Reparations in the 21st Century
Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a reflection for my Intro to African American Studies course taught by Dr. Mindy Tan at Purdue University. This was a broad assignment, with the only requirement being the paper had to focus on something we discussed over the duration of the semester. With my studies relating to economics and politics, I decided on a topic where the three intersect: reparations.
In the past year, race has come to the forefront in the United States in the wake of multiple murders of black men and women by police. This has sent a wave of racial awareness and reexamination throughout every facet of our society. According to a recent poll from Reuters, seventy-two percent of respondents said they understood “why Black Americans do not trust the police,” up 17 points from a similar poll in May 2015. It is clear that many Americans are becoming more aware of the two different systems we have in this country: one for the white man and one for the man of color. Because of this, the topic of reparations has become more present, especially inside the Democratic Party. However, despite the increased awareness of racial discrepancies in the United States, only 20% of Americans are in favor of reparations. In this article, I will be discussing the history of slavery and economic inequality in the United States, Reconstruction and the immediate attempts to put reparations in place, the lack of economic growth within the black community in the 20th and 21st century, failed attempts of achieving reparations, and what reparations would look like today, the implementation of them, and how to sway public opinion in favor of them.
Before going further, it is appropriate to define the topic of this article. Reparations, according to Oxford, are the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. According to a paper I analyzed by William Darity, an economics professor at Duke University, a program of reparations is intended to achieve three objectives: acknowledgment of a grievous injustice, redress for the injustice, and closure of the grievances held by the group subjected to the injustice. In the United States, three types of injustices have motivated a program for reparations: slavery, the nearly century-long Jim Crow regime following Reconstruction, and the ongoing discrimination that followed.
For the first 89 years of the United States’ history, humans were allowed to be owned because of the color of their skin. During these 89 years, many people, specifically white men, prospered, accumulating wealth through wages, real estate, and other investments. While these men were gaining wealth, many Black Americans were enslaved, gaining zero wealth, working to make the white man rich. In 1865, Congress ratified the 13th amendment, outlawing slavery (explicitly, at least), and freeing the 4 million enslaved Black Americans. With the ratification of the thirteenth amendment, black people were finally free from explicit slavery, except there was one issue: they didn’t have any money, education, or homes. Because of this, there were initial attempts of putting reparations in place. On January 16, 1865, after completing his march to the Georgia coast, General Sherman issued Special Field Orders No.15 that established the provision “of not more than (40) forty acres of tillable ground” designated “for the settlement of the negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.” The territory to be settled under Sherman’s orders included “ [the] islands from Charleston, south of the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns River” More expansively, the Freedman's Bureau Act of March 3, 1865, pursuant to the Southern land confiscation acts of 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864, had an explicit racial land redistribution provision. Again, "not more than 40 acres" of land was to be provided to refugee or freedman male citizens at three years' annual rent not exceeding 6 percent of the value of the land-based on the appraisal of the state tax authorities in 1860. These reparations were ultimately not carried out because of the assassination of President Lincoln. Andrew Johnson strongly opposed reparations, disbanding the Freedman’s Bureau, and shutting down any glimpse of promise for Black Americans. Had these proposals been carried out, we would live in a radically different United States than the one we live in today.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, the wealth gap mentioned earlier only grew wider. The Housing Act of 1934 has been one of the most consequential acts of legislation in American history. It furthered segregation efforts in the ears 20th century by refusing to insure mortgages and near neighborhoods in which Black Americans resided. This policy is known as redlining. Because of the astronomical interest rates (up to 16%), black people were forced to rent homes, which meant they were just throwing away their money, not gaining it. At the same time, the Federal Housing Administration was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for White Americans — with the requirement that none of the homes were purchased by Black Americans. It segregated our neighborhoods almost permanently; the low-income neighborhoods you see today in American cities were likely drawn up in the 1930s to exclusively benefit the white man. Today, homeowner percentage among White Americans is 72% compared to the Black American’s 43%. The median value of assets by White Americans is $144,200 compared to the Black American’s $11,200. The unemployment rate for White Americans is 4.5% compared to the Black American’s 10.3% (Pew Research Center). In six states, more than half of the black children are below the poverty line, with all six of those states imposing Jim Crow laws at some point in their history. The most tragic among all of these statistics is that the leading cause of death among black children 1-19 is gun violence. This is all intersectional. The lack of access to means of gaining wealth has left most of the black community exactly where it was in 1934. Because of this, there is not as much tax revenue to fund schools, causing many students to drop out, leading to unemployment and violence as a means of survival. White and Black America are two different places, and to bridge this gap to actually become united, reparations must be put in place.
The pursuit of reparations for Black Americans in the United States primarily has been followed through the judicial route. Charles Ogletree, N'COBRA, Daedria Farmer-Paellmann, and Jerry Leaphart all have developed court cases seeking reparations. Farmer-Paellmann, in particular, has brought suit against corporations that profited from slavery. Her efforts have further galvanized media attention and interest in reparations, but the legal obstacles she has faced are substantial. No reparations case brought to the U.S. judiciary on behalf of Black Americans has been litigated successfully. The same result can be seen in Congress, with no bill ever escaping committees. The most present form of reparations seen today is affirmative action, in which schools are attempting to reverse previous discrimination by weighing black students heavier in admissions. This program has been highly controversial in recent years, with the Supreme Court handling cases annually.
In conversations I’ve had with some of my peers, specifically white right-leaning ones, they don’t think reparations are fair to them. Ultimately, they are correct. If you put a veil of ignorance on, schools should not be discriminating admissions by the color of skin. Reparations are not fair until you historically contextualize them. I believe this is the greatest challenge reparations face. Without the knowledge of how racial disparities have become what they are, reparations seem unfair and unjust. Why should someone get admitted to a school, receive lower interest rates, or even get a check from the government because of their skin? The answer is because that’s exactly what happened in the past, and no one has come up with a better way to solve the disparities we see today between races in the United States. In order for reparations to ever be put in place, the US faces a steep learning curve. I personally did not believe in reparations, specifically affirmative action until I learned about racist policies in the United States’ past in my ethnic studies class taught by one of my favorite teachers ever, Matthew Bockenfeld. That class formed who I am and what I believe in today. This seems like a longshot, especially because of President Trump’s and other GOP members’ criticization of racial and ethnic sensitivity training, but I believe ethnic studies should be required in every high school across the country. This would be monumental to the opinions on reparations in my view. However, this is sadly a hypothetical and will likely never happen in today’s political climate. Realistically, public opinion will have to change slowly over time. This can be done by having open conversations with those who don’t understand the case for reparations. I can say personally that I have changed over 10 people’s minds on why reparations should be put in place. These conversations need to be friendly, understanding, and vulnerable in order to change minds. But if we finally sway public opinion in reparations’ favor, what would they look like?
As Darity explains in his paper, he envisions a “portfolio” of reparations, rather than the fund for reparations being utilized in a single way. A total of $1–6 trillion could partly take the form of a direct payout to eligible recipients. The payout need not take place in one lump sum but could be allocated over time. For example, German government payments to victims of the Nazi holocaust often have taken the form of $100 monthly checks. Reparations also could take the form of “establishment of a trust fund to which eligible blacks could apply for grants for various asset-building projects, including homeownership, additional education, or start-up funds for self-employment,” or even vouchers for the purchase. I agree with these proposals completely. It would have a tremendous impact on the wealth gap we see in the United States today, and may even be a model for other countries as well. Of course, this has never been done before on this scale, and imperfections would arise, however, the imperfections are well worth anything that radically decreases racial disparities.
Reparations are long overdue for Black Americans. With the increasing polarization in the US, it may seem like a difficult prospect to achieve, but I feel as if it is possible, even if it has to be in a United States that is divided as much as it was leading up to the civil war. Hopefully, there will be another fight for equality in which we finally find liberty and justice for all, just not as violent.
