The Debate on Reparations

As the 2020 presidential election comes to full swing the debate of reparations for African Americans has become a hot topic in America media and on the debate stage. In parallel with this occurrence I have been reading The Color of Law – check out my post about the book if you want to know more – so, naturally, the idea of reparations has been a constant in my mind.

Democrats vary on what we should do to pay for the original sin of slavery. There are some like Marianne Williamson who believe that it is necessary to make cash payments to descendants of slaves. Others, like Bernie Sanders, support bills like H.R.40, which aim to research and develop a reparations bill. Pete Buttigieg, on the other hand, brought forth his plan, the Douglas plan named after Fredrick Douglas, which focuses on large, racially focused federal spending in education, public health, and housing. It is fair to say that the democratic nominees are not in alignment on how the United States should move forward with reparations, but they do agree that it should be addressed.

In contrast to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party has and seems to continue to hold the stance that reparations should not be pursued in America today. While, President Trump finds the topic of reparations “interesting” and even strange he doesn’t think it should come to fruishion anytime soon. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnel believes that paying for something that happened “150 years ago” is a bad idea. Other conservatives, like Ben Shapiro, believe that reparations, while good in theory, have no way of being properly calculated and therefore the pursuit of them is not necessary.

While my views on this topic most align with that of Pete Buttigieg, there is a problem with the debate as a whole. In the majority of the debates I have watched surrounding this topic every candidate, every spokespersons, and every news anchor believes that reparations should be focused on correcting the original sin of slavery. I wholeheartedly disagree with this diagnosis of the issue at hand. The conversation of reparations needs to start shifting away from slavery and towards the time after slavery, in which African Americans suffered from government sponsored racism, abuse, and segregation.

Quick history lesson. After the defeat of the Confederacy in the United States Civil War the southern states were occupied so that the new laws imposed upon them were enforced. In other words United States soldiers were there to protect the African Americans still living in hostile southern states. This time period became known as Reconstruction and it worked. The percentage of African Americans voting was extremely high, local governments were filled with newly appointed African American judges and legislators. It was a new age of inclusivity that was being protected by the federal government. Then in the election of 1877 violence at the voting polls put into question the legitimacy of electoral college votes in three states and in turn put into question the Republican winner, Rutheford B. Hayes. A committee was formed to investigate the election and a compromise was struck between the northern Republicans and the southern Democrats – Hayes would be the president so long as all troops were withdrawn from southern states. This compromise marked the end of reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow law in the south, which would inevitably spread throughout the union and lead to further, more discrete, segregation focused legislation.

It is this failure by the United States government to protect its citizen’s inalienable rights and frankly their human rights we should be talking about when addressing the concept of reparations. Any African American who chose to immigrate to the United States after the abolition of slavery and before the end of legal segregation in 1968 were treated as second class citizens and should be repaid for this injustice. Furthermore, any African American who is a descendent of someone who lived in this time must have had to and still must face the consequences of de jure segregation and should be repaid for these injustices.

It is not a matter of repaying African Americans for an original sin committed 150 years ago, which, by the way, is an inaccurate number Mitch McConnel, because that is not when the United States government failed to enforce its constitution. It is not a matter of slavery because, and I understand that this may be a controversial viewpoint, African Americans during the time of slavery were not American citizens, they were not protected by our constitution nor by our laws and therefore the United States government did not fail them in any legal sense, in a moral sense they of course did. If Reconstruction had not failed, if America had held onto it’s integrity we would not be having this debate. What this debate should be about is repaying African Americans for a sin committed from 1877 to 1968. 1968 was 51 years ago, our President is 22 years older than that.

With all of that being said, what can we realistically do about it?

There is no way that congress will pass a bill giving out checks to decedents of slaves and frankly I agree with that stance. There are many African Americans who, despite the odds, have done well for themselves and giving them a $1000, or more, check is a waste of American funds. Furthermore, as I have addressed multiple times this should not be a debate about slavery, but rather the post reconstruction era. Black immigrants faced the same injustices during this era as decedents of slaves did.

The Sanders approach of supporting bills like H.R.40 which are geared towards further investigating the issue at hand is a step in the right direction, but should have happened a long time ago. Moreover, this bill is once again too focused on slavery: it mentions the word slavery roughly 25 times while failing to mention modern issues which modern legislation has effected. In addition, there is no tangible action associated with a bill of this sort and we need to act on this issue before it loses popularity in the eyes of the media. With the attention it is receiving now there is pressure to put forth a tangible plan.

To actually pass legislation being able to get the votes of moderate Republicans and Democrats is a must. The idea of reparations must be a double edged sword: it must attempt to remedy the injustice of our past while also contributing to the benefit of the country as a whole. A bill that focuses funds into low-income, predominantly African American, areas to promote both social and academic education, public health, and infrastructure revitalization is the best option for this nation because it is an investment in the future of our nation by addressing the failures of our past nation.

If you don’t agree with me please leave a comment and if you’d like we can have a discussion over the issue. I always love debating with others 🙂 just make sure you have something substantial to say.