by Jimmy Fleming and Marc Wurgaft, Co-founders, Paying Reparations Now
As soon as we closed the file on our essay, “How Two White Men Became Reparationists,” about our journey as white reparation advocates, we knew we had to go further. How do we, as European Americans, explain why it is crucial to demand reparative action for African Americans? Why now? How do we demonstrate that reparative action is restorative justice? We knew the objections that our friends and family would raise against reparations. But we also believed that their resistance- in part- is based on false impressions and misconceptions. That got us thinking!
Why is it difficult to talk about reparations with non-POC?
It appears simple enough–race issues are deeply rooted in the United States. And race in our country is framed by our history, most explicitly by our ties to chattel slavery. Slavery brutally commodified black people as property. The labor of the enslaved was thus available to white enslavers at the nominal costs of maintaining their human property. Black people were stripped off their individual identities and personhood. Means of establishing families and communities and owning land, which are the main vehicles for wealth accumulation, were denied.
There was no compensation or reimbursement for the labor of the enslaved. The essentially “free” labor led to huge profits for the enslavers and their families. The widespread trading of kidnapped enslaved individuals and the benefits from their labor also helped support and empower white individuals who were not slave owners. This complicity and the huge profit margins secured the economies in both the North and the South for generations, even to this day. Reparations for slavery deems that these historical facts should be acknowledged and corrected, and the debt repaid to the descendants of the enslaved.
Seems clear enough, right? WRONG. The conversation about reparations is difficult because: a) Since they were not directly involved, white individuals do not feel responsible for the horrors of the past; b) White people are willingly indifferent to the lingering legacy of slavery in today’s America; and c) Feelings of shame and guilt fuel white denial, allowing white individuals to claim they are unaware that their ongoing involvement perpetuates the legacy of slavery.
America’s first real chance at reparations took shape as Sherman’s Field Orders #15 (Forty Acres and a Mule). While encoded by practice, it was almost immediately rescinded, and land and privileges granted to the formerly enslaved were taken back after Lincoln’s assassination. Ironically, land and rights were instead restored to southern landowners – mostly enslavers – and soldiers. We live now in a time when these simple and factual truths are being denied. In fact, some states and boards of education have legislated against teaching anything other than the story of American exceptionalism (read that, white exceptionalism) can be taught.
Does white America want a fair and just society?
It all boils down to this one fundamental question. What upstanding citizen of this country would dare say no? Unfortunately, the truth is better revealed in the behavior more so than in the rhetoric. The pattern after slavery is clear: Reconstruction was swiftly replaced by redemption and restoration of property to those who had been in rebellion; Jim Crow laws and Black codes then replaced the nascent civil rights and equal protection of freed people under the law; redlining and mortgage covenants next determined where black people could and couldn't live; and lynching, like mass incarceration and state-sanctioned violence today, was often the response for anyone who dared to cross the race line or achieve a higher economic standard of living. Even the Social Security act, established to provide a safety net for all, was restricted to exclude service workers and laborers, the kind of work most often open to Black Americans.
Sadly, we conclude, it appears white America prefers the status quo of inequality and privilege, and works hard to preserve and codify this system of caste into law. It seems encoded, too, in the myth of the American narrative – that this country is an egalitarian society, a land of opportunity, where the American dream is open to those who work hard, aka, the bootstraps narrative. It is necessary to offer a counter-narrative. We can begin by acknowledging that the country’s core founding document, the Constitution, was constructed as a vehicle to protect slaveholders’ rights as a preeminent consideration. The Civil War, the gravest threat to the union and the fledgling American democracy, was fought to protect those same rights. Thus, the mythic narrative falls short, far short, of holding the whole truth. We can do better.
What actions should reparations advocates take when confronted with white unwillingness to change?
For the American dream to prevail and flourish, white America must come to a reckoning with the true history of our shared past. We must recognize the debt we white Americans owe Black Americans for hundreds of years of chattel slavery, segregation and Jim Crow, and enduring laws, policies and practices meant to sustain the racial wealth gap. We sadly and reluctantly acknowledge that our positions are not held by many of our fellow white citizens. As emerging advocates for reparations, we recognize that white resistance persists at an astonishing level and that it is fed by fear. White people have always had the need to create an Other. And the need for white people to protect the distance between them and the Other has become sacrosanct. White people are addicted to their privilege.
White reparationists are like addiction counselors ministering to our own people, our friends and families. We must provide education, facts, and a view of reality that embraces truth and truth-telling. We must be direct and empathetic, and set an example. We must confront misinformation, lies and bias. We must be compassionate and steady and ready to endure pushback, especially when it is unexpected. We must be diligent as well as patient, while demanding accountability, in the struggle for justice and fairness for all.
And it bears repeating that we declare, as our mantra: Reparations is our debt; reform is our duty.