Slavery Reparations - Yes!

 Talk about a controversial subject. I heard Bill Maher disparage reparations proposed by Oakland, California. It is an idea not limited to the United States. It is a problem left over from Western Europeans enslaving Africans. 

The Guardian published The Logic of Slavery Reparations by Olivette Otele, which addresses European as well as American reparation issues. It is a long read, which should be read in full. Hopefully, this will entice you into following the link.

All these organisations wanted to publicly acknowledge that enslavement had led to a stratified society in which race and class intersect. However most of them were wary about facing demands for financial compensation, or a potential backlash from those who felt we should have moved on from slavery.

The idea of reparations is controversial, especially in countries that have failed to acknowledge that centuries of racial inequality have produced the stark social and economic inequalities of the present. Reparations start with this acknowledgement. The term “restorative justice”, which I use interchangeably with “reparations”, is usually associated with the legal system, as a method of dealing with crime. It prioritises repairing the harms suffered by the victim of an offence rather than punishing the perpetrator. It also seeks to understand the issues that caused the offence to happen.

When it comes to addressing the harms of slavery and colonialism, “restorative justice” is often a more palatable term than “reparations”. Perhaps the latter seems coldly transactional, nothing more than a transfer of cash, whereas “restorative justice” implies collaboration and healing. But whichever term they use, groups that advocate for reparations almost never seek only money. Their work is grounded in an understanding that the social, the political and the economic are bound together and must be addressed together, creating the possibility of a better world.

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At the heart of demands for reparations is the understanding that the past cannot be erased, and must not be ignored. Former colonial powers cannot undo the damage they inflicted on enslaved and colonised people, but they can engage in good faith with the descendants of those people, and work to address the systemic inequalities that exist today.

Yet 21st-century European and North American governments have resisted discussing reparations. When they do take steps to address present-day inequality and racism, they do so without explicitly connecting these problems to the legacies of slavery and empire. And so it is left to individual institutions to decide whether to investigate their histories, and what kind of reparations might be appropriate.

The efforts of these institutions, which are often beholden to shareholders, donors or alumni, are inevitably partial and constrained. However, there are reasons to be hopeful. Disorganised, insufficient and slow-paced as some of these initiatives may be, there are reasons to believe the debate will continue and intensify. There are grounds to trust in young people’s demands for a fairer society. A post-reparations society may be on its way.

Decades ago, when I first of the idea of reparations for slavery, I thought that the United States had paid for its original sin with the Civil War. There was also the issue of those who had not been slave owners being still on the hook for reparations. 

The second argument loses all force when we consider that the country benefitted from the economic contributions of slaves, and then in the caste system known as Jim Crow that followed Reconstruction.

And there in the failure of Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, is where I see a great moral argument for reparations. The United States not only failed those who were freed by the Civil War, but those who fought the war. And it was white America, since it was us who controlled power in this country, who are responsible for the damage done by Jim Crow. That those damages may not be able to be separated from slavery, then so be it.

It was reading W.E.B. Dubois' The Souls of Black Folk that first started me thinking how white America let down the freedman, creating the situation for which the descendants of the freed seek reparations. If you have not read this, follow the link.

And I will close from The Guardian's article, which I think does a better job of explaining the benefits of restorative justice for the whole of society:

Restorative justice, which recognises the role of marginalised groups, is key to enabling people to lead decent and dignified lives. A post-reparations world might acknowledge the complexity of the colonial past in its entirety, including the damage caused by racial hierarchy; it would not be afraid to discuss the ways in which race and ethnicity, class, gender, religion, ableism and age intersect. A post-reparations society would focus on education and civic participation so that current and future generations can address the challenges of climate change, health inequalities, systemic racism, gender-based violence and poverty; it could encourage us to rethink the notion of happiness, one that is not based on instant and individual gratification but on collective achievement. It would be a society able to build a reconciled collective memory.

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