I've been engaged in a dialog (if you can call it that... I raised
points and asked questions and was met with insults, errant presumptions
and no answers to the reasonable questions I was raising...) with some
conservative folk recently on the topic of Reparations.
My
position is that the US only officially apologized for slavery in 2008
and we've never (that I can tell) had a serious consideration of the
notion of reparations for the devastating harm caused by the great evil
of slavery (and the extension of Jim Crow laws that lasted until my
lifetime! 1965!) to the people and their families affected by
slavery/Jim Crow. That is, as far as I can tell, there has never been a
serious congressional level researched review of the matter led by the
black folks whose families have been affected by centuries of slavery
and Jim Crow.
I note the surveys that say (depending on the
survey and how the question is asked) that ~60-80% of black folks think
that Reparations either ought to happen or at least be considered.
Consider: If a Jewish family had art in Nazi Germany that was stolen by
Nazis and that direct family was killed off by Nazis, but descendants
of that Jewish family had escaped and a great grandchild was to find out
today that a great grandchild of the Nazi that stole their family's art
still had that art, then it would be reasonable to expect that the art
would be returned to the family from which it had been stolen. That
wasn't to cast any blame on the descendant of the original Nazi thief...
to say that they were to blame for the Holocaust or anything... only that to be just to the aggrieved family, it is reasonable that this debt
should be paid.
Of course.
Reparations for the great evil of slavery is like that. It is, at the very least, a reasonable thing to be considered.
Of course, the easiest and best thing to have happened was that slavery
never happened in the first place. The second best (least awful?) thing
would have been to make Reparations in 1865, when it was much more
clear and direct a payment to the injured parties.
That didn't
happen and now, the question IS rightly muddled today.
Nonetheless...
...that we
didn't do the right thing right away does not absolve us of the paying
the debt that was/is owed, or at least considering the matter seriously and
at the Congressional level.
+++++
I say all of that to
say this... In that conversation I was having, one of the questions I
was asking was simply, "Can we agree that a great evil was done and a
great debt was owed?" Never answered. They could not even agree that
slavery was a great evil. They DID say that if reparations were going to
be paid, it should have happened back then (in ~1865). But it didn't.
I brought up the Jewish art scenario to see if they could agree that
debts should be paid to descendants of the aggrieved, since the right
thing wasn't done immediately. No answer.
+++++
I say all
of that to say this: What they kept coming back to is the (on the face
of it, ridiculously stupidly false) claim that the only reason people
bring up the notion of reparations today is to intentionally divide and
stir up bad feelings. I raised the question that we're talking about
tens of millions (if not more) of American citizens who think the
question should at least be considered... is it reasonable to assume bad
intent on ALL those people's part? No answer.
I then pointed out
that they are assuming "hurt feelings" or "division..." and I asked
(and THIS is the central point I'm making here...), It will cause hurt
feelings or division for whom? The majority of black folk and their
allies who think the question of reparations should finally be seriously
considered at the congressional level? No, of course they won't feel
offended or divided.
No, the concern these white conservative men
were raising is that it would cause hurt feelings/hard
feelings/division amongst white people... they don't want their white feelings hurt.
But it's not about them.
I've been clear that the
question of reparations is not to cast aspersions or blame upon white
people today, people who never owned slaves. The question is, does the US gov't owe a debt of payment to the people (and their descendants) whose
lives were devastated by the great evil of slavery... because it was US
policy that allowed decades of slavery (following centuries of slavery
prior to the US becoming a nation) and decades of the Jim Crow extension
of oppressive harm to the families of black folk.
When I asked them whose feelings are being hurt by raising the question of considering reparations? Still no answer.
Of course, the answer is obvious (maybe not to them, I don't know...
they wouldn't even acknowledge the question). These white men feel that if a concern makes them feel uncomfortable, they don't want to really
hear the concern because it's "divisive."
It's the presumption of white privilege that these
very same white men would insist doesn't even exist... even as they
claim it! They could not even get beyond their emotional fears that it
might hurt their feelings/cause "division" (to them) to recognize that
the question is about black folk, the descendants of slaves and those
harmed/oppressed by the great twin evils of slavery and Jim Crow.
That is why it is reasonable (it seems to me) to let the matter be
taken seriously at the congressional level in an effort led by black
folks to consider if reparations should be paid and, if so, how. There's
no denying the evil of slavery and Jim Crow. There's no denying that a
debt was owed, and a seriously grievous debt. There's no denying that a
debt owed does not end at the death of those originally
oppressed/harmed.
Let's listen to black folks. It's not OUR call to make, white folks.
