African-American Reparations
For a long time, there have been discussions on whether it is ideal for the federal government to pay reparations towards the descendants of African-Americans. They encountered slavery and racial discrimination in the 16th to 18th centuries. Some prominent persons in the history of American politics, democrats, so to say, have tried to dig deeper into this debate in an attempt to find a probable solution to the issue thereof. Senator Cory Booker, Julian Castro, and Elizabeth Warren are battling so hard towards this issue, and suggest that a special commission should be created to engage in a study of the impacts and the extent to which African-Americans suffered due to slavery and the Jim Crow discrimination, which manifested after emancipation. Financial compensation is not only the primary form of reparation towards this group but also an apology for what their ancestors encountered.
There is a harsh reality towards the US government over the concerns of reparations. During the 16th and 18th centuries, African-Americans were enslaved, did hard labor, and faced discrimination from the Whites. That justifies the need for reparations, and the justifications also stem into millions of the Blacks. They continued to suffer during the recent centuries through racial segregation and other forms of discrimination since the informal authorities developed and enacted to stop such occurrences failed to do so. It was in 1619 when the first Blacks were taken in as slaves into Jamestown in Virginia. Since this day, African-Americans have faced oppression from the whites, deeply embedded into the political, economic, and educational systems in America. Slavery lasted for about 250 years, constituting 60% of the history of America and nearly a century during the Jim Crow segregation towards the Blacks. To date, about 80% of American history entails racial oppression (Posner and Adrian, 689).
In a poll back in 2016, it was discovered that 58% of African-Americans agreed for reparations towards African-Americans, currently the slave descendants. From such polls, only 15% represented White Americans who agreed to reparations. That is to imply that this question of whether it is necessary to offer reparations to the Black Americans or not has had intensive attention, propelling many authors and researchers to dig deeper into the issue and offer their distinctive opinions over the same. Six years ago, Ta-Nehisi Coates published an article, with in-depth details of the injustices rendered to African-Americans. According to Coates, the injustices happened the time when slavery was prominent in American as well as during the Jim Crowd era (Coates, 55). He also provides evidence that more injustices towards the blacks also occurred during the Civil Rights era, and there is a likelihood that the present day has some forms of injustices towards the same group. Furthermore, Coates used his article to encourage Blacks to appreciate and embrace their history despite that it is shameful. Through this, Coates tries to tell the African-American group to report each form of injustice accurately and factually.
More so, Coates illustrates that not only did the Blacks face injustices during the 16th and 18th centuries but also in the contemporary world we are living in. He says that there are wide gaps between the Blacks and the Whites, making the Whites emerge wealthier than the Blacks. Coates uses the Pew Research Center statistics to illustrate that White households possess as much as 20 times worth, more than the Blacks’ household worth (Coates, 60). In general, Coates tries to illustrate that African-American lives were never the same as the whites’ families and hence, the reason for reparations both financially and through apologies to help compensate for the loss and injustices caused “Effectively, the black family in America is working without a safety net. When financial calamity strikes—a medical emergency, divorce, job loss—the fall is precipitous”. This means that the blacks and their families were rendered handicap in terms of wealth and restrictions in terms of the neighborhood because, despite that, there are African-Americans who belonged to the upper class; they would not live or associate with the upper-class whites and live with them as neighbors. Such injustices and discriminations happened to the ancestors and the slaves who existed 3 or 4 centuries ago, which propel a necessity for reparations to their present descendants (Coates, 70).
The opponents to the need for reparations to the descendants of the slaves who suffered injustices during the 16th and 18 centuries argue that slavery occurred a long time ago. It is diminishing to conclude that all whites during the 16th to 18th centuries owned slaves. Such arguments are null since they assume that the debts or payable reparations were owned and directed to the diseased. This implies that the opponents do not consider the reality that there are White who has inherited wealth from their ancestors, who should be held liable and responsible for the misfortunes and deprivations that the blacks suffered way back. For instance, according to Solomon Green’s article, The Case Against Reparations, the justice system, as well as the philosophical, moral requirements, cannot agree towards directing other people’s punishments towards others who are purportedly innocent (Green). He deems reparations as a bad idea because it will create a victimhood mindset as well as devaluing the accomplishments that Blacks attained during the slavery years. Therefore, Solomon says that slavery, even though it is perceived as a harsh treatment towards the blacks, is one of the elements that made America a great nation as it is today. However, this should not be the case because most of the whites can easily track their three to four generations, leading them back to the last three to four centuries, unlike the Blacks. The latter can only trace up to two centuries due to the underlying differences in socio-economic opportunities.
Kevin Williamson and his Case Against Reparations also opposes the need for reparations to the descendants of the slaves who faced injustices in the 16th to 18th centuries. Kevin says that he does not agree to the conversion of the liberal-Anglo-American justice tradition into a racial apportionment system. He goes on to justify that the traditions are ever concerned with racial apportionment. But what Williamson does not understand is that reparations are not vital because the injustices were leveled to the blacks but because the blacks got injured in the event. More so, the liberal Anglo-American racial apportionment system has never been what Kevin says it has been; instead, it has been a racist apportionment all the way. He should understand that the white people reaped their benefits from the hard-earned and unpaid labor force from the slaves, who endured brutality, violence, and economic discrimination through legal segregation (Williamson).
In conclusion, African-Americans suffered injustices in the 16th to 18th centuries, which require reparations. There have been conflicting opinions over whether it is necessary for the descendants of the slaves who suffered injustices to receive reparations or not. Still, it is evident that reparations in the form of finance and an apology are necessary for the loss, brutality and violence they suffered.
Works Cited
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The case for reparations.” The Atlantic 313.5 (2014): 54-71.
Williamson, Kevin D. “The Case against Reparations.” National Review Online, May 24 (2014).
Posner, Eric A., and Adrian Vermeule. “Reparations for slavery and other historical injustices.” Colum. L. Rev. 103 (2003): 689.
Green, Solomon, and Solomon Green. “The Case Against Reparations.” Merion West, 2020, https://merionwest.com/2019/09/15/the-case-against-reparations/.