32
votes
The case for reparations: We've had 250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of separate but equal and 35 years of racist housing policy. Without addressing this, the US can't move on
Link information
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- Title
- The Case for Reparations
- Authors
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Published
- Jun 3 2014
- Word count
- 14 406 words
The article is a fantastic summary of so many of the abuses. But this one line does throw me off a bit.
Part of the reason that racism has persisted for so long is that politicians would use it as a wedge to keep the lower classes divided. Irish/Chinese/Japanese/Black/Hispanic and so on were all immensely discriminated against at one point or another in the USA. Native Americans got screwed even harder, and IMO have an even stronger case for reparations. Early progressive movements were also split because of racism, and eventually were far more successful when the racism was set aside to work together against the upper classes.
The race war is a class war. Building a stronger coalition to unify the lower classes will do far more to end racist policies sooner, and from there will build a more solid platform for reparations. So long as there are 'haves' and 'have nots,' the 'haves' will always try to pit the 'have nots' against each other to prevent them from looking at their common oppressor.
Bernie Sanders is 100% behind reparations, if you read through his policies or follow his history. The issue is that using the word 'reparations' is political suicide, as sadly not many white people comprehend why reparations are incredibly important. Getting everybody on the same page (rich people are causing you more problems than <random outgroup>) is far more important in the early phases, especially when one party is fanning the flames of racial tension.
Parting thought is that if wealth in USA was divided equally, every household would have over $240,000 of wealth. By my math...my household has approximately -$195,000 of wealth ($-250,000 at all time low) that I'm slowly working towards 0, as even making it to the top 20% doesn't afford me much ability to get out of the hole.
This is, like Coates said, an attempt to change the subject. The forces of reaction use it as a wedge because it works. They didn't invent the learned prejudices, they're just exploiting and reinforcing them. If you want them to stop, you need to take away its power by addressing the root of it, which is racism.
But it's not a change of subject. It's a chicken-egg problem, one that I would argue the wedge-users are making worse, as they are creating more racists, rather than letting racism fade away with the sands of time. They use racist rhetoric to garner support, and further re-enforce that racism when it works by throwing minor positive changes to their supporters (see: Bush & Trump tax cuts). This draws in more people to be racist, as they see that positive change, and thus fall susceptible to that same rhetoric.
The first step isn't to try to yell at the whole racist population: 'Hey everybody, stop being racist!' The racists are in a positive feedback loop, and trying to yank them out of it will be seen as a direct attack on the few positive changes they've gotten. First we must break the racist feedback loop, by building a larger coalition. The current group of non-racists obviously isn't large enough to garner support for better policies...Medicare for all has almost double the support of reparations, and look how 'controversial' that is.
The new coalition must consist of some of the current racists, as all of the non-racists are already part of that coalition. We must draw the racists out of their feedback loops, and to do that we must make their lives better so they stop listening to the people using racism as a wedge.
From there, we can address the underlying racism directly. They'll have a bit of a better mental foundation to do so, as they'll have seen some positive change without racist rhetoric. Working with non-racists will also help, as face-to-face interaction with people outside racist circles will do far more to break down those barriers.
If your coalition involves being soft on racism rather than challenging it, then you will have a racist coalition because you're allowing it to get filled up by racists. When your rolls are full of racists, who do you think they elect to leadership? What kind of tone do you think they end up setting? The New Deal coalition didn't do shit about the race issue and the pressure of keeping Dixiecrats in the fold led to many New Deal programs being designed, explicitly, to exclude as many Blacks as possible.
Is there anything to suggest that a coalition of the underserved, underrepresented, and generally poorer Americans would be a racist one? Your first statement seems to only hold water if this is a group drawn to racist acts, and I don't agree that the natural state of a coalition of the underclasses is a coalition of racists by another name.
To build on that a bit, that's precisely what I meant. Appeal to the Dixiecrats from a racist perspective, and the Republicans taking them over from a racist perspective is what perpetuates it.
You must draw the racists away from the racist party with non-racist, but positive change. Only after they escape from the mindset of 'racism makes my life better' will they begin to stop being racist.
Or, failing that, there is a better chance of at least causing racism to fade with the sands of time, much the way homophobia has (relative to before 1990's).
They just said one would need to soft-pedal on anti-racism in order to widen the net. That implies that they think such a coalition would need to be more racist in order to get bigger. If it wasn't, you wouldn't need to avoid challenging racist beliefs among the membership to attract more members. It's built into the premise of the argument.
I see it as an issue of focus. If race constantly comes up as a main topic, and sort of owns the floor for a substantial portion of such a coaliton's time, then the coalition will not stand, because people who are struggling in one way are not helped by being told that others struggle in another. If anti-racism towards one or two specific races is a top agenda item for your organization or group, why would blue collar labor unionists care to associate with it unless the particular person intersects with one of the selected races? Issues of labor and class are battles they are incentivized to fight.
Stop and consider that this is exactly the message you're sending to anyone who isn't White.
You mean anyone who is not white and also not otherwise economically disadvantaged? I don't think the Oprah Winfreys and Sundar Pachais of the world are, or will ever be the focus of a coalition that attempts to fix class issues.
They're not the focus of attempts to address racial justice issues either, and it's extremely disingenuous to imply that they are.
It's not about being soft on it. Soft on racism implies leaving racist policies in place, or putting new ones in place that are subtly racist.
It's all about marketing a progressive change in a more inclusive way. A racist person will not support a policy that markets itself as 'improving lives of <oppressed group racist opposes>,' even if that policy would benefit them as well. A racist person will be far more likely support policies marketed as 'improving the lives of poor people,' especially if they are able to identify as one of them.
It's one reason Affirmative Action hits hard resistance. Racists don't understand why it's necessary, and interpret it as '<outgroup> got a job that I should have gotten.' So you must build a policy that is inclusive of everyone (like raising minimum wage), that just incidentally happens to benefit the most-discriminated groups more.
Ignoring, minimizing, or obfuscating racism is called being soft on it.
Why shouldn't people be made to consciously address past wrongs? Raising a minimum wage will do nothing if all the people in charge of making the decisions are White. They will sabotage any attempts to make programs more inclusive.
Any movement that does not have active anti-racism as part of its mission is going to play handmaiden to the forces of reaction. It is White people's attachment to White supremacy that prevents them from joining into a truly pluralistic society. It is not the responsibility of anyone else to take a back seat, prolong their own suffering, and allow themselves to elbowed out of positions of influence in whatever new world order you want to build all so some racists can have their delicate feelings assuaged.
Because it is a hard sell. If it wasn't, racism would have been solved long ago. You can't just tell someone 'abandon your thought process because you are wrong.' They will reject the notion, no matter the evidence against them.
It's kind of like trying to rehabilitate an addict. No matter how much you are concerned, or you point out how much it is hurting themselves or others, an addict will not go on the road to recovery until they decide for themselves to improve.
A racist, who is only perceiving that they are receiving help from other racists, will not reject racist thoughts until they see that the racist thoughts were not what was improving their lives.
There are ways to facilitate this without directly addressing, like trying to suppress racist rhetoric. But doing so is a bigger uphill battle as then you're also setting yourself up to the 'you're against free speech' strawman which is super effective.
All change requires compromise. I get told all the time 'you have to compromise <random principal> to get any progress made.' And in some senses they are right. I want to abolish private banking, but accept that it will not likely be accomplished without stepping stones in the right direction, as my stance is met with hard resistance from a large majority.
Again, you are functionally telling non-White people this anyway and, somehow, expect them to just defer to your priorities instead of their own. You think telling telling people living in fear of being deported or strangled to death with impunity by the authorities to shut up and take a back seat isn't a hard sell?
The inherent contradiction in your position would be abundantly clear if you valued the lives of Black or Brown people as highly as you are valuing the feelings of White racists. The fact that you're this concerned over White peoples' feelings over Black people's lives says nothing good about your commitment to solidarity. I don't see why any person of color would put an ounce of trust in you to actually hold up your end of the bargain once your priorities have been addressed. This is not allyship or solidarity you're preaching. It's just another attempt to exclude non-White people from enjoying the fruits of human progress.
This is why we don't put addicts in charge of important things until they actually go through recovery. Would you put an addict as your movement's treasurer while they're still in the habit? I wouldn't.
Yes. So compromise and stop being friendly with racists. There are a lot more working class people of color than there are working class Whites, and it's not even close. Any presumed "worker's movement" that doesn't care about their needs doesn't truly care about workers (as in, the actual people who do the work). Workers are nothing more than a theoretical abstraction in a framework like this, completely divorced from the material welfare of any actual human beings.
You're starting to drift into hostility and condescension here. I understand that you're (rightfully) passionate about it, but you're not going to convince someone by talking down to them, that's more likely to just make them become defensive and disregard everything you're trying to say, losing all progress that you made before this. Be charitable with your interpretations of what they're saying instead of looking for ways to frame it poorly and attack it.
There was a pretty reasonable and interesting discussion going on in here and I'd like to see it continue, please don't make me need to lock this thread or take other actions by being the one that pushes it away from that.
This is, at best, a very naive notion.
I understand that it's not an easy task. But much like how religion's sway over people has been diminishing in the last 30 years or so (relative to the prior 2000+), racism will fade away if it stops pulling in new recruits.
I entirely agree with the moral case for reparations. For American racism, for British imperial genocides, for current global warming where the global norths economies trash the global souths climate. (For context I'm a Brit in XR, so reparations as a policy position comes up often).
But what plausible strategy is there for: "...addressing the root of it, which is racism." via reparations?
African Americans make up 17% of the population of America. Average pay is growing slower than the economy so housing costs go up and people feel poorer than their grand parents.
This policy position essentially asks that people who already feel that they're economically struggling vote for higher taxation to give money to a group they're explicitly excluded from via their race. It's hard to imagine anything more likely to drive them into the arms of racists.
That's a more practical consideration. But most calls for reparations are focused on programs to restore and uplift African American communities. It wouldn't be that different from any concerted program to invest in things like education or healthcare in these communities that we would need anyway. (And, incidentally, we need to do something similar with Native Americans).
As for driving people into the arms of racists I'm not sure to what extent that would actually happen. Insofar as it does, it's almost surely going to be on the basis of misperceptions or falsehoods that racists perpetuate anyway. Like, many conservative White people already think the government has some kind of big robust welfare state for Black people that they don't have access to. Welfare is already extremely racially coded. Here is just one example from the Obama administration. It's a bit like worrying about candidates being "too far left" or being called a "socialist." They call you a socialist even if you're a centrist, so what's the point in worrying?
For real though, investing in communities will raise their wealth and, consequently, increase the size of the tax base to make up for it. In fact, the poorer the group is that you invest, in the higher your rate of return is going to be. It's the same logic by which it's easy to grow GDP by 10% when you have no roads because just building roads is a pretty well understood thing that unlocks enormous opportunities for commerce. So I don't even think the "I don't see any benefits from this" argument holds. It would be the same kind of long-term investment that programs like NASA are. You can't even predict what sorts of cool stuff gets invented in the future because a Black kid today is educated and raised to believe he can realize his aspirations.
So I agree with this from an economic perspective too. You would see increases in innovation & tax. I'm also a huge fan of NASA, but funding for NASA is incredibly hard fought. Crucially this economic argument also doesn't make any more sense when legislating by race vs by poverty or class.
This seems like some very contorted logic. Racists lie that race based welfare policy exists. These lies already persuades some white voters to vote conservative. So we should make the lies they tell a policy platform. Do you think swing voters don't look at policy?
Even the New Deal policies in the article carefully targetted to exclude blacks weren't explicitly legislating on race. It would make sense to me to borrow that strategy in reverse.
What's contorted about it? You're already experiencing the alleged downside of enacting such a policy without experiencing any of its upside. Why settle for that when you can have the upside too?
No not really. Swing voters are usually low information and prioritize rhetoric and media framing over independently evaluating policy. Edit: This isn't even meant to be a dig on swing voters generally. Not everyone can be an expert on everything. It's not their fault if their social studies education didn't serve them well. This is part of the reason we hire professional legislators and not just have direct democracy.
They kind of were, they provided discretion in exactly the places where race-based discrimination could happen. And this was done by design. It's why so many responsibilities are devolved to state governments.
It's contorted logic because it assumes white self interested voters are a monolith of uninformed idiots. That you can run any policy platform because facts don't matter. When Whites make up 70% of the US population and your political opponents research into what lies to tell already suggests your policy is going to be unpopular.
I have seen so many people require education that Black Lives Matter doesn't imply special treatment at the expense of others. To me making it explicit policy seems like self-sabotage. Still I hope it can be done, recent moves to defund police departments seem hopeful.
Btw I think this is a better article arguing in favour of your contorted logic.
Okay point of order. If this is your issue then your problem isn't "contorted logic." Contorted logic is when the relationships between premises don't make sense or connect reasonably. But what you're saying is that you simply reject the premise. The logic is fine provided the premise holds.
And in this case, the premise holds pretty strongly. Almost all voters are uninformed idiots in manifold ways. If they collectively make smart decisions, it's because all the variegated forms of idiocy cancel out at scale. (See here)When they collectively make dumb decisions, it's because they're being fed propaganda or being inflicted with biases that prevents the idiocy from canceling out.
Yes. Messaging matters. Policy only matters insofar as it affects messaging.
See, now this is you assuming all White voters are a monolith. If they were all truly mercenary, racist, and purely self-interested saying 70% of people are White wouldn't matter. The percentage of Whites isn't the issue, the percentage of racist or passive Whites is. If you want things to change you need to actually create a consensus among Whites that they need to change. If you don't, they won't.
Part of the reasons the abolitionist Founding Fathers soft pedaled on abolishing slavery was because they also believed slavery was going to fade away on its own. They were wrong. The slave power was not going to let it go without a fight.
This is true, but many are lost causes without direct interaction with their chosen out-group, and the best way to defeat them is to keep them from recruiting more, and letting them die off over time.
I did see the parallels there, and I'm going to attempt to elaborate why I feel they are different.
Personal anecdote incoming...I saw three fundamental 'All Lives Matter' camps that emerged.
Well-meaning, but ignorant folks who interpreted BLM as dismissive of their own problems, in part since they can't relate the problems to their own lives. They are racist due more to ignorance than seething hatred or ulterior motive. These are the most likely people who could be swayed to join BLM and other movements to fight for the oppressed with a re-framing of the message. M4A got a lot more universal support than 'Public Healthcare,' despite being essentially the same policy. 'Patriot Act' sounded a lot better than 'Broad power grab and enhancement of police state,' and thus passed without a hitch.
People with an agenda who use leverage ignorance of Groups 1 and 3, and weaponize it to discredit their chosen out-groups and build support among Groups 1 and 3. This is the true enemy (or at least enablers for the enemy), and they are the most dangerous as they have a distinct motive to fan racial tensions instead of healing them.
People who listen to Group 2 and take everything they say as gospel, and also tend to be the 'more racist' crowd. This group is also very unlikely to help, as they believe Group 2 with such veracity that they can't be reasoned with. My father is in this group, as in early 2016 he uttered the words 'I don't like Trump, but I can't vote for a Democrat,' as if he had a gun to his head. Less than a month after Trump became the nominee for the R ticket, those reservations disappeared and I watched my parents become more overtly racist.
It's generally agreed that a broad level of support is needed to enact change (and not just pay it lip service). Of the people who are not already in the BLM camp, there is only one group to recruit more support from. In my experience, it's a hell of a lot easier to recruit their support by getting them to support policies which they also see benefits from, and the framing of said policy as more inclusive than exclusive. If the oppressed have been only earning a pittance, and the 'less brutally oppressed' have only been earning a pittance+5, does it matter the semantics of the policy if both groups end up at 10 instead of 1 or 6? There is the followup issue of making up for the +5 difference over time, but IMO getting support for the 'stop making disparity worse' is more important to enact first than the 'make up for past disparity.'
The other reason to frame these policies as such, is that it limits Group 2 from using racist rhetoric as a weapon. If they try to re-frame a policy seen as a universal fix as a 'handout to minorities,' it forces them to be much more blatant about that racism, which makes it harder for them to recruit from Group 1 into Group 3.
A really long article on how black people have been utterly screwed by institutionalized racists in the US. Also a repost, but a pretty fitting and useful one.
This was stunning the first time I read it. By the end I was convinced that reparations were in order, and I felt I would be happy to pay if it was incumbent on me.
I agree. It's a really good article on how long black people have been screwed up by institutionalized racism and (more importantly) how they still are today and why they need reparations. The 14k words are great for emphasizing it and putting that in your head.