Harry Marks wrote:

Litwitlou wrote:

DWill wrote: For me, it's the how of general reparations that most gets in the way of envisioning it happening.

addressing the injustice done to 272 slaves is one thing, but finding the descendants of the 3,950,528 slaves listed in the census of 1860 is something else. And I can't think of anything that can be done for the untold number of slaves shipped to America who died with no family.

I suspect it is more sensible to engage the collective issue than to attempt to identify everyone damaged by racism and compensate each of them properly. More important is to give a voice to those whose families faced murder, unlawful incarceration, and plain theft, and to otherwise symbolically acknowledge that we understand the things done were not only wrong but deeply harmful. Commissioning some drama and some public events might be a good way of achieving some of that.

Germany paid 3 billion marks to Israel, beginning with the compensation agreement in 1952. It never erased the shame of what the nation had done - ask a German today - but at least it did not leave them in the position of refusing to acknowledge the crime that was done, or arguing that it didn't harm anyone who mattered.



Germany did not carefully attempt to separate the guilty from the innocent, but acknowledged that the damage was done by a country and a people.

In Germany's case this was the best answer to the two most difficult questions about reparations: Who absorbs the cost and who reaps the benefits.
The same solution may not be feasible in the U.S.

DWill wrote: Even for 272, the task is huge, both in finding these descendents and providing financial compensation, even if it is in-kind, such as scholarships. I haven't yet obtained Coates' book, so I don't know his own outlook on what reparations need to look like.

Coates wrote for a mainstream magazine, the Atlantic. His purpose is not to propose a plan, and unless I missed something, he did not propose one. Instead he wanted to analyze the fact that it has been discussed since not long after the Civil War and nobody in power has taken up the topic, and to point out in great detail that, far from making reparations for the harm done, white America has continued to compound the damage.

The contrast with post-war Germany is instructive. The damage done in Germany was mostly due to a minority who seized power, so much of the country was eager to distance itself from that right wing horror. At the same time, Germany was a defeated and dismembered country, and the whole country understood that it had joined in on the war of aggression and done little to stop the Holocaust.

In America, white supremacy is a similarly limited minority, but white identity is still at least a strong minority if not still a majority. At the same time, most white people want to believe that the problem has been solved, and the guilt is expiated. As long as denial is a major force politically, the lower-level racism of the last 40 years will continue.

I find it instructive to think in terms of power reversals, because those with power like to think of themselves as innocent and to use their power to push that line. So let's ask ourselves, if non-white majorities choose to take an identity politics line in 40 years, and white people are asked why they never took responsibility for their crimes, what will we say then? Were the things done justly? Would a non-white majority be as fully just in taking revenge by denying white voting rights, discriminating against them in college admissions and legal judgment? Should police officers of color feel free to beat up white people with impunity?

Justice always looks different when the injustice is happening to you.

Harry Marks wrote: Yes, the "how" is difficult. But it is worth remembering that the damage did not stop with slavery. At a minimum you have to go up to the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the end of Jim Crow.

That's a really excellent point.

I suspect it is more sensible to engage the collective issue than to attempt to identify everyone damaged by racism and compensate each of them properly. More important is to give a voice to those whose families faced murder, unlawful incarceration, and plain theft, and to otherwise symbolically acknowledge that we understand the things done were not only wrong but deeply harmful. Commissioning some drama and some public events might be a good way of achieving some of that.

I agree that would be the best way forward, if only, as I think you said before, we were ready for it (but when will we ever be?)