Recently one of my fellow writers decided to reply to one of my columns, arguing against reparations. His response, published in the Technician on Sept. 19, was marred by uninformed opinions that I intentionally addressed in the limited space I had for the original column and heavily laden with a call for the logistics. Normally I enjoy reading opposing views, but the fact that it seems like the response was to the word reparations instead of the actual article made it disappointing on many fronts.
The first point the opposing author made that I addressed in my original article was the disgusting and untrue idea that welfare is de facto reparations. I will say once again, how can welfare be reparations for slavery if more white people receive them than black? If we go by the percentage of communities then, yes, black people are more likely to receive them. However, the white population is four times larger than the black population. This means that unless the percentage of black welfare users quadruples the percentage of white recipients, more white people receive them.
Further, the author said that the welfare numbers make it hard to say the U.S. government has done nothing for black people. Well, on top of white people being the largest beneficiaries of welfare, a majority of the welfare safety net was established in an effort to relieve the devastation caused by the Great Depression. According to the Social Security Administration’s own website, “65 percent of the African-American workforce was excluded by this provision, it was also the case that 27 percent of the white workforce was likewise excluded from coverage.” It wasn’t until much later welfare reforms that black Americans were given a seat at the government assistance table. So please stop citing welfare as reparations; not only is it racist but it’s also factually incorrect.
The next thing I want to address is that the author blatantly ignored the fact that I said slavery wasn’t the last atrocity suffered by black people at the hands of the U.S. government. Even if one is so obtuse that they act as if they can only see the problems that can be quantitatively verified, the treatment of black people in this country still isn’t a pretty picture. I pointed out multiple institutional practices that were enforced by the government such as Jim Crow laws. They were met with no response; instead they were met with a bleak picture of logistics. I intentionally omitted studies that show percentage wise, stop and frisk leads to more than four times the findings of contraband on white males than their black counterparts, yet black males are much more likely to be stopped.
I guess the author didn’t feel the need to respond to the part about black code and vagrancy laws or any other statistically verifiable point that can be clearly proven as having a racial bias. What I didn’t touch on in my original article is the other side of the intentional oppression of black people in America. By the other side I mean the constant degradation, humiliation and misrepresentation that the black community has been and still is subjected to until this day. Things like the fact that more black men are exonerated than anyone else. Yet stigmas of criminality and fatherlessness are seen as the norm for black people.
The logistics which couldn’t have possibly been covered in my word limit must’ve seemed like the better point to attack. However, I’d love to hear about how those who oppose reparations feel about the treatment of black people in this country from 1863 on. I do so gladly invite the author and any who think like him to address the fact that, according to an article by Alfred Brophy in The New York Times, slave owners in Washington, D.C. were the only people to be compensated for slavery ending. That’s not fair, and it certainly isn’t logical.
The author of the response used the repetitive line that there are no slaves or slave owners alive today. That is an indisputable fact. However, there are legislators from the Jim Crow era alive today. There are people who were alive and well that reinforced or ignored and allowed the continuation of segregation. There are former and current law enforcement officers alive and well who participated in intentionally targeting black people. I guess no one should have to pay for that though.
The United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent recently came to the conclusion that African Americans are owed reparations. In a statement, the group said, “In particular, the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent.” But I guess economist Thomas Sowell is more of an expert on human rights than the actual human rights lawyers that served on this panel. By the way, if you’re going to quote an economist it might serve you well to get one who’s not a New Deal denier that has called BP having to clean up its oil spill “extortion.”
It seems to be the case with any intense wrongdoing that no one wants to take responsibility for, the logistics are what is harped on and all other factors become irrelevant. Well by all means please bring the attitude of its too big and complicated so we shouldn’t start the conversation. Let’s instead do it the opposite way. Get the conversation started. Acknowledge what happened and what continues to happen. Then, once we reach a consensus on prolonged systemic happenings we can decide the best way to repair a community that has been subjected to oppression.
