-building system was not designed for black wealth,” said Dorothy Brown, a law professor at Georgetown, to NPR.
Critics offer other solutions
“We must recognize the risks of opening a Pandora’s box of grievances that may never be fully addressed, sowing discord and discontent. Instead of getting caught in the morass of reparations, the focus should be on forward-looking policies that promote equal opportunity and justice for all,” said Armstrong Williams, a political commentator and talk show host. the news.
“A more prudent approach would be to invest in education, infrastructure and social programs that promote upward mobility and remove systemic barriers to success. In this way, we can build a more just and equitable future without indulging in a cumbersome and controversial reparations bill,” Williams added.
America has already paid the price for slavery
“Reparations for slavery were paid in full with the bloodshed of 110,100 Union Army troops killed and 275,174 wounded on the battlefields of the Civil War. That sacrifice abolished slavery in this land. Nothing more is needed 158 years later,” John A. Cleveland, told the Wall Street Journal.
There is no one-size-fits-all for reparations
“Our country is way overdue in facing this question. But seeking a consensual answer is like wading in quicksand. I suspect most people believe both the yes and the yes of the matter — that no one alive today is to blame for the sins of the past, but that everyone has a responsibility to help mend them,” Andrew Delbanco, professor of American medicine. studies at Columbia University, told the Washington Post.
Racial discrimination today proves that reparations are needed
“I want them to stop pretending it’s so far away and it’s not happening right now. I want them to understand that we are still going through things now as a community. It’s not — it’s not over for us,” Pia Harris, nonprofit program director, told the Associated Press.
No dollar amount is enough
“For those who think the cost is too great, consider the ongoing price paid for this injustice by all the people who call the US home, also paid in the currency of shorter, sicker lives. It’s time to put a down payment on a healthier future,” Harvard University public health professor Mary Travis Bassett told Yahoo News.
