If success in winning reparations for historical wrongs is largely about politics, then what about the efforts of Americans to get reparations for slavery and its aftermath?
The basic argument is clear as rainwater: Slavery was a crime as horrible as any imaginable. People were tortured, enslaved, and unfairly deprived of the fruits of their labor. They were denied the right to hand down any appreciable assets. And their descendants, who were promised freedom and forty acres, were lynched, segregated, discriminated against, and, in virtually every way, excluded from enjoying the full fruits of freedom. They never got their land. And they only recently have been given the opportunity to earn anything approximating fair compensation. Hence a debt is owed.
It is the argument that Martin Luther King Jr. made in a Playboy magazine interview in 1965: “Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that, for two centuries, the Negro was enslaved and robbed of any wages — potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America’s wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation.”
Some are now saying that time has finally arrived to begin paying off that debt. Raymond A. Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University, notes that this is not the first era in which the demand has been made. It was made shortly after the Civil War, and with the dawn of Marcus Garvey’s brand of Black Nationalism, in the early part of the twentieth century.
“Why is it that Japanese Americans receive an apology and compensatory measures … but black Americans, in all but a few instances, have been unsuccessful in their efforts for remedies to the crimes inflicted upon them? Why do Jews continue to litigate successfully for, and receive, billions of dollars from nations and corporations nearly 60 years after the Holocaust … yet African Americans are subjected to paternalistic rejections of their movement for reparations for 350 years of enslavement and domestic apartheid? I believe it is because the history of black/white relations in this country is so long and sordid that reparations for damages done … would call for an enormous upheaval of the social fabric of the United States, unmatched even by Brown v. Board,” writes Winbush in Should America Pay?
Every year since 1989, Congressman John Conyers has introduced legislation asking — so far without success — for creation of a commission to study the question of reparations for African Americans. The commission, similar in concept to the body that recommended redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II, would be charged with documenting the lingering impact of the institution that Conyers believed continued to wreak havoc on black life.
In Black Wealth/White Wealth, social scientist Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro provide a glimpse of what such an exhaustive study might show. After reviewing reams of historical and economic data, they conclude that whites, at every income level, possess several times more wealth than blacks. They believe that the majority of the difference — perhaps three-quarters of it — can be explained by America’s history of discrimination and “racialized” policies, beginning with the slave trade: “Slaves were, by law, not able to own property or accumulate assets. In contrast, no matter how poor whites were, they had the right — if they were males, that is … to buy land, enter into contracts, own businesses, and develop wealth assets that would build equity and economic self-sufficiency for themselves and their families.” Blacks, who could not accumulate such riches, also “confronted a world that systematically thwarted any attempts to economically better their lives.” This “inheritance of accumulated disadvantages over generations,” argue the authors, continues to undermine the economic well-being of African Americans. They see a strong (though not politically plausible) case for reparations for black Americans.
Burt Neuborn, a New York University law professor who worked on the Holocaust banking cases, thinks the litigation against the Swiss banks may provide a model for descendants of slaves. “The critical question,” he argued in the 2003 edition of the New York University Annual Survey of American Law, “is whether litigation seeking restitution of the unjust enrichment flowing from slavery can replicate the three crucial components of the Holocaust litigation: (1) the identification of massive wealth transfers to identifiable recipients that unjustly enriched the recipients; (2) a demonstration that the wealth transfers were unlawful; and (3) the ability to reverse the transfers by requiring restitution of unjustly acquired profits to identifiable victims.”
It is easy to prove, he points out, that wealth was unjustly transferred. And it’s even possible to make a case — under international law, perhaps — that the wealth transfers were illegal. The difficulty, as he sees it, is “the linking of identifiable victims with identifiable unjustly enriched beneficiaries.” One way to get around that, he says, is to point out that at the time when America should have put things right — at the time the slaves were freed — it did not choose to do so: “And since the passage of time renders it impossible to recapture that moment, the only just approach is to adopt political programs designed to cope with the lingering consequences of such a massive unjust enrichment of white America.”
That is the approach Randall Robinson essentially endorsed in The Debt, in which he argued for the creation of a government-funded trust that would support economic empowerment, civil rights advocacy, and education — with special efforts directed toward those black children most at risk. Just debating the proposal, suggested Robinson, would be good for America: “The catharsis occasioned by a full-scale reparations
debate could … launch us with a critical mass into a surge of black self-discovery. … We could disinter a buried history, connect it to another more recent and mistold, and give it as a healing to the whole of our people, to the whole of America.”Whether such a debate really would be “healing” is very much an open question. But it is telling that Conyers — who consistently points out that his bill would not provide reparations but only a study of the issue — can never get his bill out of committee. Year after year he puts the proposal forth, and year after year it dies. The very subject turns so many people off, or makes them so uncomfortable, that they would rather not even have a serious conversation about it.
Many advocates saw the United Nations World Conference Against Racism as the perfect opportunity to jump-start that extended conversation. Prior to the conference itself — held in Durban, South Africa, Aug. 31 through Sept. 7, 2001 — a series of preparatory meetings (PrepComs in UN parlance) were held in various cities around the world. Some of the leading lights of the reparations movement, and even representatives of “mainstream” civil rights organizations, faithfully attended many of those meetings. In corridors, meeting rooms, and hotel lobbies, they made the case to delegates and others from around the world that slavery and the slave trade were crimes against humanity and that reparations had to be addressed. At one point, a UN subcommission adopted a resolution on “recognition of responsibility and reparation for massive and flagrant violations of human rights, which constitutes crimes against humanity and took place during slavery and the colonial period.”
The delegates from the United States never bought it. Indeed, they threatened to walk out of the convention
if such language was taken seriously. In fact, the U.S. delegation did withdraw — not over reparations, but over anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic language that certain documents contained. But they left no doubt that as far as they were concerned, a debate on reparations was about as welcome as a visit from Fidel Castro. Even Congressman Tom Lantos, who said he had “zero hang-ups” with the word reparations, pleaded with the advocates to use another phrase. In the pragmatic interest of winning support, he argued, they should rally around remedies that were not race-based, that would not polarize Congress and endanger political support. …
The plea for American reparations is, as much as anyth
ing, a plea to learn or to reconsider that history — and to reconsider, as well, the assumption that the way the world is, with one racial group significantly better off than another, is simply the natural state of things. In Paying for the Past, Christian Pross observes, “The reparations program set the stage for a change in consciousness and for a transformation … in the way German society dealt with the Nazi past.” The hope of many of those in America who support reparations is that the educational process that accompanies the debate will spark a similar transformation.Tim Madigan holds himself out as an example of how immersion in previously forbidden history can deeply change perceptions. The research he did for The Burning was “a life-changing odyssey. Early in the process, I began to suspect that a crucial piece remained missing from America’s long attempts at racial reconciliation. Too many in this country remained as ignorant as I was. Too many were just as oblivious to some of the darkest moments in our history, a legacy of which Tulsa [Race Riots of 1921] is both a tragic example and a shameful metaphor. How can we heal when we don’t know what we’re healing from?”
In an essay included in Paying for the Past, Erich Loewy makes a point about the importance of acknowledgment: “When those responsible for causing the damage (or those historically associated with causing it) are themselves willing to apply balm to the wounds they caused, healing will proceed more easily.” He goes on to condemn the Germans, whose acceptance of reparations was “forced and grudging,” for missing the opportunity to embrace a less acrimonious process.
When it comes to the issue of reparations, of course, the United States is not even remotely in the position of Germany following World War II. No one has defeated the United States. No one accuses the current generation of U.S. leaders of supporting slavery — or implementing Jim Crow. And no one is in the powerful position of the Allies demanding that historical wrongs be set right. …
Will America reach that point when it comes to the issue of slavery? Obviously not anytime soon. At a Harvard University conference in September 2003, Michael Dawson, a government professor and polling expert, reported on a survey that attempted to gauge public support for the idea of making amends for slavery. Only 30% of whites — compared to 79% of blacks — felt blacks were due an apology for slavery. Even fewer felt blacks deserved money. Four percent of whites — compared to 67% of blacks — were in favor of compensation to the descendants of slaves. “The racial differences … are as large as any I have seen,” said Dawson.
Still, the issue refuses to go away. I received one indication of how insistent and — in a sense, mainstream — the question of reparations has become when I dropped by the office of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and noticed that his One World magazine carried an ad for Phat Farm footwear with a copy that screamed: “Reparations is not a racial issue. It’s an American justice issue.”
From Bone to Pick by Ellis Cose. Copyright © 2004 by Ellis Cose. Reprinted by permission of Atria Books,an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc., $22.
CONVERSATION WITH AUTHOR ELLIS COSE
Ellis Cose, author of Bone to Pick and contributing editor for Newsweek magazine, certainly isn’t betting his future on the hope that someone is going to give reparations to black folks anytime soon. “I don’t think reparations will ever be paid as a cash payout,” he predicts. “But it’s one of many ways to get a discussion about equity in society going. I see reparations in that context.”
To see it any other way would be pointless, considering that from a legal standpoint, a case for reparations is extremely weak, he says. “One of the things that becomes very clear when you look at the issue of reparations is that, at the end of the day, what determines whether or not we get paid is whether there is a political consensus for [the government] to pay it. There is a huge distance between black and white Americans when it comes to the issue of whether there should be reparations.”
The legal case for reparations by survivors of some 120,000 Japanese Americans arrested in 1942 during World War II and held in concentration camps under the guise of national interest was a much easier argument for reparations to win. It was a small group, dealing with people who were still alive.
“But even when you put that aside, white folks get upset about the issue of reparations for black folks.”
Cose explains that reparations for smaller, lesser-known atrocities will have more of a legal leg to stand on than reparations for something as broad as slavery. For instance, the 1921 race riots of Tulsa, Oklahoma, would be an easier case to win (see Once Upon A Time on Wall Street, July 2002); it’s much more comparable to the Japanese American case. In both cases, people were still alive; there were clear property claims; and the government — if they didn’t cause the riots — certainly aided and abetted the riots.
So don’t look to the government as the place to debate reparations. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has been trying to initiate a congressional study on the issue for years.
“And he isn’t asking for reparations; he’s asking for a study,” Cose adds. “Reparations is about repair, and repair is only necessary if you have damages that still exist.”
Today, the damage of slavery still exists. “Just look at the economic disparity, the lack of access to education, and the greater likelihood of black men going to prison. These are current issues, and ultimately the debate on reparations is going to take place regarding how to deal with these current issues. Slavery is just a background. At some point, we will either deal with some of these issues or we’re going to implode as a society.”
— Kenneth Meeks