Germany paid monetary reparations to Jewish people affected by the holocaust , and not only financial reparations- they have taken action on all fronts to heal the damage done to their society by the holocaust. https://www.npr.org/2012/05/31/153943491/stumbling-upon-miniature-memorials-to-nazi-victims
Why don't we use their example as a model of how to make reparations to African Americans here in the US? I agree with Brooks about very little, but I will say I agree that healing these fractures would be a start toward healing our broken society. Brooks' essay may just move the Overton window on this issue and bring it into the mainstream where it belongs.
77
Reparations for #ados is overdue. The Union allocated land and a mule for Blacks. President Andrew Jackson reneged on the agreement and gave the land to slaveowners. Legalized slavery, Jim Crow, KKK lynchings, racism in education, discrimination in employment, denied medical care, poor housing, mass incarceration and a reduced life span - have resulted in no "life," no "liberty" and an little pursuit of "happiness." Black suffering is and has served as the economic undergirding of U.S. society. Glasgow University and Caricom have in place remedies for African slaves as it relates to their locals. Race specific policies targeted at reconstructing Black communites. Policy should include widespread economic training for entrepreneurship and financial investments.
Dr. King said it best in his "We've come to get our check" speech:
https://youtu.be/pLV5y4utPKI
29
David, as one of your semi-regular readers and another slow convert to reparations, I ask you to consider a “wealth tax” (proceeds going to the least privileged) as an achievable and just form of reparations. Lengthier essay at
https://schmaltalk.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/reparations-and-the-wealth-tax/
19
I found Ta Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic article on reparations to be enlightening, but unpersuasive. This series in the Boston Globe, more about inequality than reparations, opened my eyes. “The median net worth of non-immigrant African-American households in the Boston area is just $8, the lowest in a five-city study of wealth disparities. It’s hard to ignore the dramatic contrast to the $247,500 net worth for white households in the Boston area.” The authors also propose a variety of solutions and remedies.
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/boston-racism-image-reality/
20
Black Lives Matter has thoughtfully and passionately advocated for reparations for some time now. As part of its platform, it calls for “Legislation at the federal and state level that requires the United States to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery, establish and execute a plan to address those impacts.” Such legislation would include educational access and actions to address racialized wealth inequality. (https://policy.m4bl.org/reparations/)
Only after we, collectively, acknowledge the depth to which our nation was founded on slavery (as well as colonization) will we be able to heal our wounds and come together. Reparations - and the process that would surround their development and implementation - are a honorable and serious way to begin addressing our collective wounds.
25
I think this issue of reparations is well overdue! I totally support a deep truth telling on Slavery, reparations along with the real true telling about the real "history of the "Democratic Party" in our country! This is a part of history that has been totally glossed over, candy coated, and has culminated right into our so called "woke culture" today! This is the "woke movement" that David Brooks is gloaming onto. Unfortunately, our "woke culture" is also limited by people such as David Brooks and other elite pontificates who rally around this issue out of their own guilt perhaps? I grant that America, has a real true reparations argument. But the true history around this should be told forthrightly and truthfully if we are to really move forward! Here is Thomas Sowells article from 2002! Yes I'm willing to have reparations, a discussion, truth forums, but lets ensure the real issues and history is brought and taught forward.
ago.https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2002/01/04/the-reparations-fraud-n1357327
5
How about reparations for almost all other Americans, whose ancestors also arrived here poor? I know that's silly, but it's also silly to think that people's distant ancestors can be vindicated by money to their descendants.
21
A wonderful sentiment and idea, David Brooks, but America seems hopelessly unable to get past its deplorable white spite.
Native American genocide and black slavery should be highlighted as prominently as our Declaration of Independence and Constitution in American culture and history books, but they tend to get short shift and be treated with a disgracefully dismissive 'get over it' attitude by a certain type of clueless, Caucasian American.
Tellingly, the old Confederacy's reaction to being told they were on the wrong side of human decency in 1865 was to double down on white supremacy by erecting Confederate monuments to white supremacy, celebrating the glory of white spite.
A decent people would have publicly reconciled themselves to to human decency after 1865, not reinvent white supremacy under deceitful 'new and improved' Jim Crow and KKK management that has facilitated the ghettoization of the black community to this day.
Truth and reconciliation are the way that history gets mended, but many Americans are lousy at history and reconciliation.
There should be a price to pay for crimes against humanity.
Slaves built this country....in a vaguely similar way that Latin Americans hold this country together in 2019 by doing all of America's 'dirty work' for modern slave wages that whites refuse to do.
And all the while, a certain type of white American keeps looking down on our better, darker angels who make this country great.
Repair thyself, deplorable white man.
40
Thank you!
18
Whether reparations are morally right or wrong, bringing them up in 2020 will give Trump four more years. Most white Americans don't want to be told their tax dollars are going to people whose great-great grandparents were harmed by people long dead.
Enjoy Trump 2020, my fellow Dems.
75
How can the "very act of talking about and designing" a reparations scheme "heal a wound"? When you go to a doctor to heal a wound, you don't want "talking" and "designing". Mr. Brooks, what is the doctor prescribing?
20
Time heals wounds by forgetting; we also forget, in time, inconvenient truths. We have forgotten the days of “one drop” and “Octaroons”, and our continued, well intentioned focus on all the things that do not characterize us as individuals, but rather, and unfortunately, again on unchosen and immutable characteristics—place of birth; color of skin; gender and genitalia—are tearing us apart, as such superficial and senseless focus always have, deeply in spite of our best intentions. Let’s discuss anything any everything but the things we did not choose and cannot change. Foreground everything common, and unique to our deep individuality. Reparations? An absurd lighting rod, which will be rightly understood as zero-sum “justice”, which is no justice at all. An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind, and we are more and more collectively sightless. Come on David, be the thinker you are. Lift your vision and describe a better world, and a better path there.
19
We humans have a horrible record of mistreatment and cruelty towards others. Slavery and displacing the indigenous peoples are just two of many examples. But what about the Jews, Hispanics, women, homosexuals, the Irish, people who are overweight, disfigured, handicapped, have the wrong accent, on and on? All of the above have faced discrimination. It is high time we stop this incessant victimizing! We all must take responsibility for finding a meaningful life within what is given to us.
The idea of monetary reparations is offensive to me. To hand out crumbs to any one group, as if that would help, is insulting to all of us.
53
Almost right, David Brooks. Just one more step back: the White Man's assumption of his prerogative to take from the Native Americans their land and their lives.
16
The Union won the civil war but lost Reconstruction. So now we pay endlessly for missing that brief opportunity when there may have been the political will to heal - to really make amends and rub out the shame of slavery. Today, it'll take another civil war before White America would ever acquiesce to real reparations. I hate to say it, but the white intelligentsia may do more harm by keeping the idea of reparations alive. It just sucks up too much political capital.
17
Thank you David.
9
MY Family came here a hundred years ago with nothing. They worked hard, sent their kids to school. Those kids did not have babies out of wedlock. They did not go on welfare. They did not get involved with gangs or drugs. Slowly, over several generations, they improved themselves.
I do not mean to be hurtful but the Black community is not helping itself. The federal government has been shelling out billions of dollars of Great Society money since the 1960s with little to show for it. Those are our reparations.
I respectfully argue that the Black community needs to do more to help itself.
92
Germany has paid reparations for 75 years to Jews and others harmed by the Nazis because the German people accepted responsibility for and acknowledged German crimes. I would totally support the same for black Americans. And Native Americans. How about for women, too? We have suffered under slavery, assault, oppression, alienation of rights, and discrimination for millennia up until the present day. I think a guaranteed basic income for all of these groups, mean tested for income, would work.
14
I invite Paul Krugman and other contributing economists to the New York Times to suggest the contours of a potential reparations package for American Indians and African Americans.
13
Bravo Mr Brooks!
16
Those who deny responsibility for slavery and therefore oppose reparations should realize that slavery helped make the U.S. the prosperous country that it is today. In fact history reports that in the early 18th century, Canada petitioned great Britain to allow slavery because the Canadians saw how prosperous it had made the U.S; attractive to immigrants from all over the world seeking a place where there was opportunity for their labor to be rewarded and where upward economic mobility was possible. Most immigrants obviously did not find this possible in their countries of origin.
Many immigrants were considered the dregs of society in their old countries, peasants and serfs, but here in America they found that as low as they might be they could never be at the bottom. There was a buffer. That rung was reserved for the descendants of the enslaved. Many of these immigrants ultimately denied membership in trade unions, housing in their neighborhoods and employment in their work places to the descendants of slaves. In other words, many immigrants adopted the prevailing racial discriminatory policies of the mainstream. One of the most violent race riots in this country was the New York anti-draft riots of 1863 in which a largely Irish immigrant population in their opposition to the draft, drove practically all blacks from Manhattan fearing that freed slaves would travel north to compete with them for their often menial jobs.
27
Brooks is correct about the need for us whites to realize we are participating in racism by living in a racist system that excludes, demonizes, and devalues black people on a systematic basis. It's baked in to all of us in the complex net of reciprocal relationships we all engage in every day. We can't get away from it - and trying to live "pure" outside of it is even worse, because that extends our alienation, difference, and dissonance even futher. So what it to be done? Recognize it, first, as Debbie Irving has done in "Waking up White" - an eye-opener for me. Then what do we all do next? That's the hard part. We have to mingle, miscegenate, bring ourselves together - we can't just buy our way out with monetary compensation - that would actually be a monetized continuation of the insult. We are stepping into a new world in a new century that must dedicate itself to eliminating disparities, egregious consumption, and exclusiveness - that is, undoing the outputs of the 20th century "progress" we thought we would enjoy forever but which turn out to be unsustainable.
11
This goes on and on. Stokley Carmichael's coined the now ubiquitous term "institutional racism." Then came Ta Nahesi, "get woke" and check your privilege. Now comes Mr. Brooks, once a fairly rational, middle of the road Christian Humanist conservative. As for an ultimate reckoning, Lincoln was right. But 618,222 men died in the Civil War, 360,222 from the North and 258,000 from the South. Most of these, not all, were white soldiers. That would seem to be expiation enough.
43
It's an idea, a bad idea. What we need is a Janus moment, a moment in time where we divide the past from the future and look forward. Solve problems with direct, effective interventions that deal with the effects of history and not history itself.
The disadvantages and bigotry that blacks deal with today certainly trace their origins back to slavery but the nature of their current discriminations have nothing to do with slavery. The expression of the burdens that many American citizens bear are found in their circumstances. Their weakness and vulnerabilities have been targeted by a corporatist government that have driven the weak into a deeper and more inescapable poverty.
Deal with that.
19
Racial discrimination is the issue. I am not convinced that slavery is the proximate cause of racial discrimination.
Coates' argument is based on economic analysis--on a comparison of the economic well-being of blacks and whites. Blacks lag behind whites, a legacy of slavery, he assumes, and we should therefore make reparations to blacks whether they have ever been personally enslaved or not.
It gives me no joy to point out that a comparison can be made between the economic well-being of African Americans as compared to modern-day Africans, with the logical result that African Americans should be charged boat fare.
21
During the centuries in which slavery existed in the United States, my ancestors were living in eastern Europe and the emigrated from there to the U.S. long after slavery ended. I have no intention of paying a single cent for the crimes of slave owners long dead.
48
I certainly support full equality for every American. Haven't made up my mind on reparations or what that would look like. But I want to address the elephant in the room -- that it is WOMEN, in this country and around the world, who have historically borne the brunt of oppression. No matter their skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc., women in every culture and time period are in general worse off in every category than men. Until about forty years ago, men could LEGALLY rape their wives. There was no such thing as consent once you were married. Women could not get credit in their own names until, I think, the 1970s. 100 years ago, women were legally "chattel." They BELONGED to their closest male relative. Once a woman married, she and all her assets became the property of her husband. We could not even vote until 1920, 50 years after African American males were (technically) granted suffrage. So where is the discussion about some form of reparations to women? Exactly nowhere. I am the only person I know who ever talks about it. And honestly, I don't personally expect any financial reparations. I would much prefer to look forward and level the playing field NOW for everyone in this country, so that every man, woman, and child, of whatever origin, has the same chance at success. Sadly, racism AND sexism are both very much alive and well today. Let us all work together with all our hearts, all our strength, all our ideas, to bend that arc toward justice!
12
When I saw the title of this essay, I assumed it was meant as an insulting parody of Coates' Atlantic essay by the same name. I would have put odds against it being homage at a thousand to one...but then, Brooks himself would once have thought the same thing about the prospect of this epiphany.
It really is a sign of hope, that someone like Brooks can recognize this truth. While Germany has totally reinvented itself since the time of the Nazis, nothing comparable has ever taken place in the US. There, Nazi symbolism and salutes are actually illegal; here, we have over a thousand statues that revere the Confederate leaders, most of which were specifically installed to advocate for white supremacy following the Civil War or during the civil rights era. America has been in deep denial since the Civil War ended, and a serious discussion of reparations might force the end of that denial.
The effects of racism in 2019 are both strong and objectively measurable. They appear in nearly every facet of American life. To end the cold civil war that we have been in since 1865, we must start by recognizing the nature of the problem. A national discussion of reparations would be a good place to begin.
17
We can have reparations now. It's called Universal Basic Income and it can benefit poor whites, Native Americans and African-Americans.
14
Actually the concepts reparations and sin is unnecessary to heal this wound. Let us just employ the basic premise of civil and human rights; that everyone must be included in basic civil and human rights. If we see this, we can in the present, without a reference to a past that seeks vengeance on the present, commit the resources, government and otherwise, to make these basic rights a reality for everyone. There is no need for concepts like sin, concepts that when employed, will insure a solution to these lacks will never materialize. If fact, the concept sin is responsible for the past abuses that we suffer from in the present. (We can ignore those savages because they are not part of the One True Faith: we the righteous, can enslave them to serve us, the righteous) Just do the right thing now, instead of a competition for who is the greatest victim. This whole idea of fixing the past is just a way to avoid the solutions here and now in the present. Nothing can be done in the past or the future. The time to heal things is now. Vote for someone, what ever their politics, who will work to commit these resources, NOW.
2
I dislike the use of words like sin, but if there is such a thing, Slavery and Racism embody it.
Reparations are just. They are needed.
To those whose families, like mine, arrived in the US after the Civil War, and disavow responsibility for reparations, I would just say that you and yours reaped and still reap the benefits of that fundamental injustice almost every day.
16
There's one party that stands in the way of all the good this article aspires to—the party (no longer) of Lincoln.
3
From the end of Reconstruction until recently, our country viewed Blacks as the deservedly Poor. Black Americans have less wealth because USA federal, state, and local laws, vigorously enforced by federal, state, and local police, and vigorously prosecuted by federal, state, and local government attorneys, aggressively supported by banks, insurance firms, and utilities, was to keep Blacks in poverty.
Blacks were "not supposed to be" rich. Blacks were blocked from buying houses in the suburbs, were kept out of the banking system, and were systematically stopped from saving their wealth and from transferring their wealth to future generations.
In the USA today, the average White family has 10X as much financial and real estate wealth as the average Black family. Nearly ALL of that difference is because of the laws and customs that blocked Black Americans from buying their own home in the suburbs. Since the Fair Housing Act was past in 1968, Black Americans now only face prejudice, not the law, when they visit new housing in the suburbs. Most are stopped for "driving while Black" on the way there, but not arrested.
9
Brooks is slow in many ways, many understandings, but he does keep plodding.
He may wish to explore how the Republican Strategy of
appealing to the ungodly Religious Right has rent us asunder.
7
I'm okay with this but I do not have much to contribute money wise.
Let's get real. Coming out for repatriations is political suicide. Go, Democrats, Go---for repatriations.
10
Next, let’s see a column on the case AGAINST reparations. It’s much stronger.
19
Keep it real people. If the democrats adopt this position we may as well make Trump king for life.
26
Basically, what Brooks and the Democrats want can be summed up in one word: Zimbabwe. Google it.
15
If there are to be reparations, and I oppose them, the amount of monies paid for welfare support - food, housing at least - should be deducted.
14
The only thing we lack are Leaders in this Country who believe in Reparations. Absolutely the American Indians and the Black citizens deserve Reparations.
If that can happen in Germany for the heinous acts that were perpetrated against the Jewish people, there should be no argument against it here in America.
How can anybody of conscience be against it?
6
Reasonable idea, but let's address systemic racism today before we think about reparations to make up for yesterday.
5
Amen, Brooks!!!! We finally see that elephant....
3
David, I appreciate the thought that went into this and acknowledging where you are coming from and where you are. One of the problems I think is using the term "reparations", which implies making some sort of payment/property, and our hands are washed of it. There are people in the affected communities who say "if I only had that 40 acres and a mule", but that won't change reality much.
What we really needs is a reckoning, a process to allow the truth of slavery and its effects to come out and the nature of racism and what it means, the problem is many people, like yourself, equate the poverty and issues native Americans and black face with the poverty other groups face; more importantly, you hear "slavery ended 150 years ago, get over it). One of the biggest factors of racism is that people not seeing it is racism, it is assuming everyone is the same, society is colorblind, etc.
Of course the real question is in the how, how do we do this? I am loathe to use the term moral crusade, because that involves in many minds religion, when most of the religious groups in this country have not reconciled their roles in slavery, most of the mainstream protestant and Catholic Churches either actively or by inaction supported slavery, and they have too much reason to bury the past or pretend like morally they were in the right.
2
David Brooks is talking like an optimist, not always a new tone, but one we can get used to. Yet without some more meat on the bone, this reads like a vain attempt at consensual healing in a nation where consensus is usually more meaningful in the realm of the ideal.
If there's an opening here it's to reparations that are non-materialistic, some act that people can engage in or commitment they can practically make without forfeiting what's harder to separate from a sense of personal earnings. Not only racism is a national and a cultural sin, but materialism, ego-ism, trivialization, and manipulation are as well. All of these would be indulged in any discussion or enforcement of reparations.
Healing is not a mere monetary thing. To suggest that it can result from a legal award is to engage in a form of justice and unreality that creates the need for more healing. To try to materialize racism is eye-for-an-eye thinking--because it happened with slavery, we have to repeat the error in a new way. It means dealing in moral unreality. Better give us something more to chew on, David.
3
Slavery and bigotry predate America. The Bible dates them to the sons of Noah. The original sin that drives them will forever be more prominent in melting-pot lands like America than in Norway or Mongolia, but prominence does not prove predilection.
All of us on this planet claim identities superior to some others. Let's be mindful of that sin, do our best to reparate (i.e., repair) ourselves, but compensation borne of guilt is a far worse remedy than atonement through reconciliation.
6
'What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.'
Beautifully said, but can we have some specifics? How will we know when we have arrived close enough to spiritual renewal so we can taste it?
Also, should Affirmative Action be calculated when deciding the sum total for reparations? And what about person of mixed race?
5
This is a very complex set of issues and a wide discussion has to be had. That alone is logistically challenging. Where will ideas and opinions be published? What media outlets would participate without commercial incentives? Pres. Clinton asked the nation to have a discussion on race and it went nowhere. Who will lead us? The talking has to be publicly widespread if we're going to get much buy-in. I suppose the Times deserves credit for furthering the converation. We will need many leaders.
2
God strike me dead I agree with David Brooks
2
The only question you must ask yourself: Would you mind if tomorrow you woke-up black?
8
Fellow African Americans do not fall this. It is iron pyrite, otherwise known as fool's gold. I cannot tell you how many times underqualified white men felt that I took their jobs because of affirmative action.
Most of the complainers had no pertinent degree, no experience, and a sour personality. What they had was their aggrievement and they acted on by protesting, voting, and getting judges who have struck down affirmative action and civil rights laws. They become cops and then legally act out their grief. They see us and reflexively reach for their guns. Sometimes they shoot.
On more than one occasion, I have had white tell me that I owe them money for the taxes they pay supporting welfare benefits to blacks. If reparations are paid the conservative Republican white man will resent black people more than they do now and will do so until the country ends.
Do not do it.
8
If by reparations we are talking about fixing the systemic inequality our our country, then its a great plan that many people already support. Increasing equality through things like better secondary public education, prison and justice reform, and civil rights programs is just good government. It's an appropriate use of taxes that gives benefits to all, but with extra benefits for those hurt by inequality. You could even take it a step farther to ensure true economic reparations are given: give all African-Americans a blanket tax cut for a period of years, while ensuring those programs designed to remedy inequality remain fully funded. It ensures the inequality is recognized and remedied without forcing those discriminated against to pay the price, but still gives other taxpayers a benefit. We won't go bankrupt; cities use an analogous practice in property tax abatements all the time.
If by reparations people are talking about a lump monetary handout to all descendants of slaves... It's simply untenable and needs to stop being discussed; it only hurts the situation. Many, many people whose descendants came after the Civil War will refuse to willingly pay for the sins of people who were NOT their fathers. And honestly, I find it hard to make any argument that will convince them otherwise.
The best way to solve community problems is in solutions that help the community at large, not by by punishing the many for the sins of the few.
6
Amen
Reparations to women should come first!
3
I applaud this article. Interesting how many of the comments miss the point. They focus on individual suffering, family suffering (i.e. some of my ancestors died fighting to end slavery), but not the stain (or "sin") that slavery left on our nation - the stain that is ongoing systemic racism. Even if your forefathers fought for the north in the Civil War, you're not addressing the real and persistent stain that shows in the grandmother whose story Brooks opened this article with. We can't heal this deep rip in our national fabric without a willingness to listen and repair. We won't be forgiven until we fully acknowledge the depth of the evil that was slavery and genocide, and the way that evil still dominates the experience of black and native Americans. Come on, my fellow white folks, let's stop being defensive and start honest efforts to repair.
7
Lets start with this idea: Every private college founded during the era of slavery and all state sponsored colleges should provide free education to the descendants of Slaves that toiled in the United States. I think it would be difficult for the slavery-era colleges to argue that they did not benefit from slavery. I also think that through national commerce every State of the Union that existed at the end of slavery was complicit in and benefited from slavery.
4
It seems a light bulb has switched on for David. Kudos!
This is why affirmative action was devised. It was a flexible means of reparations, offsetting longstanding disadvantages. People like Allan Bakke complained that this was unfair and disadvantaged other people, i.e. whites who had to give up finite resources to the beneficiaries of affirmative action. Unfortunately, the arguments of Bakke and other similar persons were accepted instead of rejoined with the fundamental truth: "your numerical score is not identical to the same numerical score of the successful African American candidate. You did not achieve your score in the face of pervasive multi-generational handicaps. And therefore you don't make the cut."
The other argument waged against affirmative action was that it should not continue indefinitely. While this argument has obvious intuitive appeal, it was asserted in bad faith because affirmative action was dismantled in a single generation. The damage of ten generations cannot be repaired in one.
I'm sure other forms of reparations are also appropriate, but affirmative action was one effective reparative tool.
3
I’ll always remember where I was the day David Brooks came to recognize that slavery is more than just an incidental part of American history, and that, furthermore, slavery is a bad thing.
5
I would be in favor of reparations if they took the form of a national re-dedication to achieving equality . In other words, creating a truly level playing field or even tilting that field towards the victims of slavery and Native Americans. I'm in favor of some of my taxes going for those kinds of programs. But cash reparations will do little or nothing to improve the lives of those now - at least for the long term and the issue or reparations is more likely to tear this country apart and increase the divide rather than lessen it. I don't think the country is ready.
2
"Fourth, sin travels down society through the centuries. Lincoln was saying that sometimes the costs of repairing sin have to be borne generations after the sin was first committed."
That is what we call "corruption of blood". It's addressed in the Constitution on the subject of Treason, but the principle holds for aforementioned 'sin'. Reparations based upon the sins of the now dead accused are unconstitutional. 'Sin' is a religious concept, a Christian one. Paying reparations based on the concept of sins (Christian) of now dead offenders would also be unconstitutional.
7
An important, thoughtful, and timely piece. Just to be clear though, we should not let discussion of "reparations" as commonly construed (e.g., one or more cash payments for past injustices) distract from the pressing and ongoing need to equalize opportunities in education, health care, and the judicial system among others.
6
The people disagreeing with the concept of reparations to the descendants of enslaved African Americans and Native Americans miss this point:
If you have benefited from the conditions in this country, you have benefited from the labor of slaves that built this country even if you didn't own a slave nor did your ancestors. Keeping people out of the paid labor pool through racist legislation ensured that you or your ancestors could live, work, and get paid for your labor, enabling you to acquire wealth throughout generations, something that slaves and their descendants didn't get through Jim Crow laws and other de facto racist laws.
Another example: If your family was able acquire land through the Homestead Act of 1862, then you effectively benefited from the forced removal of Native Americans because - guess what! - the law SPECIFICALLY excluded them from participating or benefiting from that law.
Reparations doesn't mean accepting responsibility for a crime you didn't commit. It merely admitting that there was a gross, systemic crime visited on a population through no fault of their own for generations. Reparations can be symbolic, like a public apology; or they can be material, like a pension or an annuity payment or a one-time cash payment. We can even role it up into a universal basic income scheme, where documented descendants of slaves would get an extra stipend.
If we are able to send aid to foreign country allies, why can't we do it here?
10
Slaves were beaten, raped, and worked to death. But they were also dehumanized from the moment of birth. Their parents could not name them and lived in perpetual fear of separation. This dehumanization continued until death, when they were buried in unmarked graves. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello provides all the evidence one needs to understand this travesty. Don't know how reparations can ever begin to address this sin, but they are a start.
11
If slaves and indigenous people were denied the vote and considered as only worthy of fractional accounting for administrative purposes. Only 3/5 of whites, why not allow their contemporary votes to count as 5/3?
Many states continue to suppress their votes to this day.
5
I would say 100 times votes for Black and 10 times votes for the new citizens coming bravely over trump death wall.
Reparations? No doubt they are due some type of compensation for the suffering their families were forced to endure, however, my grandchildren will leave college more in debt, than those poor student who are able to tap grants my grandchildren cannot. Five acres and a mule - mine get to start $100K behind.
6
Mr. Brooks, thank you. Reading the NYT today with headlines that underscore the absolute moral bankruptcy and despair of having to endure an abject liar as President, your thoughtful essay gives me hope through the bedrock powers of free speech and compassion. If not now, when, if not us, then whom.
6
No federal taxes for AAs.
That could get bipartisan support from people and kill the issue for politicians.
2
So Oprah, JZ, LeBron, Obama or Ken Chennault would pay no taxes?
4
As Mr. Brooks says, almost as an afterthought, reparations would be "hard to execute," he understates it by a massive amount.
Yes, America has a dark past. It's been a tough, killer-country since the first "settlers" staggered ashore, bringing the cross and the virus. There is deep guilt at the heart of the American experiment. A lot of good people got hurt, exploited, killed--but they weren't all black. Or Native Americans. Or...see where this goes?
While Mr. Brooks thinks we can "talk about" reparations, be assured it will not be the kind of "talk" that a kindly, New York intellectual would even dream of joining. It will add rocket-fuel to the two most dangerous trends in American society: the relentless effort to herd individuals into groups and the arbitrary assigning of moral qualities to these tribes--some "oppressed," some the evil "oppressors."
And, second, the unprecedented megaphone given to the ill-informed, the hyper-egotists, the sociopathic, the out-and-out psychos among us. As Yeats said, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity."
Go ahead. Pull the cork on the reparations bottle; what comes out won't be pretty.
10
Ain't gonna happen. Recall that in the late 60s "compensatory treatment" had to be rebranded as affirmative action to get anywhere -- and even then, beginning with court cases in the 80s (!), opponents have fought it tooth and nail and are still at it. Indeed, that opposition has a long to do with Trump being in the White House. I'm afraid that further progress on race will come only as older whites -- my generation, sorry to say -- die off and are replaced by more open young whites and immigrants of all colors. The sin runs deep.
5
Trayvon Martin's murder for being black is what finally opened my eyes to start me on my journey. Reading Coates and a number of other African-American authors guided me and educated me, until I fully understood the white privilege that had helped me and my family - which has nothing to do with our working class background and lack of wealth, and everything to do with how we are "seen" simply because we are not people of color. I agree that the time has come for reparations - for Native Americans and for African-Americans, as genocide and slavery are the twin original sins on which the U.S. was established. Well done, Mr. Brooks - I hardly ever agree with you, but on this question, we stand together.
12
Rather than reparations for past sins we should be focusing on how to stop continuing them in the future. We must interpret "all men are created equal" as all people and insure that equal opportunity is available to everyone.
5
Bravo David! Thank you for expressing this, and in so public a forum.
5
Slavery is the USA's Original Sin. (Thank you for acknowledging sin at all....) For significant, meaningful reparation, we would have to have leadership...moral leadership of the sort that could galvanize public consciousness toward reparation. We don't have that and we have never been farther from having it in our entire history, in our lives. But thank you for soothsaying.... You are a leader.
4
I’d like to see a proposal. How in detail will reparations work? Where will the money come from? (Will Mexican-Americans pay?) Who is to be given what? A flat $500/month? $1,000/month? For life? Will African-American newborns receive reparations from cradle to grave?
Who exactly will qualify for payments? Native Americans too? Elizabeth Warren? Will someone who has 2% African DNA get paid the full amount, or 2% of it?
Mr. Brooks correctly notes that “We’re a nation coming apart at the seams.” If a democratic Congress and the president pass some such thing in 2020, or maybe in 2024, it will finish tearing this country apart.
The writer of this comment is willing to pay, even though neither side of his family ever had anything to do with slavery. Also, an ancestor of his, an Irishman who came here on a coffin ship (because of the potato famine), stopped a Confederate musket ball at Gettysburg, fighting under General Meade, seven months after the Emancipation Proclamation. (Was his blood a reparations payment? If so, how much was his blood worth?)
Anyway, I’ll pay. Just don’t talk to me about “Modern Monetary Theory,” the fringe idea that we can print money to cover any expense. Show me something realistic, repeat, realistic, that answers the questions I’ve posed.
My point is: the proposal is almost certainly impractical. Worse, it will pour gasoline on a raging fire. Partisans never care about consequences, but consequences will come.
8
Tell it to the Supreme Court majority that said there wasn't any racism we needed to worry about legally any more. Tell it to the Republican party that openly courts elements of white supremacy, in particular the Southern Baptist Convention that "split with northern Baptists over the issue of slavery".
3
@Glenn W. Odd for me to defend Brooks, but he is doing exactly that. By writing a visible opinion piece in the NYT he -as a somewhat moderate conservative- is very publicly making a case for reparations.
Reparations is impossible thing to achieve for the Democratic Party even it is right thing to do. Let us think something different which we can do. It may be labeled as extreme leftist agenda which is bad politically. WE HAVE TO WIN THE ELECTIONS.
8
This idea is so divisive that any Democratic candidate for president who endorses it will surely be giving Donald Trump another four years in the White House.
16
How responsible today are we for the "sins" of our fathers? If anything the issue of "reparations" should have been made far closer to 1865, when the people responsible for the injustice could have been held accountable. Much as the Japanese-Americans who were sent to concentration camps were later apologized to and given compensation by the generation responsible for their internment.
Otherwise where do you start and where do you end? And what form does "reparations" take? If a monetary side alone, where does the money come from, who pays for it, and how would it be distributed? If it's a generalized "tax," then the African-Americans would end up in part paying for their own reparation. But do you just tax white people, the vast majority descended from people who had no involvement with the original "sin" in the first place? What about mixed race? How would all of that happen?
Native Americans have at least as great a claim on the sins of the past as African Americans. Driven from their lands, killed to the loss of whole Tribes, marginalized on reservations, their inheritance has been pretty bleak too.
History is what it is, the good, the bad and the ugly. We may learn the lessons so we aren't condemned to repeat them, but this whole idea needs a lot of careful thought lest it provoke more racial hostility than it intends to relieve.
8
Sex. Don't forget sex David. To have that degree of control, ownership over another that you can do anything sexual to them you want is a powerful aphrodisiac both today and yesterday. DNA testing done clearly points to a massive intermingling during slavery, and most of that was non-consensual. Reparations or not, there is a strong case for a denied patrimony that should be paid.
5
Oh, Mr. Brooks, it's so good to see that you finally have come around to getting it! You've sneakily been getting there for a while, and have inspired me, here, to be hopeful that an 'ACTUAL change' in the darkest matter ever to have permeated our world will occur before I die. My hope is that others in our shattered society also will recognize, and acknowledge, with glee, your apparent new depth of understanding. It always has been obvious in our country among some of us that 'other' dividing causes were born of tangential issues that could distract us from the BIGGY: Black-White Racism (so very different from the Native American one) that would give us time to exhale. As a male of color survivor, surviving the return of a blatancy of hate/sin in my birthplace that has re-awakened my experiential depths back to a 1940's USA, I find that, though still hopeful, I am averse to any "bandaid on a leper" kind of a reconciliation, which to me, thus far, has served only to cover up our shared wound (again) and not doing the still needed deep root hard work, without anesthesia, of exterminating cause. I'm ready.
Your "real" news is good!
2
A start could be to uniformly and finally enforce all the anti-discrimination laws already on the books. Jobs, housing, education, and not getting shot by cops would go a long way toward building trust and rebuilding black and native communities. At the same time - vitally - it would establish a culture of fairness among whites. “This new way is the way we do things.”
This would cost a lot of money. But it would be a start. And once we did it the path to monetary reparations would be established.
This will also never happen. But neither will monetary reparations.
We will make no progress on this issue until we quiet the White anxiety brokers who insist that for one person to win another must lose. We can all win together.
2
Mr. Brooks is becoming more like Karensky every day...As to America coming apart, I suggest he read Megan McArdle in the Post regarding how much time Americans are spending in front of screens instead of in community-related efforts.
It's about technology, not slavery. A helping hand, yes. A hand-out, no. In all probability, it's the Tower of Babel for all of us.
2
Unless and until people like Trump consider African Americans and other people of color human beings, this will never end. The word race needs to be stricken from our lexicon unless we're talking about the "human" race, for that is what we're all about...human, humanity. We need to talk about the human "species" and not talk about the "black race."
We are a species that inhabits the planet and not different races. And yes, we owe the members of our race that were enslaved because, in many ways, they continue to be enslaved. We all know how and why and that is part of the tragedy because we lack the will do do anything meaningful about it.
1
Sorry, David, but there is no case for so-called "reparations." Victims of slavery are long dead, so they cannot be made whole. Six hundred thousand Americans died to end that cursed institution.
Finally, more than 8 generations of Americans have been born since slavery ended, and the vast majority of them immigrated from countries that had no role in slavery. So, you are assigning collective guilt to all white people whether or not their ancestors benefited from slavery, and declaring that because of their skin color, they should fund "reparations."
No thanks.
11
So if reparations are paid, are the "guilty" ones then free to go on as before? "Hey, I paid, I'm absolved, it's your problem now."
Reparations, no. Repairs, yes. Use the money to break down racism: education, housing, healthcare, etc. Raise the minimum wage. Ask those who have been wronged whether they want to be bought off or whether they want their lives, and their children's lives, to be improved.
Oh wait. One of our political parties has been advocating exactly that for many decades.
2
If you want to see an economy thrive, bring up all suppressed groups and give them equal footing, equal opportunity, and equal pay.
Over the years, my views on this have changed. I used to say we already paid reparations with the civil war that freed the slaves and based on my assumption that we would give a cash payment to each black person in this country. But, over time, I see that our African American brothers and sisters are still paying the price of slavery by keeping them economically, socially, educationally, etc, starved.
My viewpoint today is, we need to put money towards bringing up those who are still kept down by funding better education and opportunities, and removing the barriers, usually created and enforced by unenlightened whites.
And we must address the white nationalist movement in this country, and, probably most importantly, address voting suppression tactics by the one political party who is actively trying to keep non-whites from voting.
But, all of this requires all suppressed groups to get out and vote against the party that enforces suppression more than any other party.
3
I'm sure Mr. Brooks' fellow republicans will welcome the proposal for reparations with open arms.
Ignorant whites still consider blacks inferior and treat them cruelly because they can and get away with it, because bigotry and racism are just shrugged off as if bigots and racists were born that way and can't be taught.
American male privilege and power can't comprehend that people of color, women, foreigners, and those of 'different' sexual orientation are equal or better and should be treated with dignity.
Ignorant, benighted people get away with insults, humiliations, bullying, physical intimidation, even death of the "other" because nobody stands up to them and makes them pay for their awful behavior.
Not only will bigots and racists deny reparations for past "sins", one of them has been elected president by Mr. Brooks' own party.
Reparations? How about safe, quality schools, a living wage, a national health service, affordable housing, decent roads, safe bridges, clean water and safe, nutritious food in every neighborhood in the land?
How about a real war on poverty and injustice? How about a real fight against drugs? How about the elimination of guns?
These proposals are no more pie in the sky than proposing reparations to slave descendants in this day when the rabid right wing GOP rules the country and won't stand up to the vile racist in the White House.
1
Wowser!
First of all, let me say that I am merely an observer here; no skin in the game, so to say. But here’s my take:
So the white folks pay a fine which I surmise from Mr. Brooks essay, goes to the black folks.
OK, then what?
When the proceeds of this fine are consumed and spent, and nothing changes, because why would the payment of a fine change long ingrained behavior (by both white folks and black folks), which has caused this need for reparations, then in 20, 30, 40 or 50 years from now when the same forces that created the current crisis calling for the payment of this fine, do the white folks again measure up and pay another fine to the black folks? Or do they say, “Once is enough?”
I don’t know. But it seems a bit naïve to think that the payment of a fine, tagged on to everything that has been done to repair the wrongs occasioned by slavery, more or less beginning with Brown v Board of Education and the tidal wave of amiliorating legislation that has followed over the last 70 years, will do anything more than salve the conscience of the present generation of white folks for the sins of their fathers. New white folks and new black folks to come along will face the same dilemma a generation or two or three from now. But who knows?
4
In what form will reparations be made? What would be of the most benefit, both short and long-term, to the maximum number of African-Americans and Native Americans? My suggestion is creating economic opportunity, through both public and private means, specifically in impoverished communities in all 50 states. This is a daunting task and would require massive co-operation and co-ordination between federal, state and local governments and subsidies to businesses that participate in National Reparation. It is true that the presidency, the US Senate, and many state governments are currently controlled by people who can't or refuse to see the harm done by the sins of the past that continue to poison the soul of our nation. There will always be backward and toxic people, either in control or doing harm on the fringes of society. The rest of us cannot allow their selfishness and moral blindness to deter us from doing what is right. We need a national movement for reparations as strong and effective as Me Too and all the other galvanizing forces that have changed attitudes and laws that at one time seemed impossible to change.
2
I worked in a mill department that was 95 percent African American. Most moved up from the south in the 1950’s. In Vietnam also served with many. Never once did I hear about reparations. All they ever wanted was equal opportunity. When they came back from ww2 or Korea they had to sit in the back of the bus. When they came back from Vietnam they met a hostel police force in the inner city. Today the president makes the athletes kneeling a political tool. And still all they want is an equal opportunity.
2
Good work. Thanks David.
Great article. Coates article in the Atlantic is worth reading.
The Civil War battle was won but the war is still raging due to the "southernization" of our politics. The Charters of the Carolinas policies are alive and well in the policies and platform of the Republican party. Seeded in the philosophy of Locke the rights of "property" have more standing than basic human rights. Thus we are still a plantation nation.
The old trope has not died but fed to poor people from not quite the "right neighborhood" - work hard and you will rewarded and be glad that you are not black.
3
First of all I think these articles (and other commenters) need to stop being so loose with the term ‘reparations’. The term involves monetary or other assistance paid from one party to another. A “spiritual awakening”, recognition of “white privilege”, or any other nebulous concept are not reparations. So pick a new term if that’s what you’re after.
Second, the federal government is not something which can bear liability. Any assets or income it has collectively belong to all US citizens. Any claim against the government therefore falls on its tax paying citizens to cover. So stop using the government as a cop out when your attempts to blame all modern day white people for slavery fail. If you think all non-blacks should collectively pay blacks for whatever reason then say so. Make a case. But don’t hide behind this nonsense of holding the government liable.
3
The need for reparations is most obvious once we recognize what distinguishes Africans from other immigrant groups: Blacks are the only group that has been systematically obstructed from accumulating capital, and time after time blacks who have obtained capital have had it stripped away. We have been expecting Blacks to pull themselves up by their bootstraps after we have cut them off.
1
We have been making reparations since the 1960s. Trillions in social welfare programs and entitlements. Stop this nonsense.
12
"It is that the racial divide doesn’t feel like the other divides. There is a dimension of depth to it that the other divides don’t have. It is more central to the American experience."
Something those of us who take racism seriously understand, Mr. Brooks: it flows from slavery, otherwise known as "original sin."
1
How is it that money washes away a sin?
6
Ok so how is slavery the fault of the American people as a whole? Slavery was a southern institution and most Americans and their greater family had absolutely nothing to do with slavery. Much of the American population migrated to the US after the 1900s and had absolutely nothing to do with the slave trade. Also the government that was pro slavery was dismantled in the 1800s after The civil war. If anyone should pay out reparations it would be white anglo saxon southerners as most Americans where not involved in the slave trade.
5
It is not possible to see the full arc of what reparations should look like until we just start. And that starting place has to be a national commitment to tell the truth about slavery and everything that stemmed from that. Stop talking about the ‘happy plantation family’, states rights as the cause of the Civil War and that other groups had troubles too and all the myths we tell ourselves. Racism is a cancer eating away at the soul of our country. It makes us sick and prevents us from being what we might be.
1
David,
Reparation is required only from our own sins. That alone ought to keep us busy.
In our good, old churching days one could purchase indulgences for one's sins and be guaranteed cleansing of the soul. Over time, the nonsense of all that drove Martin Luther to nail new theses on the church door. It sort of worked.
Here we are again, this time trying to undo the sins of our forebears. In the land of Lake Woebegone we have renamed our former Lake Calhoun "Bde Maka Ska", a name known only to a few Native Americans in this country. This was done in reparation for the sins of former Sec of War John Calhoun 200 years ago.
One hopes that future "politically correct" generations find no faults in Obama or our own Paul Wellstone. There's a lot of schools who'd need renaming. If so,
Reparations won't fix it either. Just ask those who've split the settlments with their attorneys for our many past sins. As the attorneys, they will tell you they do not have sleepless nights on their private Caribbean isles.
Our sins are our own.
5
Okay, something clearly needs to be done. But what do you mean by "reparations?" That's a loaded term that needs unpacking.
3
Reparations fails the first and most critical test for legitimate reparations which is a requirement that once paid the issue is settled permanently.
When you ask for reparations from the court and receive them, that is the end of the grievance. Often publicly commenting on the issue is a violation of the settlement.
So if they were given... we'll just give all the black people all the white people's money... or some variation on that theme. Once that is done... the issue is settled forever. No more affirmative action. No more I'm disadvantaged.
The price of reparations would be closing out the race account entirely.
If that isn't on the table, then the very idea of reparations is a nonsense. Naturally, no one is going to accept at after reparations the issue is closed.
Thus reparations in and of themselves are impossible on that basis alone. Not only must it be an end, but it must be an enforced end as per the court context of court reparations.
What is more, you're not going to get Asians, Hispanics, and the many spectrum of Caucasians that don't feel responsible often for good reason to sign on to this thing. The entire discussion is nonsense from practically any angle is examined.
Stop thinking about everything racially. Race does NOT matter. People matter. If you attack me for the color of my skin then there can be no law between us. That sort of thing violates the social contract. That path leads to blood.
6
Slavery is an aberration among men, a vile institution whose sole objective is enhance profit. Sexism, on the other hand, happens within a 'natural-order-of-things' context. Because sexist assumptions are so deeply and subtlety threaded throughout all aspects of our lives, you simply don't see it as injurious. So before you so quickly diminish the multi-millennium long subjugation of women as not as important as the sin of slavery, you need to step outside of that context. Historically, women have been property of their fathers and husbands. Chattel with zero legal rights, exposed to violence and subjugation for no other reason than gender. Mr. Brooks, perhaps you show zero understanding of how this has affected women's place in society down through ages because you have a/ profited from female subjugation within a context of normalized entitlements which you can't see, and b/ you are intimate with women. Intimacy is a place where men can experience suffering at the hands of women, giving the impression of "equality." Both men and women in love can be betrayed. The mistake is believing that the vagaries of intimacy between men and women negates the expansive, historical -- and current -- condoning of female subjugation.
2
Yes, the country is coming apart at the seams. Worse, there’s no one who can sew it back together.
2
Unlearn European cultural norms that divide/judge, in fact indigenous peoples of this continent, prior to its “discovery” didn’t have words for gender or race. It has not always been the norm to discriminate.
Recognize your own (white) privilege/safe space, imagine the outcome of those hiccups in your own life if you had been a person of color. Respect that challenge others had to overcome. Reparations are a personal thing, YOU can make a difference just by seeing that reality and showing courtesy. Remember that we all trip up, no reason to assign one person’s gaff to an entire race or country.
Racism, injustice, slavery, violence leave indelible wounds that persist through generations. Nevertheless I think Mr. Brook's take on reparations is wrong. Lincoln's reference to the Jews and the Pharoh merely illustrates the futility of chasing the sunk costs of past grievances. Everyman's suffering is unique and yet somehow equally personal, whether the Jewish slaves in Eygpt, the slaves in America, the displaced Irish in the 1840's, the Ukrainians in the Holodomor, the Nazi Holocaust, present day Syrian or Rohingyan suffering, and on and on. To single out one or another sufferer as somehow special or unique or their past suffering redeemable or extinguishable by some act or recompense is a fools effort. “You can never understand what I have suffered”.
I think the inspiration of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Eli Wiesel, Mandela, and Jesus is that we never forget the injustices of the past, nor do stop looking for positive thoughts and deeds going forward, but that the past can only be reconciled through forgiveness and even hopefully coming to the realization that we must try to love and understand even our enemy, for in the end he is not our enemy, he is us.
3
Comedian Dave Chapelle in addressing the #metoo movement suggested a direction towards healing could begin with a “truth and reconciliation commission” akin to Nelson Mandela’s post-Apartheid South Africa. Perhaps in our national dialogue there is a place for this model somewhere to foster greater understanding as opposed to the blind eye our curriculum has for the exploits and depravity initiated by the Virginia Company. So much of this country’s original sin, the laws enacted to protect it, the stories prevented from ever being told because of them must be shared — I, for one, am tired of seeing the lance of justice break none — but those our founders clothed, and we continue to dress in rags.
At the time of the Civil War, my ancestors were living in fear of pogroms in Russia, in ghettos in Lithuania, and with great and open prejudice in Germany. They came to this country about 30 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Why do their dependents owe reparations to anyone?
8
Careful there.
When you start asking why it is that a descendant of a slave is treated so unfairly compared to a descendant of a slaveholder, you may start asking yourself why a son of a steelworker is treated so much less fairly than the kid of a real estate mogul. You keep asking those questions, you may get to why is a kid born in Juarez treated so much less fairly than a kid born 10 miles north.
3
I’ve seen many commenters here expressing sentiments along the lines of “I had no part in this problem so please leave me out of solving it.” To which I would reply that sure, I have little doubt that many of the people commenting on this forum were not themselves members of the Confederate Army, nor the Ku Klux Klan... but that does not at all mean that they have not benefitted in some way from the white supremacy that is so rampant in this nation and its institutions.
There is a simple fact that sums up the very uncomfortable, squirm-inducing truth about race in this nation: If you are a white person in this country, no matter your socioeconomic status, level of education, or family history, you have likely been spared some hardships that would have been (at times) gleefully meted out if you were black. Period, end of story. It does not matter if you are white and your grandparents and their parents lived below the poverty line—in all likelihood, your life has been *easier* in several real, meaningful ways because you are not a black person of the same circumstance.
This is why we need reparations. It’s rather simple.
2
@Just A College Student See below...
Manafort found guilty of bank fraud and other crimes receives a 47 month jail sentence, keeps his seven mansions and owes nothing to the US government for the cost of prosecuting his crimes.
Meanwhile, we read a report of yet another Black man who spent four Decades in solitary confinement for a crime he did Not commit; he's released without compensation.
What advancement has occurred due to the emancipation? What a farce is the statement, "equal justice under the law".
2
If David Brooks wishes to pay reparations, he is free to do so. Do not however, expect others like me, who have no responsibility for slavery or its effects, to do so. Perhaps we can place a check-off option on the IRS 1040, similar to the election to contribute to an election fund?
6
David Brooks I think you may be coming to see the light. America may make a liberal out of you yet. Just in time and welcome.
can we wait until I see if I have to pay taxes this year?
thank you
I have travelled in the South. I have witnessed the fact that many Southerners still do not accept the truth about the Civil War and the evils of the Southern plantation civilization. They call it the War of Northern Agression. They still believe they were the victims. To this day, their apocryphal version of history affects race relations and their relations with all fellow citizens outside the South.
Maybe paying reparations will make Southerners and Southern sympathizers face the evils of their romanticized plantation system, which was built and sustained by the horrors inflicted on other human beings by their sainted ancestors. The Civil War is over. The Confederacy lost. The ancestors of the oppressors must pay the ancestors of the oppressed. It is long overdue since those defeated ancestral oppressors never did the right thing by paying reparations at the end of the Civil War. I guess they were saving up to erect statues of slave holders.
1
Some posters here write as if the United States invented slavery. In fact, the word “slave” derives from “slav”, many thousands of whom were captured by Norse slavers, taken as chattels to ports in Northern France, and trans-shipped by Jewish traders to Islamic Spain, where they built the wonders of Cordoba and Grenada. Best current estimates are that 12 million people were taken in the African slave trade. Of these, approximately 6%, 600,000 were imported to North America before the trade was Constitutionally banned in 1808. The other 11.4 million were transported to the English, French and Dutch Caribbean or Spanish or Portuguese Colonies in South America. As is well documented, European slavers stopping in Africa, kept to the coasts for fear of disease, with virtually all their human cargo brought to them by other African peoples. Indeed, several tribes, such as the Ashanti, built great slaving empires, some surviving into the 1870s. By 1815, 1.7 million people were in “hereditary” slavery in the U.S. but there were also 200,000 free blacks.
My point? Human history ain’t pretty and doesn’t admit of facile, simplistic (and I suspect unworkable) solutions such as reparations. Indeed, Toussaint Louverture, who instigated the successful Haitian slave revolt, was himself a slave owner. Go figure.
Slavery existed from the very beginnings of human society, and didn’t end in 1865, but continued on until Brazil outlawed it in 1888. Nothing is ever going to “make things right”.
3
"The African-American experience is somehow at the core of this fragmentation — the original sin that hardens the heart, separates Americans from one another and serves as model and fuel for other injustices."
Yes, "somehow," definitely not because Republicans like Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and Donald Trump ruthlessly weaponized "the African-American experience" to win elections.
You, David Brooks, know that reparations will never happen as long as the modern Republican Party still holds any power. As long as you continue to support that Party, what you wrote in this column means nothing.
What about all the families who lost their loved ones fighting against slavery?
Like mine.
You want to make them pay up? Why should I have to pay for something my anscestors died for? For something I never did?
Am I supposed to inherit the guilt of others because I’m white?
I think not.
7
Huh? Here is the divide. It is between belief and reality. There is no natural “moral” order to the universe. Any “natural” order is amoral and to suggest otherwise is to mire all argument in a nuevo scholasticism.
1
Things do happen. "Segregation today, ...........forever" was said by the late George Wallace as he blocked the entrance to an institution back in the Fifties. What happened? Remember Post- Reconstruction? The Klan, Lynching, etc; what happened? Certainly those practitioners of murder and associated forms of violence did not foresee dilution and discontinuation of their brands of oppression and killing. What happened to miscegenation?
Reparation is nothing new. Slave owners were compensated for their loss of slaves following the revolution in Haiti. The United States and Europe made sure of this. Haiti is yet to recover. Slave owners in the Caribbean were compensated by the British for their loss of slaves following Abolition. Reparation for the enslaveds' descendants is ongoing. (See Hillary Beckles' address to the British House of Commons).
Events may emerge which make the serious consideration of some form of reparation seem to be the right thing.
Child abuse, pedophilia and rape, long time practices in "upstanding" institutions and churches are now falling out of favour. Race based slavery lost favor decades ago. Time to pay is approaching.
Your heart is in the right place, Mr. Brooks, but when your party cannot even fathom the need for Affirmative Action, how do you propose we proceed? May I suggest you start converting your own tribe first.
What about actual compensation for Japanese-Americans who lost their farms, businesses and homes when they were interred by Executive order in 1942. The local white racists stole their real estate, including some of the most productive farms in the world, when the Japanese-Americans were sent to relocation camps and prevented from paying their mortgages and real estate taxes, resulting in foreclosure and loss to the local racist buyer for pennies on the dollar.
Japanese-American translators served on the front line in combat and enabled American victory with lower casualties in the Pacific. They also served to convict war criminals at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials.
Where is the compensation for stealing their properties?
2
Thank you, David Brooks. You are dead right: slavery is our Holocaust, the national sin that sickens and distorts every aspect of our country. Until very recently, Germans have done a far better job of reckoning with their history than we have with ours. It's way past time we did--for all our sakes.
"What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.” - David Brooks
"Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story."
No, David, reparations = money. Anything less is just virtue signaling so you can feel better about yourself. Spare us.
Right. Because nothing heals racial divides like forcing certain ethnicities to pay other ethnicities money for crimes they did not commit.
4
In late 1865, the idea of '40 acres and a mule' was proposed for the former slaves in the South.
The Federal government dropped this idea because there was going to be an urgent need for labor to harvest tobacco and cotton crops in 1866, just like there always had been. These were major US exports at the time.
This time period was the only real chance at reparations and it didn't happen.
Sharecropping happened.
Reparations for slavery were politically impossible then and are now.
African-Americans will have to rely primarily on their own efforts to achieve good lifestyles...many have.
Government never provides more than the bare essentials to the non-working poor....otherwise the working poor would quit.
Or am I missing something here?
1
To further quote Lincoln from a different context, "It is all together fitting and proper that we should do this."
But the implementation will have to wait until the anti-Lincoln is out of office. In the meantime we can work on the "how" and hope that two years from now enough Americans understand the "why" to move forward with action.
1
This piece reads like the preface to a book in which Brooks will explain how he proposes to do it. David, write that book or at least provide us with some further columns explaining yourself. You have criticized advocates of single payer healthcare for not attending to the difficulties of implementation, but these would be a piece of cake compared to reparations.
1
A national reckoning that might lead to a spiritual reawakening is not going to be accomplished by the payment of money, the cutting of checks. The problem so accurately described by Mr. Brooks requires more, much more, and will instead involve each of us looking within, acknowledging the problem, and acting affirmatively to change it. Money is not the answer.
3
Perhaps like "Medicare or All", there are many disparate definitions of the term "reparations". If it is simply giving money to those who's ancestors were American slaves then the concept is just another example of treating the symptom and not the cause of a real problem. It would only make some feel good and others very angry. So what would actually treat the cause in this case. I think few would argue that a distinctive of our great country is that it is a land of opportunity. What's broken by systemic racism is unequal opportunity. Instead of handing out cash we should invest in things that level the playing field. Equal access to healthcare, a decent living wage for those who try to make ends meet and excellent education for those seeking to better themselves leap to mind. Many have tried to make these a reality already. The failure to do so shouldn't have us resort to paying people off, but in a redoubled effort to seize the moment and make them happen.
2
Yes, we need to rebuild our social and economic policies from the ground up, making them fair to everyone. But I fear that calling this process "reparations" will just trigger a backlash. Why not call it what it really is--simple justice?
2
Dear Democrats: If you want to achieve goals that will help everybody -- guaranteed comprehensive and affordable healthcare for everybody, a $15 minimum wage, and clean energy, you cannot go chasing after windmills that will divide your moderate and liberal brethren.
Also, think about why David Brooks, a Republican, would push for reparations -- it divides Democrats. Republicans are 100% against them, but Democrats are split.
Want to cause disruption within the Democratic Party before 2020? Push for reparations.
4
Reparations yes, but much more than that we need a national reconciliation over the enslavement of people brought to these shores against their will and the terrible injustices committed against those who were the first people of this country. Acknowledging those wrongs and lifting those up who suffered is a way to a much better America than we are today. I'm in.
Its ironic that this was published on the day of the Manafort sentencing. The concept of reparation assumes that the injustice which is to be atoned for is in the past. Yesterday's events only remind us of extent to which racial injustice persists in many forms.
1
Let's start with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
@Dale Godby
Yes. The former slaves and owners should testify live on TV. This will heal the wounds. Now, if we could only find someone to raise them from the dead we will be all set.
3
Impressive turn around and I totally agree and also think Native Americans should be wholly included without parentheses. And I don't think it matters that some people won't get it as mentioned in the comments. African Americans will get it and Native Americans will get it and I think a whole lot of other people will too. It must be done! Thank you, David Brooks!
4
I believe the America we should strive for is one in which an individual could be randomly assigned characteristics at birth and not feel the system is rigged against you. If reparations would get us closer to that, then we should consider those policies. Based on how contentious the issue is, it is going to be a hard sell.
Thank you, David Brooks, for the deep contemplation you have engaged in on this issue. It was a sin to enslave people, a stain on the moral fiber of this nation. That needs to be acknowledged and amends made. It's more than financial, it's moral. How to make amends, that will require many things, but one big one is to acknowledge that people have been kept down, traumatized stolen from, not received the same protections and prevented from gaining the same kind of generational wealth benefits.
2
I fully agree that we need to open ourselves up to the idea of reparations – for both African and Native Americans. But I take issue with Brooks’ framing the issue in presumptuous religious terms – “sin” and “there is a natural moral order to the universe.” Morality is not contingent upon religion. The wrong of slavery – and of the attempted genocide of Native Americans which Brooks amazingly ignores – can be recognized in simple humanistic terms: that we are hard-wired for reciprocal empathy, altruism, and sociability. There is no need to presume that the national conversation about this needs to be framed in a religious context. Slavery and genocide are wrong simply because they are a blatant betrayal of our shared humanity.
The easy part will be the monetary compensation. The much more difficult step will be the “national reckoning,” “the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences.” That will require a brutal collective honesty. And if we are to be honest we will have to recognize the irony of talking about this in the same Western religious register that helped encourage the idea of racial hierarchies in the first place – the religious beliefs that deemed blacks as inferior and Native Americans as savages –“the devils spawn.”
There is another way to look at this, one that relieves us of the duplicity and obfuscation of religious context, one that sees this as a PRACTICAL human issue - a step – not to right a wrong – but of moving on, TOGETHER.
3
I cried after reading your opinion column. Tears of healing. Tears of visibility.
1
President Lincoln said:
“Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
And Mr. Brooks said:
"There are a few thoughts packed into that sentence."..."Fourth, sin travels down society through the centuries. Lincoln was saying that sometimes the costs of repairing sin have to be borne generations after the sin was first committed."
Mr. Brooks engages in some sleight of hand here: The only thing Mr. Lincoln said regarding "centuries" was his reference to American slavery's 250-year history -- a history that was contemporaneous with Mr. Lincoln's speech. Thus Mr. Lincoln did NOT say that "sometimes the costs of repairing sin have to be borne generations after the sin was first committed" -- he said that 250 years of sin was 250 years too many. That's a COMPLETELY different idea.
9
I don't know if reparations are possible or if it would even help. Racism feels to me like a part of the human experience, we are to some extent hardwired to feel positive about ourselves and negative about people that are different. We need going forward someway to overcome our fear of people and cultures who are different from us, somehow to overcome our human need to feel superior.
3
So American to assume that throwing some bucks at a problem will make it all better. So American to decide that a completely symbolic gesture is more important than doing the hard work of creating a just society. And lately, so American to make sure that the gesture will help further identify each of us by our designated tribes.
And to think I actually hoped when Obama was elected we were growing up.
10
As with most difficult questions, the real question is how to begin. And even more difficult, how to begin in a real way that is not so overwhelming that it can never actually be implemented. The obvious answer is education. Black and Native American peoples are far behind in the struggle for even a semblance of equality, and on the average, lack the economic means to even dream of catching. But one thing that this nation can, and should do, is provide equal educational opportunities, no matter how poor a child's family are. And this does not have to be universal, it can begin with the poorest schools, those where spending is clearly inadequate. Just provide enough money for clean decent classrooms, and salaries sufficient to hire well-trained, qualified teachers. And the money would have to be "no strings attached", so long as it actually goes to buildings and teachers. Local school districts do not want to be told what to teach. But this could begin to transform this country, and it would not have to be racially specific. Black and Native American peoples are, on the average, so poor relative to their white neighbors, we could well afford to upgrade education in all poor neighborhoods, without worrying about skin color. Moreover it would be the moral thing to do. As to where the money would come from, this is not just A national security question, it is THE national security question. One percent a year out of the military budget would be a good start.
3
Reparations is probably a good idea. But let’s not forget how the Irish were treated for many years and for that matter still are discriminated against. Just recently Kamala Harris objected to a potential judge who was a member of the Knights of Columbus. Her disdain for the Irish was also evident during the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh.
We should also take into consideration that the African Americans in the US are the most successful Black group anyplace in the world. Many of the steps initially taken to make them successful started in the 60’s.
Certainly Native Americans should be first on the list for reparations despite the fact that most of the tribes fought with the British during the Revolution and the War of 1812.
1
Thank you, David Brooks. We need to have some serious talks in our country, to air out our brains, and the case for reparations is one of the important things we need to talk about.
Instead of being so mired in mud slinging, it would be nice to take a deep breath and speak like decent people, about our country, what it means to be a good American, our past history, the present, and our collective future. It can be done.
How are reparations going to change anything? The people who hate will continue to hate regardless of all the apologies in the world. We need to change the way we educate. First, we have to start teaching civics, which is basic responsibility of citizenship. The whole "I deserve my rights" needs to change. The good of the community should come before "my rights". Second, we have to include the achievements of women and blacks in the history we teach to instill some well deserved pride and equality. We teach the same good old boy white history that has been taught for decades. We basically need to make a huge decision to teach our children to respect one another.
3
Unfortunately most people are more concerned about their own lives even while acknowledging the ills around them. The same indifference to repairing the African American experience and the Native American experience goes for action on climate change, ecological devastation, disintegration in the inner city, poverty in rural areas, opioid addiction, disintegration of traditional communities, etc. The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. In its extreme case, indifference turns into denial and aversion. Only love heals sin. David has chosen to investigate what is pulling us apart, and how to heal it and to write about it. Good for him.
1
It is impossible apply reparations justly. Almost all if not all American Blacks who are descended from slaves are also descended from slaveowners, at least at a far higher rate than American Whites who will feel dispossessed by the injustice. In any case, the people who carried the lash are all dead as are those who bore it. In the South, many whites, like myself, also have Black and native ancestry. DNA doesn't lie. Then there are the privileged children of black professionals who themselves get the special minority scholarships that constitute unnamed reparations today while the children of poor whites scramble--poor whites who are themselves the descendents of the British underclass who were sent to work the Virginia plantations in chains for crimes such as eating a deer or being Catholic.
For nearly 30 years, more immigrants have come from Africa every year than in any year of importation of bondsmen from that continent. They do okay.
You paint a nice picture of spiritual healing. What you would get is three fresh wounds for every old wound healed.
5
“Third, sin is anything that assaults the moral order.”
Then whenceforth cometh Christendom?
Maybe Mr. Brooks had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment recently, realizing at long-last that the African American community is still suffering from the oppression caused by the manifest functions of systemic racism.
Or maybe societal division sells newspapers.
Paradoxically, the adoption of a Reparations ideal by any Democratic candidate will only ensure the continued re-election of the white supremacist/Trump clones who will continue to make it impossible for Native Americans and descendants of black slaves to see justice.
3
Racism against Blacks is the template for the hatred that divides America. It is the gold standard and it sets the bar higher each time some ethnic spike against whatever culture, for whatever reason, occurs. White disdain for people of color is a curse. Their hatred of Black people of color is a disease. It is a primal disorder that no amount of reparations can alter.
I once believed that America and the African American could reach some level of resolution, either through reparations or otherwise, and perhaps much of the animosity and hate that fills the center of this country would be eaten away. This is what templates do. But I am unsure now. A country so fearful of Black integrity, morality, and strength, that they place a trump at its head to dismantle the progress of its first Black President - well, that’s a whole new level of hate.
Reparations would be nice. But templates have to be dismantled. Good luck.
2
Just two words: Thank you
1
Perhaps it would be better to start with better schools and teachers and neighborhoods and open study in the curriculum on racism in America and discusssion on Fox news on its causes and how it is perpitrated and and who this benefits. To talk openly as they did in Germany an natzism would be a good first step.may god have mercy on all of us.
1
I notice there were no $ numbers in the article. Google search says there are 37 million non Hispanic black Americans. $100 million = $2.70 per black American. $1billion = $27/each. $100billion = $2700/each. And so on. You-better-believe people think they are going to get $1 million each at least.
2
The fact that racism is America's original sin is evident in all the many ways our society is broken from the top to its bottom. At the top of the power differential we have an openly racist president who's policies have led to a more oppressive society for most people of color. In fact we tightly cage asylum seekers in pens inside so-called detention centers. Black boys and girls still get short shrift in nearly every educational endeavor. African American adults are far more likely to die of most any disease including mental illness. America's original sin must be dealt with. Reparations might be a good first step, but changing people's hearts and minds will eventually be necessary before all of us fall.
1
And what David do you propose, after these expensive "reparations" are paid, when blacks continue to suffer from racism?
Whites, still angry about paying huge sums for crimes committed centuries before they were born, react angrily.
Blacks still feel aggrieved.
No progress, just a lot of money spent that could have been used to lift up today's underprivileged black communities.
1
Well said.
In 1964 my rural, south Alabama elementary school was desegregated by a single family named Warren. I maintain to this day that those children were the bravest human beings I’ve ever witnessed. I can only guess at the pain and guilt their parents had to feel.
The primary beneficiary of my estate after my wife and disabled stepson, provided they survive me, will be the United Negro College Fund.
It won’t make anything right, but’s education can be a big leg up.
2
Why are Native Americans parenthetical?
1
Definition of white privilege for those still confused:
Manafort's sentence yesterday.
1
The standard argument against reparations is that the descendants of Africans enslaved and transported to the United States are far better off than descendants of Africans who were not enslaved and transported to America. African Americans are world’s richest large black population. The have shared, abet not equally, in American property.
According to the World Bank, the Gross National Income of Sub-Saharan Africans is $1,557, The World Bank projects that by 2030 nearly 9 in 10 extremely poor people—defined as people living on $1.90 a day or less—will be Sub-Saharan Africans.
2
Good idea.
“You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.”
-Booker T. Washington
When does Vatican Inc. make reparations to all of Europe, especially the Huguenots? The Romans for umpteen enslaved outposts? The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese and, of courser, the Africans? And on and on it goes.
2
What about reparations to the descendants of tens of thousands of Union soldiers who suffered and died to free the slaves?
2
General black reparations remind me of the present day men must always be condemned forever by today's Neo feminists for five million yrs. of existence.
Have selected reparations for any blacks still living that went through pre 1960 America but stop there.
If you have general reparations you start playing the identity card, ie since blacks were treated so badly by this country pre 1960, present day whites and uncounted millions to come must pay.
When you have policies like that you help elect an ego maniac demagogue like Trump.
1
Wow David. Good for you. Unless you actually stand in the “shoes of the fisherman,” you’ll never really experience justice.
In 1975, I wrote a song called “Nobody cares anymore”
The last chorus is:
Nobody, seems to trust anymore
Nobody, ever questioned before
It’s time to cut the suture, get up and face the future, why don’t we all pick up our smile,
And start believing,
That we can make this place worthwhile
©copyright 1975 Eric Cosh
1
American Exceptionalism: built on genocide of the Indians and enslavement of the Africans. The country needs to make amends. Even this occasionally thoughtful right winger can see it.
Why not start treating whites in this country like "we" treat blacks in this country? Why not arrest whites at high rates just for driving "suspiciously" while white? Just for walking "suspiciously" while white? Just for "loitering" in a high-class department store? Wouldn't that do a world of good?
How about facing the facts of our original sins (slavery and Native American genocide) honestly in school curricula and in public forums? Germany has done an admirable job of facing the sins of the Holocaust. Perhaps we can look to them as a model.
We need to own up to our history first and foremost. That's the ground floor for reparations. But soulful, honest education about our original sins first and foremost, please.
3
Yes, Thomas Jefferson recognized this 60 years earlier. If there is a just God we (whites) will have much to answer for.
Reparations is a Republican wedge issue. Don't fall for it.
Reparations should go only to those who were slaves. They should be paid only by those who held slaves. Unless you can find anyone alive who fits that criteria, drop it and move on.
5
What does David Brooks know about reparations, or any of its component issues? Answer: nothing. He's read T. Coates. Thanks, next!
1
Reparations will cause another race war. How many generations will need affirmative action ? It would be interesting to see how many can prove they are descendant of slaves. Are women entitled to reparations because they couldn’t own property or vote? There is no end to victimhood. At some point you need toe realize YOU are the problem, not the system.
4
What's more racist than claiming that a group of people of one skin color need to pay a group of people of another skin color, for for the simple fact of their skin color?
Yeah I can't think of anything more racist than that.
But, somehow, some people would have you believe that the above is anti-racist.
What a world we live in.
7
If the Democrats continue to talk about reparations, they will most assuredly Make America Great Again in 2020.
5
@Cliff
Very Cool
1
I am for reparations for Blacks, and now Latinos who have been
used for low wage labor and now face deportation, the way
Germany, when the economy tanked, shucked off cheap labor POLES in the 30's by putting them aside inside Dachau.
David doesn't mention how Agrabiz has used documented and undocumented Latino labor, or how Trump has, as recently revealed. It seems the country now wants to get rid of the evidence. Remember when Nationalists howled for Blacks to go back to Africa? May as well be Guatemala.
It is all the same racially biased instinct to capitalize, to a point, on "inferior" species. I use "species" here to indicate
that other than white people are still considered somehow
sub-human in the Caucasian reptilian brain.
Will this pass, and will equality become ingrained? I hope
so. I hope we have time for evolution if that has to be the
path, instead of revolution, but the latter seems more sanguine, i.e. bloody. Is reparation evolutionary? Emphatically yes, as we take a hard look at what we are as a nation. The young are making us look, noisy and impolite
as they are. About time. It's all about time, and we are short on it as a nation with serious racial, religious disease.
Employment diversity can be seen as reparations.
1
I’ve never read a column of yours I’ve agreed with so completely.
1
Profound.
More paternalistic hogwash. As if African Americans need help to survive and thrive under adverse conditions. The author suffers from a lack of clarity on the concept of time.
In the 154 years since the end of the civil war, the US has re-made itself into a country that continues to evolve into a multiethnic society. While 154 years is a few generations of human lives, it is a few grains of sand in the hourglass of human existence. Reparations will not accelerate the process-it will grossly retard the process.
Reparations today would be abdication of our duty to evolve as a society over time, a palliative to avoid the acceptance of a greater burden.
4
Bravo, well said
Is Brooks for reparations or for the debate over them?
This piece is long on sentiment but short on solutions. Name one actual thing please that you’d be willing to do for reparations. Not sure what a national reckoning is after reading this piece.
1
Brooks finally wrote something I can respect.
I'm gonna go buy a lottery ticket.
While David Brooks is carving up the pie with his morality knife, let's hope he gives a piece to everyone descended from native peoples in the Americas, every Jew, every Korean and Chinese person, oops almost forgot the South Asian Indians. I'm not sure the Japanese, English and U.S. have enough in the till to make all the payments. And then those very perpetrators probably have their own claims for reparations.
Dude, my head is spinning. Yesterday Medicare for all was too difficult to implement, the poor insurance industry would lose jobs, yadda , yadda, yadda. Today you want to pay reparations to blacks. They deserve it. Let’s have appropriate tax policies and do both. Can be done if the wealthy pay their fair share. And don’t worry, they’ll still be wealthy.
1
Alright David, good share.
I am NOT a fan of your writings! Most of the time I find your work to be smug, self-serving and narrow-minded. However, the fact that you have opened to an idea that African Americans have been arguing for since the 1860s is refreshing. I recommend further reading for your benefit:
The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall Robinson
Right On!
I am surprised but finally pleased to see conservative Mr. Brooks advocating for reparations for slavery but merely talking about reparations without devising a plan is what is futile.
First, to whom should they apply? I believe that only the descendants of people enslaved in this country should be considered for reparations and even then there should by a needs test. People of color who arrived voluntarily in the U.S after the end of slavery should not qualify. If they are descendants of slaves in other countries, then those countries should pay. Also there are some who clearly don' t need reparations. For example, as Mr. Brooks points out, Oprah or Lebron.
Secondly, how should reparations be administered? I believe that reparations should be made in the form of special considerations that provide for decent housing, employment and education, three of the most glaring and persistent effects of segregation and the resulting discrimination. Cash payments would not necessarily redress the effects of slavery. I fear that cash would quickly find its way back to the mainstream economy in the purchase of consumer goods including automobiles, jewelry and other unnecessary luxuries that would not address the real inequities resulting from slavery and discrimination.
Four of my great grand uncles fought for the Union in the Civil War. Other assorted relatives did as well. Three of those uncles died either during the war or as a result of their service. According to pious family myth the family far was burned to the ground. None of my family, southern or northern, ever owned slaves.
So here's the question: why should my family par reparations form something we did not participate in, and actively fought against?
4
My great grandfather in Virginia owned slaves. I was shocked to learn this in my genealogy research. This personal fact led me to understand the enormous contribution to the young economy of this country from slavery. Unpaid labor contributed enormously to the early success of American textile and tobacco industries.
The disease of slavery grew deep roots in our economy as it created great wealth from free labor. The Civil War was then the staggering price paid to halt the spread of that Civil Cancer. The free lunch was not free. It was nearly lethal.
I now see with new eyes the advantages since given me and not others. I cannot make it right alone, but I can join with others. Reparations is the right discussion to figure out how, in both practical and civic terms, to heal our collective wound.
I haven't read all the comments yet, but I assume this sentiment will be displayed prominently among them: No, No, No! Simply trying to have this discussion will cause far more resentment, divisiveness, and overall damage than any hypothetical benefit that would ever be likely to result. As a thought experiment, let's say somehow a program of reparations gets enacted. What's the result? How have attitudes changed? How do people treat each other differently? Quoting Lincoln and casting things in a light of sin and redemption is not helpful to a secular society, and don't preach to me about sin, especially somebody else's long-ago sin. If I were truly cynical, I would suspect Brooks of deliberately encouraging a discussion that he knows would reinforce the mistrust and general scorn of "liberals" among certain sectors of the population.
3
Reparations are intended as a way for those who do wrong to make up to those who were wronged.
No one alive today was a slave, so those who were wronged by slavery no longer exist; nor do any slave owners. Even if you extend the principle to the descendants of the wrong doers and the wronged, How are you going to find true members of each group?
Further, many of the people who would be either paying or receiving this payout are descended from people who were not even in the country at the time of the wrong. How is that restorative justice?
4
As a new US citizen, I have no generational memory of what Brooks (and others in their comments) speaks of. I have not taken advantage of anybody but a system that allowed an educated and intelligent man from India, to transplant himself.
However, discrimination is a serious matter in my native land, and color, and other factors, some of which are divinely attributed to a whole bunch of people, helps me understand a little bit of it.
What I notice here is, the discussion getting stuck with the "how" rather than keeping the focus on "why". I think, it is the gesture, the acknowledgement, that matters more than the how to repair the damages done. How about a "collective apology" to begin with then, that does not cost anything and perhaps allows a cleaning of our soul?
2
Rings true! I don't know the means by which reparations can be made. At the minimum we need to keep to a path in which we reform current systems to support justice for all: education funding that does not vary from zip to zip; equitable access to legal services; universal healthcare; universal guaranteed basic income and housing; grants designated specifically to help African Americans and First Americans purchase homes, start businesses, obtain higher education. These kinds of reforms would help all of us heal because who among us can be truly happy when we witness injustices in our midst. When I walk past a homeless camp on a cold, damp day I feel guilty and shouldn't I?
I know that the author of this piece feels deeply and means well. But I find it both instructive and depressing how cognitively empty it becomes at its most crucial places.
Brooks writes: "The need now is to consolidate all the different narratives and make them reconciliation and possibility narratives, in which all feel known." And he quotes from Ta-Nehisi Coates talk about a "national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal" and about "acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences". All of these admonitions sound elevating. But they are hopelessly vague to say the least.
I hate to be the skeptic at this aspirational feel good party. But when I try to conjure up what the actual content of these would be in our real world, I come up empty. Or, more accurately, I come up with profoundly conflicting "narratives" that are partly justifiable, partly delusional, and not at all reconcilable. From one quarter, it would be: "If it weren't for your oppression of my ancestors and also your discriminatory derogation of me, I would be really well off instead of working a low-paid job." From another quarter: "I work hard. I never did anything to you. My own (Irish, Polish, Jewish, etc.) ancestors also suffered prejudice and exclusion. And my life is certainly no bed of roses. I already have to pay taxes to cover social services. What more do you think I owe you?"
So, please, Messrs. Brooks and Coates, share with me the feel good narratives you find plausible.
1
How about small reparations for a start? Like welfare. We have welfare programs and they are good for many reasons. But for those (mostly Republicans) who see welfare programs as a give away to lazy people, let me suggest that it can be thought of as a sort of reparation, and the least we can do.
Most welfare recipients are not lazy, but disadvantaged. If your ancestors worked without pay for hundreds of years, and were denied education and repressed, then it would be no surprise that you may be at the bottom of the economic opportunity ladder. Not only were you short changed on education in segregated schools, but you would have come from a family that was unprepared to pass on the social and cultural traditions that further one’s development in our free society. Some form of reparations would help lift these people out of poverty and despair.
So let’s start by not bashing welfare programs.
3
I think the answer Is to make payments into the reparations fund voluntary. If you feel the need to right the wrong then write a check. If you don’t then don’t.
My bet is that the fund won’t be that big.
5
Who is saying that reparations have to start or end with money? Of course economic justice based on a truthful view of the past is an important consideration, but in my opinion what is needed far more at this point is committed, serious, future-directed conversation, a moral wrestling with the history of the United States, a willingness to acknowledge that we evolve as a human species and we evolve as a nation. Some things that once appeared morally sound and justifiable to some of us are not - and never were - morally sustainable, but that historic moral blindness is the shaky foundation we are still attempting to build upon, and that effort is the source of much of the agony and lack of peace in this country and in the world at large.
Reparation means repairing, and repairing the damage that any human progress, any human change, leaves in its wake is the province and the challenge that all people who hope for a future must accept and begin. It starts with openness to looking at old views and old actions with new eyes, with being willing to listen rather than speak and dictate, to learn the story of what history meant to others who didn’t get to write it. That is very hard for some Americans to stomach, but it is the only way forward to a future with hope.
Our present economic context is this:
Over the past 4 decades our national wealth has more than doubled, on a per-person inflation-adjusted basis. In other words, we've built a whole 'nother America since 1979, right next to the existing one. Have you gotten your share? Chances are 10,000-to-1 you haven't: the vast bulk of this doubling of wealth has been hoarded by America's richest 10,000 families (i.e., 0.01% of our ~100M households).
My point is that, with this vast hoard of wealth there is almost nothing we can't accomplish due to economic restraints. Our only restraints are the laws of nature (meaning physics, not David's "natural moral order", which is subject to debate), and our political will.
What do you want our nation to look like in 2100? Whatever parts of that vision a solid ~60% majority can agree on, nothing can hold back. Nothing but lack of political will and political faith (meaning faith in humanity). Of course, if you don't have that, there's always heaven.
Thanks for such a great piece....especially after going off the rails last week!
1
This reminds me of how I felt about an end to the George Bush tax cuts - which instead were made permanent. They should have ceased, but did not, and were followed by the new tax bill that provides tremendous benefits to one class - the well to do - and to corporations full of people who are also in this class. Let's even the scales. If that class of people can be give "HUGE" benefits, why not African Americans and Native Americans. I think you could argue that it certainly their turn. They have been denied equal status explicitly in terms of where they can live, where they can work, where they can travel and dine for most of the previous century. In this century we have regressed on these points. It is their turn for benefits that have so long been denied. Do it like the GI Bill. Do it through tax credits. Their are many ways it can be done. Sure it is sticky when you have to award Oprah the benefit and others who have "made it" financially, but that is a small price to pay when you consider the non financial benefits symbolized by the act of doing reparations. These two groups are indeed special, and they deserve the benefits they have been denied. They are not getting something "extra", a handout. We have not difficulty giving "extra" tax benefits to the rich. African and Native Americans would merely be getting those things, that dignity, which they have been denied. It is only fair.
1
I have been reading your columns for years, partly in order to knowledgeably read the often entertaining critical comments from readers. I have seen you as a fundamentally well meaning man who, because of your privilege, has been an apologist for a party that long ago lost its moorings. In the Trump era, I can see that this has sometimes been difficult and even painful for you. And yet you often seem dismissive of the views of Democrats and liberals who offer an alternative world view.
At the same time, I have grown to believe - based on some of your writings over the last couple of years- that you are embarked upon a spiritual journey. This may be personal rather than political (although how to separate the two ?) but - whatever my view of your politics- I have respected your attempts to grope your way to a greater understanding of the world and your place in it.
It is therefore with something close to joy that I read today's column. It is not only that you have written something with which I wholeheartedly agree, it is that you have done your best to take us along with you on your journey.
Thank you.
4
This whole concept of reparations is seriously flawed. The current living generations of blacks have not directly experienced the horrendous injustice of slavery. You do realize that all former slaves are long dead, right? This is not like the reparations to former Japanese-American internment camps, they were direct recipients of the wrong. But because I'm straight white male I already know the SJWs will shoot me down as a racist. Do your worst.
11
Great article. Thanks.
1
Reparations. That sounds suspiciously like another word for a handout, free money for being black, a perpetuation of a continuous state of agitated indignation. I don’t suppose the writers, including Coates, care to acknowledge that continuously reviving generation’s old injustices is nothing more than the technique of agitation propaganda.
So if the African Americans are given reparations costing the nation trillions of dollars will they ever be able to forgive the white oppressors of their past sins? It’s curious that Coates, et al. are not really interested in contributing to the nation like, perhaps, Booker T Washington suggested. They want only to take, to receive more and more pay outs from the White society that enslaved them, never mind that the enslavers are all gone and dead. Not all white people in age of slavery were oppressors yet they expect the entire nation of today to bear the extraordinary expense of trillions of dollars to pay the descendants of slaves mass quantities of dollars.
African Americans have already been given reparations by this government and the people in many forms. The black community took New Orleans, virtually the entire geographic area of the city, and look what has become of the city today.
7
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
You, as do a lot of the commenters, act as though slavery, once abolished was the end of the horrific and unjust treatment of African Americans. And maybe if it had ended there we would not be where we are today. But the end of slavery did not end the oppression. Disenfranchisement by way of convict leasing, Jim Crow laws, extrajudicial hangings and killings, race riots where entire communities of color were burned to the ground and the people slaughtered was commonplace. African American soldiers returning from World War II were not allowed to benefit from the G.I. Bill. The effects of redlining, of deliberately introducing drugs into the inner cities, of disparities in criminal sentencing and of racial profiling exist to this day. As you said, the slavers and the slaves are gone but the impact on the African American community is still here.
And to get there you just had to believe in things that are NOT real like theologically and teleologically ordered history. Cool, glad the whole world is going crazy.
2
Unbelievably stupid.
After WWII, people who had been in Communication Nazi concentration camps, and had actually suffered under the Nazis recieved compensation.
If - I-F - such a thing we're to be done in this case, you're almost 200 years too late.
I'm not talking about whether it would've been the thing to do - then, but, lets just look at why it's surely insane to even talk about now.
Not one person currently alive was a slave in this country. The last one passed away over 50 years ago, modern DNA testing has brought many examples of people who've found that they had black relatives in their ancestors. Does this necessarily mean those people were slaves? No. Many people who have African-DNA could've come from the Caribbean, or they came from Africa, themselves, as freemen.
Now; how do you measure how 'black' someone is? The 'old' way, such as 'octaroons'? Is there a 'percentage' upon which this nonsense would be based?
Here's something else; money is terrific. Everyone wants more. That doesn't mean it'll do any good. Not one person (no one!) Who's ever won any mega millions-type lottery has - even a short few years later - any left. Not a cent. What does do good? Picking oneself up and applying themselves, otherwise, it's 'handouts', a 'big fat benefits' check', and it'll ALL be gone very quickly.
Then what?
Nothing is better for anytime then the satisfaction one gets from accomplishing something on their own.
6
I cherish the idea of righteous reparations along with greater zeal from within my group to become self-sufficient. The events that whites poured upon the more self-sufficient black residents of Tulsa Oklahoma shows me that much of white America still cannot come to grips with accepting that it harms us blacks even today AND it does it deliberately.
I ask both sides to do what I feel is best for all:
#1. All America begin some good reparations: Good schools, free college, subsidized home loans and equal pay
#2. All people of color, let us join together to do all that we can to be role model citizens and students.
Blacks can't do it without white support but we blacks should not have a one week or one day fish fry if we get real help.
In short, we need to/must work together to heal all these scars and that begins with accepting the truth, wrongs have systematically been done all through US History to blacks and needs to be addressed with true helpful reparations and self-help.
Commendable article.
Thank you David Brooks! Well said.
If I could give money(?) directly to people who had been enslaved (none of them alive now) I'd be all for this. But to give reparations to their descendants strains my credulity.
3
@Jim Miller
You state "(my grandfather had to drop out of school after sixth grade to work to help support his family)". What is your point here?
What is the statute of limitations for generational sin? As a Jew, I am thinking Egypt may owe us a bit of something the the 400 years we were slaves there!
3
Well, brother David, welcome to the Democratic Party. Because if you believe what you have just written and published, you certainly have no home in the modern Republican Party.
We understand if you wish to officially and in public be independent.
You can go back to being a Republican should the party decide to rejoin the human race sometime in the future.
2
People thought electing Obama would heal the racial divide, but look where we are now. It didn't work, and sadly Obama didn't even try to fix what all hoped he would do. I agree; the racial divide has gotten larger not smaller. But that divide lives in two computing narratives, enhanced by the media world we live in. The black narrative is that whites are intrinsically racist. The white narrative is that blacks are exploiting being victims. Neither is true. What Brooks doesn't realize is the false promise of reparations. It won't heal; it will make things worse. It will entitle all sorts of fabricated claims of harm to step forward and claim their share. It will destroy the country.
2
How exactly would they decide who deserves reparations? Now I am 99.6 percent northwestern European, according to 23andme, but there is that 0.04 percent Sub Saharan African. Some ancestor of mine 200 or more years ago was very likely a slave whose descendants married into white families and never knew they had black ancestry. I am white but just maybe someone like me would be eligible for reparations. Likewise, the average black American has up to 20 percent European ancestry. Not all of the white ancestry came from slave owners or people who exploited them. Relationships between white indentured servants and free colored wasn’t uncommon. Some whites cared for their offspring of color and saw to it that they had education and job training. How do you decide which of them have reparations coming? How do you prove it after 160 years? This all sounds like a bad idea to me.
3
I’m wondering how black would you have to be to be entitled to reparations. If you were biracial would get half, and so on.
I prefer the assisted African-American repatriation of the Deep South homeland, from which white terror made them refugees. So much like the Quebecois, African Americans would have a geographic space that is theirs and where they control their destiny.
1
Identity politics at its best.
3
The argument against reparations is that descendants of sub-Saharan Africans enslaved and transported to the United States are far better off than sub-Saharan Africans whose ancestors were not enslaved and transported to America. African Americans are the world’s richest large black population. African Americans have shared, abet not equally, in American prosperity.
The per capita income for sub-Saharan Africans is $1,573 a year. The World Bank projects that by 2030 nearly 9 in 10 extremely poor people—defined as people living on $1.90 a day or less—will be Sub-Saharan Africans.
The life expectancy for sub-Saharan Africans is 46 years. The life expectancy for African Americas is 75.6 years.
5
How about reparations to the (forgotten) people who we stole the land from in the first place?
Many commenters are enthusiastic about reparations.
To them I suggest this: Lead the way. Shame us all by your example. Get out your checkbook and write a big fat check. Make the amount so large it hurts. Be even more generous and add enough to cover the reparations for a few poorer white families who can’t afford to spend money just to feel noble.
7
I totally agree that ANY person currently holding human beings as property should start paying serous money for reparations. Any slaveholders curently deceased, of course, must be ignored UNLESS they actually do come back to life.
Glad to show everyone here that I'm one of the Cool Kids on this one. As far as the U.S. Gov't goes, of course, well over twenty trillion dollars has been devoted to reparations in the form of Great Society benefits. Adding to that would be ludicrous and damaging to all involved.
You must add to that the really weird Pigford settlement engineered VERY quietly by none other that Eric Holder and Barack Obama, which even black members of Congress described as reparations payments years ago.
I believe that any reportes working on progressive news outlets are fired immediately upon their mentioning the Pigford giveaway.
2
Set up an equal - but separate - track? Cui bono?
After 250 years of slavery. 150 years of jim crowe laws including involuntary servitude and lynching expecting the african american community to pull itself by it's boot strap in less than 50 years is nuts. The backslide after the last election has been unfortunate and unforgivable. Time to pay up and confront the history that we refuse to acknowledge
I think that paying "reparations" is really just a way for white people, like me, to just say, "OK, we're even now. Don't ever talk to me about racism again. It has all been taken care of, now".
1
This is the liberal media running interference for the hard left the Democrat Party is taking. They cant control them, no matter how extreme they become, so the media has to create narratives, and hope the radicalism becomes mainstream so it doesnt cause another election loss.
Thats where this is going folks. This is what happens when the radical leftists take over. They are leading the Democrat Party, and all their cohorts in the media, right over a cliff.
3
Haven't we been providing reparations, for 60 years or so, under a policy of reverse discrimination, euphemistically known as "affirmative action."
6
You want four more years of Trump? Try making the case for reparations during the 2020 campaign.
4
On the one side, Manafort just got a ridiculously light sentence for being an old white guy. On the other side, David Brooks is talking about reparations. If that doesn't show where our country's at, I don't know what does.
1
If you base reparations on guilt, you will have scores of people saying, as they do on this comment page “my family came here from Latvia in 1923, my family fought to end slavery in the civil war etc.” The concept needs to be based on responsibility, not guilt. At certain points in history, there are wrongs that need to be righted, and those who are in a position to right them have a responsibility to do so, even if they did not create them. The British soldiers and airmen who fought the Nazis did not create Nazism, and we’re not to blame for it. Nevertheless, they had the responsibility to fight, even die, to end it, because of where they were in time and space. We have a similar responsibility to finish the job of ending the terrible injustices of racism, even if we had nothing to do with creating them. It’s a tough job, but nowhere near as tough as having to fight Hitler.
Beautiful
Reparations must deal with white slavery: the mental slavery to the idea of white supremacy. Black slaves were physically freed by the civil war but nothing addressed the white mindset that legitimized slavery in the first place. White southerners were thoroughly indoctrinated into the white supremacy view that dehumanized blacks. Once dehumanized, all forms of violence followed. First slavery, then lynchings, terror campaigns, and all the rest that are still happening today in Charlottesville and beyond. The confederate flag doesn't stand for black slavery anymore. Today it stands for white slavery.
1
Great article! The English need to pay reparations to the colonies for pillaging their wealth, suppressing their indigenous industries, and stealing their labor under the guise of ‘indentured labor’ which we now know was slavery rebranded.
1
Rubbish. Affirmative Action has been in place advantaging African Americans in employment and education for 60 years. Poor whites and women are disadvantaged, and arguably face MORE discrimination than African Americans; seniors face much, much more discrimination in employment. Slavery ended more than 150 years ago. Reparations would be grossly unfair to every non black person in the country.
5
In 1862, slave owners in DC were compensated for their "losses" after Lincoln signed the emancipation act that year.
1
There was a monster behind this issue. His name was Andrew Jackson. Yes there was slavery in the land before him, but it greatly expanded by his avaricious appetite for wealth.
Were African slaves and there descendants the only ones to be gypped by his policies?
A highly successful business man I know, theorized that without slavery, the cotton lands would have been settled by numerous white families. Perhaps those that were told to go west, to Oklahoma and Texas.
A huge white, middle/working class would have occupied and farmed the cotton instead of a few wealthy landowners with slaves, like Jackson himself.
Racism is still alive and well. So is antisemitism and other ugly cultural deficiencies.
Does anyone know about Mussolini's promise of land, and brown women to those who enlisted in his army! He did invade Abbysinia/Ethiopia.
I have a monster theory of history. Racial hatred is one way they exploit humanity.
3
Truth and reconciliation or
Land of the Theif,
Home of the Slave. WEB DuBois
There is a choice.
Good work Mr. Brooks
How do the 360,000 Americans killed in the Civil War get their reparations?
4
There is a stronger case for America to pay reparations to Iraqis.
2
Reparations would tear the country apart and make the racial divide even wider. A better solution would be to devote resources to the communities and schools worst impacted and to fund college scholarships and programs.
1
Which blacks get reparations? First Lady Michelle Obama? President Barack Obama? Senator Kamala Harris? The latter two, for example, have no ancestral ties to slavery in the U.S., nor even experience living under Jim Crow.
Do they qualify?
This is a fascinating question, and I look forward to Mr. Brooks and Mr. Coates teaming up to explain how they'll use DNA tests and genealogical research to resolve such issues.
3
Think of the positive side of this argument. The children of immigrants -- including myself -- become Americans and therefore implicitly responsible for sins committed long before their parents were even in the country. The magic of that transformation is worth taxing for the common good -- or for the poor, those regardless of race, who have still not overcome.
The extreme logic of Reparations is nothing more than a perverse philosophical exercise based on the false assumption that all past injustice can be legislated and solved through financial recompense.
"...racial divide doesn't feel like the other divides?" Speak for yourself, Mr. Brooks. At this point, the anti-Trump/pro-Trump divide is leading us to what seems like the end of all normalcy in the United States - for all its races.
Racism exists. It exists in countries all over the world and in some countries, many countries, it is extreme. America is still a country where understanding, tolerance and acceptance lives and grows. Just because we have a president who currently sows dissent doesn't mean he won't soon be gone.
We should all remember that it was Russia's GRU (reported here in the NYTs) during the 2016 election that specifically, insidiously played the race war card - placing targeted, triggering media campaigns on BOTH liberal and conservative sides to fire up the issue. Putin looked at America and saw a weakness and attempted to exploit our differences. As Americans we should look at what we have in common and see our strengths.
2
This editorial by David Brooks can give us hope. I think repairing the judicial system is needed as today it is obvious that we have absolutely no equal treatment in the US under law. Reparations can be in the form of universal health care and public education through professional schooling - for all. Can be in the form of fixing the tax code and getting the thieves out of office. Daycare for all who need it. The US is broken. Maybe it can be fixed.
I still am opposed to the concept of reparations. Correcting the injustice is what you do and move forward - not easy, I admit, but that's what you do.. No handouts. That creates a massive welfare scenario and perpetuates the mindset of being victims. On this one single point, I agree with Farrakahn - "we are more than a welfare check".
2
The way to repair is to continue making progress toward an improved life for all of our disadvantaged. The issues of health care and education are closest at hand. Progress in those areas will benefit the groups who have suffered and those who bear the current loss and inherited guilt. It will be paid for by those who have benefitted the most from progress to date and they will benefit from living in a more perfect union. Win/Win.
2
Reading this, I am reminded of the approach of our newly elected congressperson, AOC. By the time I went through her list of all the disadvantaged people we need to help, I realized there were a few of us (apparently including me) who abused the rest of the world. Sorry, at some point in time you need to be responsible for your own situation, not look back over 150 years and ask for back payments. My grandparents did not go to college, my parents went to college at night, after work, I was lucky and went to college (not a great one) after high school, and my kids went to excellent schools. Progress takes time and hard work.
5
I never personally did anything to deny anyone their opportunity, but I still understand that, since I’m white, I benefited from a lack of obstacles to my own progress. I feel badly about that, and I’m willing to sacrifice to help those who were hurt by history. You should read Coates’s piece “The Case for Reparations.”
1
Comparing your family’s story to the plight of descendants of slaves and Native Americans displays a profound lack of understanding of the history and current situation. Yes, you and your parents and grandparents worked hard to get where you are and that’s admirable, but black and Native Americans have to struggle with so much more than you and I ever will. Unless you seek out true understanding, you will not have the awakening Mr. Brooks and others, including myself, have had. Having a few black or Native American acquaintances won’t cut. You need to have a true honest and open dialog. That’s a really hard thing to do, which is why so many haven’t done, but it is worthwhile and ultimately very rewarding.
@DickH and it takes not having racism, persistent, systemic, at every stage of ones life merely due to the color of ones skin. I presume you didn't have that.
I agree with reparations for the hideous sin of slavery. However, I think that at least equal to that is the need for reparations to Native Americans. Some of our most "cherished" historical figures and Presidents were instrumental in their almost complete genocide. Literally millions and millions were murdered, the rest herded away from their home lands, and those that survived, had to do so on the least desirable lands possible. One treaty after another was purposefully broken. This was done with forethought, malice and greed. This genocide is truly our country's original sin, followed by slavery, and we have done nothing to atone for this atrocity.
7
I don’t often read David Brooks’ columns anymore, because so often I feel they miss the point. I kept reading this one and expecting it to swerve into irrelevancy or worse, but it never did.
This column gives me hope. More white Americans need to go through the journey Mr. Brooks (and many of us) are on. And may we all continue.
9
I sincerely thank David Brooks, for sharing a genuine change in his deeper understanding of the enormity of the problems we face. We have a 400 year history of pain and injury, inflicted on human beings of African and Native American origin, from which those of us from European roots have enjoyed great privilege, advantage and power. This is not just a 'political' problem that will be solved by a focus on a fairer redistribution of wealth, power and opportunity. 'Reparations' are superficially thought of as repayment for damages imposed on the recipients. The change in understanding that David Brooks, and many of us who agree with him, have realized is that reparation is about REPAIR of the damages inflicted on one or more groups by another. The goal and methods must be to recognize and acknowledge the truth, and to reconcile the damaged and damaging parties. This cannot be accomplished by exchange of wealth alone, though that would be a desirable outcome. An example of what can be done to start us on a better journey of repair, will be to acknowledge the unequal funding of education, at all levels of local and national life. Historically 'black' colleges and higher education for native americans have always been underfunded. For repair their support needs be assured.
This repair will require both 'conservative' and 'progressive' values and actions. Partisan party politics will not solve this, or any of the critical problems we are facing. Let's do it!
6
Wow, kudos to Brooks. This is the best piece I can remember having read from him. It's vulnerable. Welcome to the pain. I taught in two schools in Los Angeles with 10,000 students between them and not one of those students was white or Asian. Not one. Only black and brown as far as the eye could see. And this was 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education made de jure segregation illegal. The day Rosa Parks passed away I was the only white person on the bus, as every day before and every day after.
As a liberal who grew up in religious/evangelical schools, here's hoping dems learn to close the cultural gap by spending more time in the pews and pulpits, even if just as guests. Climate change, race, inequality are only going to be addressed when Americans call an end to the culture wars — and religious traditions provide strong normative grounds for addressing each of them. Religious pluralism is more inclusive than secularism!!
4
To this topic I want to add the following. When a group of people were kidnapped, separated from their families, brought against their will to another country and forced to be slaves so that one group could build wealth while suppressing the other, that is wrong. Today many, not all, but many white families that have been here for generations benefit from that injustice. They passed wealth and slaves down from one generation to the next, and purposely kept slaves from progressing and amassing their own wealth. Today some of these families enjoy all the benefits of slavery whilst proclaiming it wasn't them so why should they pay. Here is one way we can do reparations, every African American gets a free shot to any college they are accepted into for the next few generations. Then it's up to them to do something with their lives, and society has repaid a debt. We are the richest, most powerful country in the world in part because of slavery, no none of us directly had anything to do with it, but all of us either still benefit or suffer because of it.
2
The problem with Christianity, David, is that it does not provide a non-judgemental path to the sin-less state.
Christianity is crude compared with Buddhism. It limits itself to the domain of good and evil, which is a misrepresentation of the foundations of reality. (Still something I personally wallow in as I confront the problem of REPUBLICANISM).
The drummer is not the beat. One must see behind one's fabrications.
Many Christians are Bible idolaters and have turned the faith into hokus pokus magical idolatry. No logic need be applied. Consequently, Christian morals (in block) have become inferior to humanistic, rational ethics.
Many Christians are just atheists trying to make contacts. It's a good club to belong to. They may be better than the ones who take it seriously.
What a beautiful essay. Reparations are not difficult: A massive stock index fund - tied to civic-conscious companies - to be drawn and selected via smartphone apps, and not standing in line at bureaucratic government agencies - for: free college education; assisted living communities for the elderly; single mother and father childcare and vocational training; upgraded healthcare; gun amnesty; meditation; career counseling at local universities; prison education; art and music programs, etc, etc. Such reparations should not make African-Americans feel singled out, however. As a recent Times article on the '60's civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin, pointed out (paraphrasing): "We are not part of a Black community. We are part of a human community."
2
The legacy of racial theory remains half a century after the civil rights laws were enacted and efforts made to undo the real deliberate racial discrimination in our public institutions. There never was a reckoning made to address racial biases and misperceptions nor to appreciate how profoundly racial bigotry affected all. So it stays with us to this very day. Trump does enjoy support in part because he makes racial perceptions seem okay. It’s not, and until we all confront how false it is and how unjust it is, we will be dogged by it.
White people in this country enjoy enormous yet nearly invisible privileges to this day, a lasting legacy of past and current structural and cultural arrangements. The task is to make these priveleges visible and meaningful. As they say, the fish must become aware of the water they swim in.
White privilege is a false assertion and it prevents acceptance of racial attitudes that have not been addressed. The proportional differences in all measures correlated to race show significance but plenty of people in all racial categories show both significant success and significant failure rates. The facts do not show that any racial category clearly enjoys privileges over all others. This claim makes addressing the problem effectively more difficult by focusing upon a non-issue. The white privilege claim is hyperbole intended to cause feelings of shame.
2
As a mostly atheistic, mostly left-leaning type, I usually roll my eyes at Mr. Brooks' religious inferences, and he still mostly seems politically sympathetic to the views of the WSJ's editorial page (didn't he write for them before '03?). But here he is spot on, including with the reference to "sin".
So, yes, there IS a strong case for reparations, even though it will be so difficult to actually do. We will never be a "whole" society, let alone a "Great Society" if we don't make the effort. It's been over 150 years since slavery was formally abolished, and without reparations (like "truth and reconciliation"), the country will still show the scars of slavery 150 years from now.
1
How about a version of the GI Bill; with college tuition, free mortgage loans. The (white) WWII vets got it, and it created and sustained a substantial (white) middle class.
1
@Cowboy Bob No. You're not taxing me for something I had nothing to do with that ended over a hundred years ago.
2
This was inspired. I’m convinced.
Thanks for the quote from Coates. It belongs on the same page as the quote from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and points the way towards how we go about designing reparations. “[F]ull acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences” and “a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal” will require a lot of transparency and a wide ranging discussion.
We can also keep in mind the closing of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, where he exhorts us to do what needs to be done to achieve a just and lasting peace.
A few of the things that could be addressed that pop into my mind include patterns of disinvestment and underinvestment, mass incarceration, environmental justice as to questions such as where city dumps were located back in the day, and a comment a frequent commenter here once made about the black community in his hometown being over-policed and under-protected.
None of us was responsible for slavery, but all of us are responsible for this moment in time. Reparations for slavery are our moral responsibility. The promised land isn't a destination. We carry it with us on our backs every day. Reparations help heal the wound. And a precedent exists. In 2004, I was editor of The Farmville Herald and led the fight to create the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Program and Fund in the commonwealth of Virginia. The late Julian Bond told me that this state-funded program was the first Civil Rights-era reparation in US history. Prince Edward County, Virginia shut down its entire public school system from 1959 to 1964 in "massive resistance" to Brown rather than integrate schools. Whites went to a private all-white academy. Over 2,000 African American children were left without a formal education in their lives. The scholarship program created by the state legislature in 2004 gave that opportunity back. I know this appears self-serving but my book, The Road to Healing: A Civil Rights Reparations Story in Prince Edward County, Virginia, comes out this month and tells that inside story and the ongoing journey of racial reconciliation in Prince Edward County. A true story that gives hope to the nation. We are in a continuum. Let us re-shape today, and so tomorrow, with racial justice, honestly confronting, and bringing healing to, the gaping national wound of slavery and its ongoing consequences.
I have admired many of your columns, though sometimes disagreed, but this one has made me happy. Thank you.
1
The best shot at this is with the children, if you can improve (and expand) their education concerning the enduring ramifications of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Most adults, already tribal, are not going to move very far.
I also read Coates' article. I know not everyone agrees with his conclusions, but we run the risk of backtracking, especially with the current views on the right.
Also, without improving the lots of those least advantaged, we are lost.
"I’ve been traveling around the country for the past few years studying America’s divides..." "Studying" can be a way of delaying a confrontation with the obvious. Perhaps if he has a long life, Mr. Brooks' studies will come to some other obvious conclusions concerning our geography, our politics, our economy.
When that is finished, Mr. Brooks might consider advocating for some actions.
My work in the 1990s in the Restorative Justice movement took me many divers places, including serving as Charter Secretary of the United Nations Working Party on Restorative Justice.
It is painful to see the major disagreements around Reparations. People tend to equate reparations with money, then throw their hands up in the air when they realize there just isn't enough money in the world to accomplish the objective.
Not that Reparations can't be material, mind you ... in part, they must. But they must also be symbolic. The process leading to Reparations will likely be called an exercise in Truth and Reconciliation, such as South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commissions. They have been faulted for bringing about all too little material recompense, but symbolically they were priceless and saved untold numbers of human lives. They successfully conveyed the impression that white or black, victim or offender, you are responsible for your actions.
To work, Restorative Justice processes require consensus decision-making, with all stakeholders (including offenders) needing to approve any outcomes or results as both equitable and feasible. If those debating Reparations would bear that ONE fact in mind, 90% of the controversy over the issue would evaporate. The rest can be done away with by realizing that they need to be symbolic as well as material, and equitable more than proportionate.
Reparations are do-able, and we need to do them!
I do not support reparations, and any legislation would never be adopted. My ancestors came to this country from France, Ireland and Germany in the 1880's and 1890's. Why should I pay others for something that happened before my family came here? Especially someone who was not directly impacted? Should I be paid for the intolerance experienced by my ancestors? Of course not. Too much time has passed. Adequate indirect reparations have been made through years of social programs. It is time for certain groups to stop thinking of themselves as victims, and instead look to the examples of other groups who have successfully integrated into society. While much can and should be done to improve the quality of life for all minority groups, reparations are not a solution.
8
@Les Bois
Why should you pay? Why should I whose ancestors arrived here generations after slavery? Why should millions like us pay? Here is why : we and our children benefit every day because at some point our ethnic ancestors were redefined as white. And we have enjoyed a dominant status in a nation where color is the defining element.
1
Thoughtful, as usual. I've been thinking about trying to undo the stripping of black people's identities and the horrors of the Middle Passage and slavery. Perhaps one way, so long as it were done without allowing the DNA to be hijacked by profiteers, would be to subsidize attempts to identify the tribes and places where ancestors of individual African Americans were from and where fellow descendants live today, and then facilitating reunions and the development of ties of all sorts. Alex Haley's account of his search and final success in identifying not only that first enslaved ancestor and the tribe he belonged to was a very moving experience for me. I've found the results of Henry Louis Gates' research to be moving as well. One can see it in people's faces. Why not try this on a small scale and see how the results play out? Helping the descendants of enslaved people to regaining a sense of a specific heritage and identity could be one way to try to compensate for past wrongs and could serve to create sustainable ties with Africa. I will also point out that we citizens of the United States are not the only heirs of the perpetrators of these acts - who was involved in the slave trade? Making amends should be an international project.
2
david, you continue to evolve and it is a beautiful thing to watch. As for reparations, you are correct that it is more about the welcoming of african-americans as equal citizens than it is about a set monetary amount. as for my fellow americans (and especially my fellow jews) we have all benefited from their slavery in terms of our organization into states, our economy that in our nations birth depended upon the plantations, in our railroads (built with slave labor) that eventually allowed us to settle from the atlantic to the pacific. We all continue to benefit from it, and in fact from the ongoing racism that exists, and that is why we must all be a part of the repentance.
2
Thank you, David.
This is why the slogan for the next Democratic candidate for president should be: "Make American US again!"
Pragmatically speaking, reparations is unlikely to occur, so how about revisiting another, more practicable solution: Education. From Early Childhood through college/trade school. A focused effort on our poorest communities, using public school infrastructure, tailored to local policy with Federal oversight and criteria. This is easily as critical to our future as transportation or electrical infrastructure.
5
Yes, and dismantle the empty notion of"whiteness," which has no ethnic or biological validity. It is a political construct, used to preserve power.
2
Thank you for this commentary, Mr. Brooks. I hope many will listen to reasoned and compassionate ways to correct just a few of those historical wrongs to specific groups that have been disenfranchised through our young life as Americans. The argument for its "justness" are long gone.
My own Catholic ancestors were some of the founders of Georgetown University of Maryland. I read with interest your articles on "reparations" (a leg-up on admittance) for the descendants of these slaves, sold by the Jesuits to plantations in Louisiana to pay debts for the fledgling university. Well documented, and long overdue.
It is time, now, for reckoning. There are many creative ideas that will challenge us and make us find and (re)claim our moral compass. I have many years left to witness our next evolution as Americans.
4
I consider a first step would be a formal top level governmental apology for the atrocity of slavery. This would not be about shame, blame or scapegoating. Instead, this would be an acknowledgement a wrong was committed against a race of people. Doing this would signify this wrong is now being formally addressed.
This would be similar to Japan formally acknowledging it's wrongful use of Korean comfort women during the war. Doing this would not preclude any further steps as remedy or amends.
2
Hmm. So how are these payments to be made? And how much per person (recipient and issuer)? And, yes, what about the indigenous people? And, when the process is completed, what's to stop another round of grievance and call for restitution? Finally, does anyone actually believe that these payoffs will miraculously eliminate racism from the human condition?
9
@ Maj. Upset Perhaps you did not get down to the 14th and 15th paragraphs, in which an expansion of the meaning of reparations is offered. Other comments have suggested a number of ways in which, once our country openly acknowledges the debt we owe to enslaved peoples, we can get beyond cash payments to something more lasting and impactful like better education and health care.
I recently used an insurance calculator to estimate my expected lifespan. The first two questions were my race and my highest level of education. Being white and college-educated immediately added years to me longevity. In college, when I finally even encountered a person of color, they were more likely to come from an African nation than the USA, which made them somewhat exotic and more acceptable than our own black citizens. We all began in the heart of Africa; it seems deliberately ignorant to hang onto the gymnastics needed to pretend, and act, as if we are better because we are white. I certainly expected more progress within my lifetime, which would be possible if we concentrated on fixing things that improve our communities.
We need a new flag that represents wholeness, togetherness, oneness, rather than symbols of separate pieces being bound together. A new flag would be designed based on who we are now, but more importantly, who we hope we will become.
We also need a kind of compassionate zeal for investing in the present and future condition of the African American communities in our country who continue to inherit the worst consequences of slavery and racism stretching back across generations.
But I think the most difficult part of the reparations process is wanting us all to come together, but having to treat people as different and separate from each other in order to get to that goal. So perhaps if we made our goal to lift up all who are left behind, left in the margins, and discriminated against (socially, economically, politically) while acknowledging and celebrating the “universal truths” experienced by all human beings (things like the need to be loved, to belong, to be respected, to be cared for and care for others, the love of family, of friends, the need for safety and so on), then maybe we wouldn’t see reparations as being something one group was being expected or forced to do for another, but rather something that we all wanted to do, to heal Us.
What a bad idea for so many reasons. If you think affirmative action for the children of wealthy and professional class blacks angers poor whites then try explaining to them why are more deserving of reparation checks. Not to mention that the majority of Americans aren't even descended from people living here in 1865 much less slave owners. This is an issue guaranteed to make our horribly divided country's situation worse maybe beyond repair.
16
I know a white man who is 65 and he has never made much money. He was bullied in school because his ears stuck out abnormally and this bullying has held him down all his life. Our society allowed this to happen, and he should receive decent payments from our government to repair this injustice!
6
Words and good feelings don't get it done. Racism hasn't gone away.... and it's impacts are, at least in part, clearly financial.
MONEY....
I've already suggested a scheme (a draft scheme)….
Anyone can submit to a standardized DNA test for 'blackness'. If they are between 100% and 75% 'black', they should receive 75% state and federal tax relief for 25 years.
75% to 50%, make it 50% for 25 years.
50% to 25%, make it 25% for 25 years.
Less than 25%.... 0....
After 25 years, demographics should have leveled the field enough... and we all can move on....
1
"...serves as a model and fuel for other injustices" In another column, Mr. Brooks needs to spell this out. Is the anti-abortion crusade a euphemism for racism, and are our insane gun laws also because of this, not to mention denial of access to healthcare to lower income people?
How do we determine who is African/American? Birth records? DNA tests? I personally know someone whose grandfather of record is black and grandmother is white. Lots of obviously black relatives. Yet DNA testing demonstrates that grandmom had an affair with a white man. So the family suffered the discrimination against blacks but this person is genetically white. How to solve that issue? Is ther some percentage of African DNA required? What if someone has grown up in white society but finds out they have a percentage of African DNA?
Lots of luck with all this.
5
At the end of apartheid in South Africa, they implemented the successful Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Perhaps this is something we should look to do instead of or on top of reparations. I had hoped that Obama would have begun this process during his tenure.
3
@Mark Craemer
Obama would've had a hard time getting this past Mitch McConnell.
This is the best piece that David Brooks has written in a long time.
4
If the left leaning arm of the Democratic Party wants to really do fiscal reparations for the slavery of the Blacks, they should immediately start with shoring up Medicaid, which is set to run out of enough money to pay all the bills in less than 3 years. States contribute about 38% of the costs of the program, which are affecting their budgets, and bottom line. There are 75 million currently on this program in this country, those who are not employed, those who are employed with low or lower middle class income, and nursing home recipients. This would do more to keep those in the black community, and their children with healthcare, and nursing homecare going forward. The financial issues of both our deficit, and debt, going forward are real issues, that will affect the ability to continue to even have the money for the programs that so many depend on, whether housing vouchers, food debit cards, education support, etc. I am very surprised that the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer are asleep at the wheel, as it is all ready to implode by the time they hope to elect a new President in 2020 as a Democrat. Wake up!
2
If you believe in this bad idea, at least propose to tax the South to pay for it.
3
A large percentage of American blacks live in big blue cities in populous blue states, including New York and California. There is plenty of racial discrimination with an economic impact, including workplace harassment and discrimination in hiring and firing against African-Americans in blue states like New York and California.
Yet, just like Democrats don't want to condemn the left-wing anti-Semitism of Rep. Omar, Democrats apparently have no interest in talking about the left-wing white racism toward African-Americans in blue cities and in blue states. Of course not: It isn't Republicans who are responsible for the degrading racism faced by blacks in New York and California!
Never mind reparations - How about every Democrat residing in a blue city or a blue state who has personally ruined a black person's life admits to it and undoes the horrors they have wrought? If all of the racial inequality in New York and California is due to the playing out of unconscious biases, then Trump hasn't released his tax returns by accident.
2
America’s reckoning with its racist and xenophobic past won’t be repaired, not even partially with reparations. Reparations will only add fuel to the fire. Just a warning
But yeah go for it. If it’s financial restitution, I’d like to be exempt as a taxpayer. Neither I nor my familial ancestors have been involved in any past grievances. My family has never enslaved any African American. In fact Europe was a colonizer in my country of origin.
What about restitutions for Native Americans, The Chinese and Japanese? Last time I checked, African Americans didn’t corner the “market” on being brutally oppressed. What about the Israelites during ancient Egypt ? Jews of Europe?
3
We live in the greatest and freest country in the history of mankind. Yet the left remains convinced that the white man is still oppressing everyone else. What a depressing worldview to have! But I guess if one don’t believe in any kind of ultimate justice one must right every wrong here on earth. Much deeper question needing to be answered, how does one with an atheistic worldview justify objective moral truths to begin with?
3
360,000 Union dead in the Civil War. Did you forget about them, Mr. Brooks?
8
@jim kunstler
Did you forget about what caused the Civil War?
Yes, pay reparations. It's just a matter of figuring how to allocate the costs and benefits based upon our individual histories.
There is this black and white couple. Does one get charged a reparations tax and the other get a credit?
There is a Native American family. Do they pay reparations or get them? Does a 40% Native American pay a reduced amount?
Does a millionaire Black household get reduced reparations?
There are Chinese households whose ancestors arrived in the 1800s to work on the railways. What reparations should they pay?
Do families who are in the US because their great-grandparents fled Nazi German or from suffering elsewhere in the world have reparations responsibilities?
And Blacks who migrated to the US recently from the Caribbean or Africa. Do they pay or receive reparations?
Should future immigrants to the US expect to pay reparations?
Presumably, things like this will all be worked out by Reparations Panels who will assign reparation debits and credits based upon our individual genetics and genealogies.
Brooks: ‘Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story.”
Brooks could not be more wrong or irresponsible. Instead of healing, an attempt at what would be perceived as a “tax on Whites and all who benefited from White privilege” would erupt in unprecedented anger and social divisions.
Advice to Progressive candidates--stay away from this one.
6
The Case for Reparations:
The Democrats should pay because the Old Democratic Party was:
- The party of slavery
- The party of the confederacy
- The party of the KKK
- The party of General Nathan Bedford Forrest
- The party George Wallace and Bull Connor
- The party of Lyndon Johnson who voted the straight segregationist line until 1957
The Republican Party:
- Was founded primarily to oppose slavery and abolish slavery
- Passed the 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to freed slaves
- Passed the 15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote
- Integrated the US military and promoted civil rights for minorities. Most of the actual enforcement of the order was accomplished by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration (1953–1961), including the desegregation of military schools, hospitals, and bases. The last of the all-black units in the United States military was abolished in September 1954.
- Pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1957
- Pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964
2
This. A thousand times this. Apologies in advance to Spike Lee, but by God, can we finally do the right thing?
Signed,
A White Middle Class Mom
I’m thinking of a day like the 4th of July or Labor Day where it’s a national holiday and you get paid for staying home and fire works in the evening. A day to honor the African American to celebrate their labor, there ideas, there songs and stories, because we would never be where we are at today in this world without them.
White. Middle aged. Privileged. I'm all in!!!
1
What about Oprah and LeBron??
When questioning who should pay, what about those who lost their great, great grandfathers in the Civil War fighting to abolish slavery? Should they assume guilt because they are white, should they pay? Justice is all too complicated for reparations to work.
4
equal civil rights for black Americans have been denied them since the Mayflower. it's way way past time to implement a New Deal for them.
Why are African american children facing more challenges today then in 1953? The books “the high cost of good intentions” and “ discrimination and disparities” come to mind. I fear the cure put in place by those likely put in charge would be worse then the disease
3
I have a hard time making the connection between David Brook's case on Reparations with the continued discrimination against African-Americans (and Native Americans) and the Jewish Holocaust.
They are different.
Not only in in terms of their place in American history, but because America is still grappling with her racist past, whereas even Germany has came to confront its own.
And to a great extent African-Americans and Native Americans still bear the brunt of being regarded as the inhuman or second-class citizens they were often seen as being, even though it was through the blood and toil of their labors that this country was shaped into being.
But the prejudice is still there, as is the need to segregate.
They by and large lag behind in the socioeconomic sector, subject to inferior housing, health care and education.
Unlike Jews who can claim to white, they do not have that distinction, and in a color-obsessed society like ours that makes all the difference.
For those reasons alone, I am unable to connect the two experiences.
Racial discrimination and anti-Semitism both deserve to be considered in their own right for the inequality and the suffering they cause. And we all deserve to learn from that.
But in the end it is incorrect to equate them as being the same.
2
YES!
Keep it up, David, and any day now you'll become a Democrat.
1
More than money, it the psychological safety net that you are us and because you are us, we cannot do things like incarcerating you for years for minor crimes. That would be meanjngful reparations.
3
Reparations. Yeah right, it's never going to happen. You are attempting to create another class of victims, with their hand out for money. This is a bad idea, nobody alive today is being dragged down because of slavery. There has been slavery throughout history, pretty much every distinct ethnicity, has been enslaved at one point or another. Should we give everyone reparations? We already are through taxes. We are all paying them, we are all receiving them.
2
I am 100% in favor of reparations to the descendants of slaves and native americans. It's about time.
Absolutely. Our society and our government has practiced de jure segregation, and thereby violated the constitutional rights of African Americans, for over 100 years past slavery. This manifested itself in support for the KKK and white backlash after reconstruction, during redlining in housing, in racial covenants in urban planning, and in mortgage financing by government agencies and insurance institutions (FHA, VA, etc).
If our society has violated the constitutional rights of a segment of society, we must right that wrong.
Liberals like Mr Brooks see someone without money. Their solution - give them money. Problem solved. A homeless person? Give them a home. A hungry person? Give them food. A person who needs healthcare? Give them free healthcare. Problem solved.
Reparations are not cash. They’re more free housing, schools, medical care, training and all the other benefits that have kept black people under the thumb of government for decades.
The money, houses, food, healthcare? Paid for by someone else, of course. That someone? The American taxpayer.
Reparations seek to redistribute wealth from people who never benefited from slavery to people who were never slaves.
By the way. There’s no such thing as generational PTSD.
“... sitting... with an elderly black woman... shaking in rage because the kids in her neighborhood face greater challenges than she did growing up in 1953...”
Be honest. Would you rather be a black kid in 2019 or 1953. Be honest.
Much of the challenges those kids face have nothing to do with slavery, Jim Crow, or “institutional racism.”
They are brought on by a culture that has been marginalized by the very programs progressives want to expand with reparations.
Those programs have led to increased absent fathers, dependency on welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing, social security disability, etc.
Real racism is the arrogance of thinking that your benevolence is the only thing that will help.
6
@Johannes de Silentio
Says it all!!
1
This talk of morality and sin of the “identity group” in lieu of the person is fundamentally unjust and feels like a pseudo religious rehash of “original sin”.
5
Raised in lily white Boston suburbia, I have spent the past 40 years working with Black colleagues in Chicago's low income Black neighborhoods. Nobody is looking for a hand out, but a helping hand is welcome. And while you are holding out that hand, you may find your heart opening up, and with a little bit of faith, and eyes and smiles encouraging you to keep on digging, you may be surprised by the new tunes you are singing, in homes with abundant love .......
3
So a low income White American's taxes will go partly to a black wealthy person? That is justice? Why only black people. Why not native Americans. Why not the people of Iraq who suffered much more recently due to immoral and illegal American actions? Who could be naive and delusional enough to think taking from one racial group and giving to another would somehow *reduce* resentment.
8
'Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy'. - Ta-nehisi Coates
Even starting with the abolition of slavery, you're looking at 185 years of systematic disenfranchisement from wealth building through jobs and home ownership and good schools.
It's time to pay them back.
I can’t wondering if the descendants of dispossessed white plantation owners will want compensation as well.
2
If there is a single word that will guarantee 4 more years of our racist, misogynistic, criminal, treasonous President, it is reparations.
If you don't think that's a fastball right down the middle of the plate for Trump, you're crazy. I don't support reparations on the merits, but ignoring the practical consequences for the most important election of all our lifetimes is deeply irresponsible. For once, fellow democrats, let's please be smarter than that.
2
Free money or whatever won’t fix the problem cited by Mr. Brooks but will instead perpetuate the attitude of “you owe me”. It’s time for all to accept responsibility and be accountable for one’s future through education and positive values which are often lacking in some communities. I don’t hear an overwhelming cry for repatriations, handouts or apologies from Vietnam immigrants who suffered greatly from American and French intrusions. Instead these people are proud, resourceful and industrious building positive lives and communities in the US and Vietnam through education, hard work and positive and forward looking values. In other words they don’t go through life with a “you own me chip on their shoulder”.
4
I agree, David, that talking openly about the racism we all share is necessary for realization of our Jeffersonian goals. The dilemma created by the term "reparations" is that it is taken by too many to mean some form of payment which, once completed, ends all obligation to deal with the problem. Of course, while we talk the problem is being solved--slowly to be sure--by intermarriage.
1
Let's start by acceptance of the fact that this country was built on the backs of both Native Americans and Slaves. That is the truth and the financial and corporate evidence is there to prove it. Every large corporation from banks, schools, and other institutions, from the period of the humble beginnings of this country to today Reparations would be the beginning of the healing. It's not about the dollars its about the acknowledgement that the legacy of slavery is still with us today through our disproportional prison systems, to our segregated neighborhoods, under performing schools, stop and frisk policies, stand your ground laws, shooting of unarmed black men and women etc. "We" people of color are still considered the "other" it doesn't matter how many of us have "made it" there are so many that still haven't. So yes, let's start with reparations that lead to honest discussions around inequality in America.
2
Thank you for acknowledging the basic truth that a great many of the ills of today flow in a direct stream from the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of African Americans. We can only change what we are willing to face. We have a lot of truth telling to do before we can remotely begin to speak of reconciliation.
2
I support reparations to the extent reparations take the form of continuing steps we should take as a society to address continuing inequalities that result from past injustices. I believe that reparations in the form of cash payments to millions of African-Americans and Native Americans would be a terrible idea. Throughout history, societies have done horrible things to various groups within them, and the United States is no exception; and no-one today can reasonably think that 21st Century Americans condone slavery or the past treatment of Native Americans. But the way to address past wrongs is to structure today’s society to promote fairness and equality of opportunity, not to tax some Americans to pay others for wrongs committed centuries ago to others. Identity politics divides us today. Monetary reparations will only serve to exacerbate those divides, and create new or enhanced resentments. In my view, we heal as a society by shining a light on the past and acknowledging past injustices, and using today’s ethical standards to create the best, fairest and most inclusive society going forward – not by throwing money at some Americans and, in the process, creating a new set of wounds, divisions and resentments.
3
I believe in reparations, just not in the form of cash payouts. Such a scheme would be impractical (not to mention cheap in the moral sense).
Reparations should come in the form of affirmative action, expanded voting rights, fairer access to jobs and financial instruments, better representation in the media, and so on. Things that actually empower people and better their circumstances. Money can only go so far, but the value of access and the amount of self-determination it can bring is incalculable.
3
Thank you David.
I suggest that before we reach for out check books. Before we start a War on ??? We learn to open our minds. We learn to open our hearts. We learn to open our eyes. We connect the tasks of reconciliation with our every action.
1
Reparations - a wonderful concept, but, nonetheless, a concept. This is typical of most of today's feel-good/collective guilt issues. But what would constitute an appropriate reparation? Of one thing we can be certain: the nature of the reparations will be determined by one of our political groups and imposed on the remainder of our citizenry.
For all those that look at reparations as solely a financial or economic thing - you are falling into the same trap set for you on every other issue that faces this country. It is true that most policies have an economic price but if the goal is something we as a society want to do or need to do (like reparations) ways can be found to pay that price. And I'm not suggesting solely taxing certain people more but actually changing the way things are done.
Look at how much money is spent on jailing people - wouldn't it be better to go to the community from where the convicted live and empower them to determine sentence, repayment, and possibly redemption? What kind of jobs could be created pursuing those policies, what kind of savings, what kind of society would we be building?
There is a lot of work that needs to be done in this country but little will or resources to do it. If just a modicum of energy were given to fund these endeavors instead of making profit who knows what could be accomplished and who knows what country we would then be?
There is a debt that needs to be repaid, damages that need to be repaired, and it would do us as a country so much good to toil under that yoke for a while. Instead we live in a shared fantasy where there is no debt, no damage, and that everything I have I earned on my own. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and a great many of them were slaves whose lives were robbed from them for our gain.
2
The United States has paid $33 trillion since the 1964 Civil Rights Act on programs to eliminate poverty in the country. Every African-American kid who graduates from high school can attend college; any decent university will make sure that they can go for free if they cannot afford it. Their admission requirements are far easier, for everything from undergraduate to medical school, than for whites and Asians. However, I am still willing to contribute $1,000 to a reparations fund if it means that we can end in one fell swoop the counterproductive and counterfactual bellyaching over "institutionalized racism," "systems of oppression," and other "structural" issues that are causing harm and trauma to our nation's African-American community. If that's the cost of making it stop, and making it okay to say again that we must only judge people by the content of their character and not melanin, sign me up. Where do I send the check?
6
Reparations in the form of continued and increased support for projects to help lift impoverished communities toward economic sustainability are an appropriate way to acknowledge and address the ongoing impacts of past slavery.
However, direct payment of reparations would be widely characterized as a wealth transfer from whites to minorities, and due to its “us vs. them” construct would further divide rather than heal the country. Racism exists as a mindset, and its resolution will not come via financial transfers.
3
I'm all for reparations, as long as they go to the descendants of slaves and come from the descendants of slave holders.
There are plenty of prominent people today whose family fortunes were amassed through slavery, but expecting everyone else to pay for crimes they didn't commit is a form of collective punishment.
6
@Gary Taustine
Also problematic: Slavery wasn't a crime.
1
@Gary Taustine
The South was devastated and crippled after the war. If families amassed their wealth through slavery then it was the families of Northern industrialists.
1
This problem is not unique to the US. India has its untouchables, Japan has its Burakumin and Koreans, in many Arab countries the position of Blacks is still inferior too and many Latin American countries are still governed by a white upperclass. The human inclination to look down on other groups is strong.
Brooks is right: only a conscious effort can break down such structural injustices. Whether that should be reparations is open to discussion. But just as in the case of India's Dalits there should be the recognition that explicit policies are needed.
2
This country is rife with people so selfish, so hateful, so vindictive, and so gratuitously, zealously mean that they fight, say, the notion of healthcare for all. They despise the concept of collective responsibility on principle, even as they reap its benefits. When they repudiate participation in collective responsibility that benefits even themselves and their immediate neighbors, they certainly despise even the thought of a collective responsibility that spans generations. The banality of evil is alive and well.
4
If Republicans could figure out some way to get the Democratic party and its candidates to support reparations it would succeed beyond their wildest dreams in cementing a right-wing majority.
8
@Frank Knarf
Yes Frank you are correct. Because honestly, the Republicans today seem to have no sense of justice or morality anymore. At least I don't see it.
My sincerest congratulations, Mr. Brooks. You went out, did your own research, and you worked it through to what I call a proper conclusion.
This next is somewhat extraneous t your central point but it has a bearing on the whole picture: thirty years ago I decided to do the math as to what '40 acres and mules' might entail. At the end of the Civil War, 4,000,000 people of color--men, women and children--gained their freedom.
I think it makes sense to point out that the grant would be to adult males, no? With that in mind, divide the children from the adults. I was informed that a two-adults-to-three-children ratio would be a safe bet. So, we have 1.6 million adults, roughly half of whom would be male; that's 800,000. Now we multiply that by 40 and we get 32,000,000 acres. Divide that by 640 (the # of acres in a square mile) and you have 50,000 square miles--about the size of the state of Georgia. Spread out over fifteen formerly slave states, it really isn't that much. Definitely very 'startup', wouldn't you agree? I think equivalents today might be: a solid but small house with one room usable as, say, a home office or a workshop (with tools and/or basic equipment) with a small yard which might become a produce garden and at least either a car in good condition OR easy access to good public transit. I might also suggest interest has accrued on this unpaid debt, but how much I'll leave to others just now. Btw, I am a middle-aged, straight, married, Anglo-Saxon paleface.
2
I just cried at my desk. Imagining a world where the original sin of this nation had been dealt with squarely creates in me such a sense of relief that I cried at my desk. At work. In public.
The pain, resentment, fear, and suspicion that run deep in our nation are the result of trying to bury a truth that is exposed whenever the veneer of polite society is eroded even a little: our nation continues to systemically favor white people and, through slavery and all that followed, has set African Americans so far behind that it is not possible for them to attain full equality without a dramatic reckoning. We must stop covering a festering wound; we must remove the dressing and cut away until no disease remains, and then embark on a course of true healing.
5
Good try but totally ineffective! The argument collapses on itself. The foundation of justice is the recognition of autonomy and equality of all. It is in inclusion. Therefore, the source of injustice is exclusion that leads to domination. Slavery is an extreme form of exclusion and domination. The remedy for exclusion is inclusion, not compensation for some past injuries. If we recognize the autonomy of black Americans, we must recognize their free will and their capacity to break away from any past bondage, rather than allow it to dominate over their lives. True liberation is self-liberation. Reparations for past injuries are just another form of humiliation by the white elites—a compensation (at taxpayers’ expense) for the continued exclusion. Black Americans are excluded. For example, African-Americans are generally supportive of the role of religion in public life. They are also strongly pro-life and against abortions. Are their values reflected in the ideology of the white Democratic elite? Finally, inclusion is a process, not an apocalyptic moment. Apocalypse is a religious metaphysical concept and should be understood as such. I cannot imagine that a one-time monetary compensation will change our reality. On the contrary, it may, ironically, perpetuate exclusion and domination.
1
Mr. Brooks has gone wobbly on this issue. On the Union side about 300,000 white men died. Do their families get an exemption? More blacks have immigrated to America since 1900 than all that were brought over during the slave trade. Do they all get money? We were British subjects during the peak years of the slave trade. Does the UK have any responsibility? Millions of Americans are mixed. How do we sort that out? My family came to this country from Italy in the early 1900's. Not only did Italians make less than blacks, they had nothing to do with slavery. Most importantly, we have division in our nation. Just wait until the fight begins over who pays, who gets paid, and how much they paid.
7
An honest question - African Americans are hardly the only group that has been severely marginalized in the United States. Would reparations to African Americans require that similar acts be extended to the descendents of Chinese rail laborers, Japanese internment camps survivors, the descendants of the few Native Americans that survived literal genocide? If we're going to start making amends for government sanctioned cruelty, it will be a long to-do list.
4
Repatriations. Yes.
But now.....who gets repatriations?
The Jamaican and Haitian, the Somolian, the Kenyan? Who came to this country as immigrants...not as slaves?
Then there's intermarriage....now we have to deal with the Dr. Seuss dilemma of star-bellied vs plain-bellied sneeches. How ya gonna sort'em out?
Repatriations is an important action we might take as a Nation. But lets start at the original sin.
We identify that, as this Nation began, we made a conscious decision to overlook the "unalienable rights" of fellow human beings held in bondage. We created that wonderful 3/5ths rule to count people who had no voting rights in order to increase the power of an economic system based on their labor.(sound familiar?)
1965-recent times.....we went on a biblical 40 years in the Wilderness to remove ourselves 2 generations from that original sin. And we are just now emerging from the wanderings inside the Civil Rights Era. We are now headed over Yonder Mountain.
Repatriations might just pick up where the "Return to Africa" movement left off shortly before the Civil War.
Give that some objective, unemotional, practical thought.
We have also created a mess in Liberia, and now pretend like that doesnt exist either.
1. Take a repatriation offer of 7 years support and one way transport to Liberia. Renounce US citizenship.
2. After 7 years, US open to immigration and application for US citizenship.
3. Renewed US support and guidance to Liberia....possible US Territory.
The hair on my arms stood up as I read your column this morning. Bravo, Mr Brooks. The much vaunted documents of our nation are worthless without some honest attempt at acknowledging the facts. Once acknowledged sincerely, these fact cannot be ignored.
#truthandreconciliation
2
I have long been a believer of reparations for the descendants of the victims of transatlantic slavery. My issue, inlcuding with Ta-Neisha Coates' fantastic article, is that nobody really has a concrete suggestion on what reparations would look like.
Recently I got into a long conversation with an African American group of friends about what the German Jews got after the Holocaust. It's often referred to as reparations but it was really repayment for stolen property (think of it as a reverse eminent domain) and only people who could prove ownership received it. There was a victims fund but it was never to make survivors whole for their losses.
So what would reparations look like in America. Since I haven't seen any concrete solutions I would like to propose some:One of the biggest issues African Americans face is the lack of intergenerational wealth as a result of economic racism ranging from low wages to redlining. I propose:
1) a fund that would serve as a resource to descendants of slave victims that could cover things like a down payment on a house, education expenses and medical emergencies. If you have means you wouldn't need this resource but your cousin who doesn't could.
2) descendants would also be eligible to receive government backed incentives to save money and invest by earning a couple of extra points of interest on their accounts.
Finally, WE HAVE TO HAVE A TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION ABOUT SLAVERY to acknowledge its impact on the descendants
2
I never know how to feel when someone updates their opinion like this. On the one hand I want to congratulate Brooks for having an open mind. On the other hand, I want to roll my eyes over the fact that it took him this long to reconcile his opinion about a 150-year-old topic, and save my congratulations for writers like Coates, who had the correct opinion from the jump.
David Brooks states "we are a nation coming apart at the seams".
If you want to really tear this nation apart with a blow torch, then by all means, let's enact reparations.
One side of my family actually fought in the Civil War for the Union so slavery get be abolished. Millions died to end slavery.
My other side of the family didn't even get to this country until 1920, were extremely poor immigrants who had no connection to slavery.
If you talk about help- let's help the working poor of all races.
If you talk about help- please let's pay attention to Native Americans whose ancestors were slaughtered and lost most of their land.
5
Race is a permanent stain this country has yet to remove. There have been a number of recent books (e.g. Slavery by any other name, On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation 1st ) that document, quite graphically, the purposeful strategies by whites to both legally segregate the races and to eliminate troublesome groups. Sadly, our history books often sanitize the brutality of reconstruction and the genocide of tribal nations. Even worse, we have our political class, that appears to believe that civil rights is no longer a problem and in the words of Justice Roberts, let's just move on. We really need a form of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to wake us up to how deeply racists this country is and offer possible avenues to heal those wounds, which is African American and Native American communities are still very raw.
3
Reparations ... no.
Soul-searching, a change of heart, greater engagement in a child's life and the life of the community ... yes.
A deeper understanding of self --- others (personal and social identity) ... yes
People need a hand-up, not a hand-out.
Also, impulse control is a very important skill to master.
2
How many comments here are from the group under discussion by Brooks - what are their thoughts?
I see a lot of talk by white people. (I did not read all of them but quite a few.) I also have read several books and articles by Coates as well as Baldwin - changed my views. I am really not sure how reparations could be made - though an attempt to acknowledge the pervasive policies and laws of the past surely should be. I was astounded to learn of the veterans housing policy that did not allow WWII black veterans access to housing... and even education loans I think.
2
Lincoln was like an Old Testament prophet, speaking words of fire. Instead of listening, we killed him. When will we take these words to heart?
1
In the past 30 years America has been almost over run with immigrants who have come here from countries all over the world. Most of which came here with absolutely nothing but the shirt on their backs and were met with discrimination and distrust by Americans. Nothing caused more discrimination back in the 70's and 80's than not being able to speak English and no one had their hand out to help them. Yet rather than turning to the government to support them, they've worked hard, made family and education a priority have prospered because of it. Now they are an important part of America and living proof of the American dream. And keep in mind that in those families are people who came here to escape the worst kind of horrors that they themselves faced in the countries they left. Not their ancestors 150 years ago, but them personally.
I am sure I'll be attacked for this but I wish someone would explain to me how these recent immigrants along with many who were born in poverty here, continue to find ways to succeed yet black America says 150 years isn't enough time for them to escape the affects of slavery so they too can do well. Why is that not enough time? I sincerely want to understand why the discrimination they faced is so much worse than what others have faced? America has bent over backwards, lowered the standards for blacks while raising the standards for Asian Americans. Yet now they want reparations? I don't understand.
2
Thank you David for this honest analysis. Unfortunately, we have corrupt political and legal systems that have made, and I expect will continue to make, reparations impossible.
For example, the policy of affirmative action was a first step towards reparations and it did help a lot of people get out of a cycle of poverty and under education at least. But where is it now? Affirmative action, as mild as it is, is threatening to the white power structure so it is pretty much history, wrought so by the Supreme Court. Health care reform so that poor people are not held back by disabling illness? Dead in the water.
Reparations will require that politicians and the legal branch look honestly at our reality and give up their selfish notions that black people and poor white people are getting something for nothing.
2
Dr. King spoke often about the original sin of slavery and its modern counterpart in "Jim Crow."
More recently Michelle Alexander, who spent most of her legal career fighting for civil rights now says the nation need a spiritual revolution in order to make rights meaningful and attainable.
Both recognized that we need to undergo a national transformation of consciousness. These transformational moments are never easy.
Just as David was initially drawn to logical arguments against reparations, there is a similar impulse that blocks the openness that is necessary for our collective conscious to change. But change it must.
We have recently lived, albeit briefly though such moments. I began college as a "Negro" but walked out four years later as an African American. For once I had a history, culture and place of origin. I belonged in the world and to the world.
Women have gone through a similar transformations. They are no longer an extension of a man. They do hold up half the sky. More recently the LGBTQ movement has transformed our collective sense of sexual identity.
There is a lesson from each of these moments. Transformation is a painful process, but the rewards are worth the effort. Second, it will be opposed, sometimes violently by those who will not see.
Lastly, a new consciousness will find the appropriate way to express itself. We needn't worry about costs and policies on the front end. First, let the child be born and then we will know what to name it.
1
David,
This is an extremely divisive idea; likely to make the situation MUCH worse.
Your thought that everyone will feel much better afterwards is just wrong-headed wellness industry nonsense.
I'm a big fan of your work but you're way off track here.
2
''We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative ...'' - Uh, NO.
There is a small minority that has its grip on power via propaganda and influence born out of misdirection, untruths, and a siphoning of the majority of the resources to them.
There is only one truth and people (all people) either have human rights or not. They either have freedoms or they do not.
There is only one ''tribe'' that is doing all of the damage, but they are a shrinking minority that is losing their grip.
Just a matter of time.
(also what is wrong with this statement that it goes to pending? - Afraid of the words ? )
1
While I agree with many of the points on the moral arguments, there are a lot of poor whites too, and they feel the system isn't working for them. While they have more privileges, in some ways, than even the richest black person, they have been losing hope.
How do you tell these people that we need to redress the sins our nation committed against black people but the people whose families have worked and died in the mines aren't entitled to anything?
I'm afraid this sort of talk could hand a second term to Trump, unless a lot of African Americans vote. And a second term for Trump wouldn't help minorities in this country.
1
Sometimes I read David Brooks with deep dismay. Sometimes he makes me angry. Sometimes I think, "He almost understands." Today I'm in wholehearted agreement and I find that both confusing and heartening.
1
It seems that affirmative action _is_ the reparations program? What is being proposed that is different?
2
The exploitation of women by men vastly exceeds, temporally and geographically, any other injustice on earth. We could compensate descendants of slaves, we could compensate Native Americans, but we would have to completely restructure society to compensate women. We are not even prepared for this conversation.
2
Reparations will not change people's attitudes. And what do you do with people who are one-eighth Cherokee like myself? I've had a good life, many of my ancestors did not. And they are dead. I don't need reparations. I don't think this is the answer, but I know a lot of people disagree with me.
2
"Hard to execute." I'll say! The biggest barrier, probably insurmountably large, will be how we determine who will be qualified to receive reparations. Are we going to have a new government agency that vets family trees? A new device that analyses people's skin color? DNA testing with known inaccuracies and privacy problems? And of course there is politics...
1
If anyone ever doubted that there is still blatant racial and socio-economic inequality, just read the article about Paul Manafort's sentence yesterday.
Imagine how many years he would have been sentenced to had he been a person of color.
1
Typically: it sounds good and right (debatable); the execution doesn't matter. Except that it does. Our country has been racialized, with every act, thought, intent, word examined for racial/racist content, until we are paralyzed and paranoid. Reparations merely open a whole other endless box of resentment and punitive possibilities. It'll further wind our nation up in tribalism until we all strangle.
1
Monetary reparations would be a polarizing disaster in today’s America. If giving cash is the core of what Mr. Brooks suggests, I believe he is quite wrong.
3
What an absurd notion. And when reparations have been paid, and blacks and Native Americans are still behind, then what? I can only assume Mr Brooks will propose some new payment I owe (for something I didn’t do).
Generations of affirmative action and costly social programs haven’t worked. Here in NYC we’re preparing to deny Asian kids their hard earned spots in elite schools in favor of some pointless quota system. That won’t work either. Stay in school, stay out of jail, and don’t have a kid until you’re an established financially independent grown-up with a committed partner. Problem solved.
5
Well said, David, as always. Any, I think that you are right. But, a serious effort to accomplish this would assure Trump's reelection. If his base frothed at the mouth about "Obamacare" because it gave something to those undeserving "others", just think how giving money to those "others" would set his base off now. Please, let's not talk about reparations in this election!!!!
Mr. Brooks this column made me re-think reparations. I once felt as you did, like yesterday. I moved form New England to the South 7 years ago and it is another country to me, as strange as France is strange. This is Bible belt country and religion is in the air you breathe. Usually if you are Christian you believe in sin and redemption. But as a whole, the South has not sought redemption. They do not want to acknowledge the sin of slavery but in their hearts they know the sin. So too often those with Southern historical roots tell the happy darky story of the benevolent plantation owner. They worship Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. To me they were traitors to their country--the United States of America. I am friends with a group from Antigua I work with in the summer. Their historical slavery is so different they seem of a different race than African-Americans. England outlawed slavery in the 1830's without war and the masters didn't live on the island so their was no rape of black women. Another couple I know consists of a black man who grew up in Harlem and his wife who's family came from Cape Verde. They were formed by very different experiences and one can tell the difference. African-Americans have given this country so much and it should be acknowledged. I think I'll march down to Montgomery, Alabama and view the incredible monument that speaks to the lynching of back people.
The just passed resolution in the House condemning hatred is a hash of grievances and perceived slights by anybody who views themselves as exhibiting even a modicum of difference from the mainstream white, Christian mold. And that is exactly what would happen to any reparations bill: everybody will have their hand out. Aside from that, how can reparations be calculated? Are the billions given for social support (housing, food) to be deducted for African Americans? I know some African Americans have weighed in from their viewpoint (minus any consideration for monies already given), but what about gender issues? What about the Japanese interned during WWII who can point specifically to, say, property taken? Have they been fully paid back? Except for them, I am against reparations. No, I'm not Japanese. BTW, I also think that any innocent person who suffered under the horrendous forfeiture law should also be reimbursed.
If history is any guide, meaningful discussions on reparations for past sins, let alone action, are unlikely until the majority feels “completely safe” from what they perceive to be a threat associated with that sin. I am afraid until white America’s generationally inherited fear of black people passes this issue will go nowhere. Imagine uttering the word reparation for Japanese-American internment victims in the middle of the war.
I never thought I'd be this cynical, but a "reparations conversation" is nothing more than a conservative smoke screen designed to fool the American people.
Conservatives want to have a long, involved national conversation about reparations, because they know it is such a difficult, morally ambiguous issue that the majority will decide it is not a good idea. They will then have a straw man "consensus" to NOT give special consideration to African Americans. They will be free to deal with REAL tax and social policies the way they want: continue taking money from the poor and working classes and giving it to billionaires.
1
We give reparations to people of sexual and domestic violence and to those cheated by fraud. We feel empathy for children who are abused by their parents and use the power of the cycle of abuse to defend them when they grow up and become abusers. We applaud the battered spouse when they defend themselves. America abused people of African descent for hundreds of years. Ought not we to be compensating them for that? How is a people who had been systematically deprived of basic rights supposed to just fit in and not carry the trauma of abuse? We don't expect individuals to just wake up and say, oh, the war's over, and get on with life. We don't expect children not be be scared by abuse. How can we just expect whole cultures within the country's boundaries and withing it's history to just say, "Oh, I guess it was just a bad dream," and move on as if nothing happened? And how can anyone who has never experienced such institutional oppression to enjoy life, knowing that what they have and what they've won in life wasn't earned on a level playing field. The "haves" owe to themselves to try to balance things. It's what people with conscience do.
1
To everyone saying "But I didn't enslave anyone so why should I pay": Because we aren't individuals here, we're a nation. And that nation bears collective responsibility for 450 years of enslavement, discrimination, and injustice that continues even today. This nation was founded on a bedrock of slavery and treatment as inferior; hat bedrock remains unmoved beneath every aspect of our 21st c. lives, from discrimination in mortgage rates and housing, to poor schools, lack of employment opportunity, and police shooting and killing my neighbor in an "incident" that started because he was a black man walking in a torn hoodie,which the cop saw as inherently suspicious. As for the "Oprah problem," I don't think it should be tied to financial status. Nearly every Holocaust survivor, even those who later did well financially, receives reparations from Germany for the suffering and losses inflicted by that nation. Reparations are as much psychological as practical--a concrete expression of remorse by the nation that did the foul deed. I imagine reparations would be financed by taxation, which means everyone would pay into this, not just whites.
''We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative ...'' - Uh, NO.
There is a small minority that has its grip on power via propaganda and influence born out of misdirection, untruths, and a siphoning of the majority of the resources to them.
There is only one truth and people (all people) either have human rights or not. They either have freedoms or they do not.
There is only one ''tribe'' that is doing all of the damage, but they are a shrinking minority that is losing their grip.
Just a matter of time.
1
You cannot purchase forgiveness, not that it ever comes from the buyer anyhow. We are multiple generations separated, nor were we the only, in a world filled with slavery: though one of the first to reject, then die in fields to forge that rejection. Forgiveness must come from those who were wronged, they are long gone, as are the assailants. It is time to move on, that is for sure, I'm sure it can be purchased though.
1
“People are at their worst when they are least accountable for their actions.” -M. Scott Peck, MD, “People of the Lie: The Hope of Healing Human Evil” -paraphrased
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the greatest of evils among men is absentee landlordism...” -Keynes paraphrased from memory
The evil that emerges in Western (or any) society are usually symptoms of alienation.
When we are not in proximity to other people’s plight (ie. we aren’t in community with their suffering) we don’t have sensitivity to it & so don’t see the urgency for solution or what it would look like.
In America we retreat from community with the inner city by escaping into suburbs. But even worse is the concentration of wealth and power which creates wealthy isolated by money. The GNP has gone up 150% since 1972 but the median wage is flat, before 1972 wages went up with GNP. This has crushed peoples in the lower strata of society. This has happened because lower class people have lost all agency of bargaining power. Why hasn’t this been addressed?
The original sin is the entitlement of the rich (planters) to thoughtless behavior cushioned by money.
“The rich aren’t like you & I,...they possess & enjoy early, & it... makes them soft... & cynical where we are trustful, in a way that... is very difficult to understand. They think...that they are better... they smashed up things & creatures & then retreated back into their money... and let other people clean up the mess.” -F.Scott Fitgerald
The people African-Americans who are descended from slaves, will also suffer if this country evolves into chaos. Perhaps even more than those who contributed to discrimination. Is justice ever really possible?
An expert use of "whataboutism" Dave.
Before anyone is swayed (that Dave is no longer a racist) don't forget his column from a few years ago where he tried to revive Eugenics by making the argument that "generational poverty" was actually genetic and not caused by how society is constructed. How does a man get from a people being genetically predisposed to being poor generation after generation to they deserve recompense for the imposition society put on them to cause that poverty?
1
''We’re a nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative ...'' - Uhm, NO.
There is a small minority that has its grip on power via propaganda and influence born out of lies, and a siphoning of the majority of the resources to them.
There is only one truth and people (all people) either have human rights or not. They either have freedoms or they do not.
There is only one ''tribe'' that is doing all of the damage, but they are a shrinking minority that is losing their grip.
Just a matter of time.
1
I think we've all paid our dues: it was called the American Civil War of 1861.
3
Deep gratitude for focus on truth. I am the son of Yankee/Confederate roots, we sat around the table loving ancestors on both sides. I am Quaker from Bucks county, PA, our Quaker mother always told us to never blame Daddy for all the horrible racism in the south since his parents died when he was young.
I know first hand that shaming white southerners about their ancestors Is the wrong idea! Shaming the shamed only blinds the shamed into their shame. It hardens them to you. I know that.
We need a series of television documentaries-dramas that demonstrate colonial exploitation of races over the long history. Let us admit that all of America's economy benefited from tobacco cotton, off-shore labor camps. If we can get over the blaming and shaming, maybe we can accept our truth together.
Again thanks to Mr Brooks. I am a regular watcher at 6 o'clock news for.
Bill Evans, Los Angeles
We had a national reckoning over slavery; it cost us three quarters of a million lives.
Recall: slavery was never a racial issue; that was a post-hoc justification for a practice based on power, not race. (Africans were not enslaved by Europeans, but by fellow Africans.) But the racism which sprang from the institution didn’t end at Appomattox: many –like almost all – “white” Americans believed passionately that race MATTERED. In short, Coates channels them: be believes, passionately, that race MATTERS. He is not out to change that. He wallows in it.
The idea that I will be taxed to satisfy a racial grudge is deeply offensive. I did no one any harm; I will not answer for crimes which occurred not only before I was born, but before my great-great grandparents were born. In Ireland.
The argument against reparations is simple: not a single person in the US can point to slavery as the cause of whatever ills from which they suffer. This is nothing more than an exercise in counterfactaul hypotheticals. The statute of limitations longs since expired on racial grievances.
But, heck, the Romans treated the Celts rather harshly; where do I sign up to make the Italians provide me with a handout?
3
If David Brooks is going to support “reparations”, let’s start it the right way - reparations to the Native Americans - whose land this is and to whom we owe our lives.
1
Until this nation truly acknowledges as a whole that its very land was stolen from an idiginenous population and then built upon the backs of an enslaved race, it will never be able to fully repair itself. Let the realization and healing begin.
The best thing we can do for our fellow travelers in this experiment in self rule that happen to be black is the greatest power against oppression. Education! I believe any person of color that presents him or herself to any college with descent grades should be admitted with no cost whatsoever and the government will give them a stipend for living costs while they are being educated. We owe this to our black brothers and sisters for our long and ongoing history in this country!
The Case for Reparations is not about things that were done by plantation owners, or individual bigots. It is about government laws, regulations and policies that were designed to, and succeeded in making black people a permanent underclass; an artificial bottom rung of society that sits lower even than non-citizens.
How strange that people who have no problem with the program of reparations for Japanese internment, or for the Holocaust - some of whom are now calling for reparations for border separation - are so quick to say no to reparations for descendants of slaves.
@nero
A sticky point is that many shipping and agricultural companies utilizing slave labor were owned and/or operated by British or French corporations, as were the European slave traders who dealt with African slave traders. Most African slavery was in Caribbean and South America agriculture.
Every single person alive today has an ancestor who was slave and slave master.
1
Perhaps we should view the current situation in our country from a human tribal perspective, i.e., one of color. Skin pigmentation has always been the great psychological barrier, because it identifies your tribe. Recently, an actor was vilified as not being "black enough" for the role of a black man. Until we can stop the knee jerk reaction that identifies people based upon skin color, we will continue to prejudge. It divides us and obstructs communication and cooperation. Miscegenation is the solution, and the sooner, the better if we want to grow beyond this impasse.
2
African American are perfectly capable of working hard to achieve affluence without any help from reparations. There is nothing stopping them.
1
How about a commission to study reparations, such as proposed in U S House Resolution 40, introduced in many sessions of Congress? How about urging your Representative to co-sponsor and move it along? How about now?
If cash reparations were to be issued to heal past injustice, much money would be enough to EQUALLY satisfy every citizen who has been wronged by bigotry and/or whose ancestors were enslaved?
1
Can you say "Political Suicide" ? If you want the GOP to control Congress for a generation or more go with "Reparations". Because that will all but guarantee it. The concept may be popular in the Liberal enclaves of the NE and West Coast. but in the Rust Belt or the Mountain west? Not hardly. And frankly expecting people who had nothing to do slavery to pay for the sins of people dead a hundred and fifty years ? Some people may believe in sins of fathers, but most,...... most don't. This is running of a political cliff like a lemming in order to signal your virtue. Personally I would rather the Democrats did not cede control of congress to the GOP for the next generation, But that's my opinion. But this? If you want Trump to win the election ? Just concede it don't commit political suicide for generation!
3
@Stephan
Shhhh - don't give away GOP's secret. Keep talking "seriously" about this. GOP lock.
1
A fundamental part of anything called reparations is simply acknowledging the truth of what European American ancestors did to African Americans. It’s happening. Organizations like Coming to the Table and the Slave Dwelling Project are exposing the long history of enslavement in this country and providing ways for descendants of both enslavers and the enslaved to come together to confront past crimes and present-day racism. As a descendant of slaveholders, I embrace the work of these groups. In Georgia, where my ancestors enslaved hundreds of people, the Georgia Historical Society has launched a statewide program marking key sites of African-American history. Last weekend, I witnessed the unveiling of a historical marker on Butler Island, near the town of Darien, where untold numbers of enslaved people labored in punishing swamps to grow rice. More than 400 of those people were eventually sold in the largest-ever slave auction on U.S. soil. How moving to see a crowd of blacks and whites come together to honor those individuals—and to hear Bubba Hodge, Darien’s white mayor, say, “This place tears my heart when I think back to all those people had to go through.” We have so much more to do, of course, but there is movement.
Leslie Stainton
Ann Arbor, Michigan
(I am a board member of both Coming to the Table and the Slave Dwelling Project.)
I’m in favor of monetary reparations. Since it is impossible nor morally possible to identify those truly worthy of receiving such monetary reparations it should go to all Americans. Everyone should have more money. Therefore, I propose everyone receive a large check from the federal government. How could anyone argue with giving African Americans money?
1
Free college tuition plus room and board for every African American child born after the year X at any accredited school where they receive admittance.
Parenthetically mentioning our Indigenous People, serves to facilitate endemic prejudice. Remember that Natives got the vote long, long after our 14th Amendment, 82 years. Reparations are still refused for broken treaties, stolen land, resources, stealing children from their families for their own good to "Christianize" them, ... , the list goes on.
Reading these comments even those supporting reparations make it clear that most people think that it's up to whites to accept or reject the concept of reparations. It's actually up to all Americans. Just because we whites caused the problem doesn't mean we get to d ictate the solution.
1
This essay by Brooks illustrates why I felt I had to vote for Trump in 2016. I could see at the time that he was highly flawed, although I could not have foreseen his incompetence on so many issues, his inability to trust in experts on foreign policy and economics, his belief that he understood all issues himself and had no need of a cabinet, his penchant for surrounding himself with sycophants.
I support the impeachment of Trump. But I also realize that Democrats are hell-bent on marching leftward towards extremist positions that are even worse than his.
Reparations is one such issue. Somehow Democrats have gotten the notion that the way to eliminate discrimination is to introduce new discrimination in the opposite direction. There is not even a pretense of fairness in such a policy.
Democrats have forgotten the problems that afflict poor Americans, whether they are black or white or Hispanic.
There is an innumeracy displayed in the pages of the NY Times that is appalling. Stories are told of individual people. But the issues affect millions of people. One needs discussion of ideas regarded as "politically incorrect."
One of those ideas is getting population growth under control. This idea is never discussed. In fact, Democrats call it racist or bigoted to even suggest that the problem be discussed at all.
Thus Americans have no way of understanding why it is that economic opportunities for poor Americans are vanishing, while Americans at the top get rich.
1
Being a francophone in a sea of anglophone in Canada, this column resonates a lot ...! Although the french language received limited country wide recognition in the 1982 constitution (similar to the US end of slavery through the 13th amendment) the heart and soul of both countries majority leaders did not evolve to digest and integrate the new required mindset for a better national collective.
A guarantee of comprehensive and affordable healthcare for everyone and a $15 minimum wage would go a long way to repairing the damage done by decades of income inequality.
Lift all boats -- African American, Native American, Female American.
We forget that women have been oppressed on a macro and micro level since forever. How does the country make up for centuries of oppression of fully half of the entire population?
By lifting all boats.
2
I thought Coates's article about reparations suggested it's not so much about the money, but the recognition of our collective past -- a history supported and defended by federal and state governments that went to war -- that must be put to the test, like the Truth and Reconciliation Committees in South Africa.
As an Equal Employment Opportunity lawyer, I used to teach that equal opportunity doesn't begin with the job application. It begins with pre-natal care. We need a rational plan to fix an obstinate problem.
Two brief thoughts:
-- We shouldn't think of this on the model of a cash payout to individuals; we should think of it as an infrastructure investment in communities of color that have historically been shut out of the larger American world of opportunity, not just by slavery, but by rules that prevented them from buying homes, joining unions, running businesses, and so many other things most of us took for granted. A lot of the ways white people have benefited from racism are invisible to us, sometimes by design.
-- Where the resistance of conservatives is concerned: One of the chief philosophical foundations of conservative political philosophy in this country remains the work of Robert Nozick, as embodied in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Nozick's approach to distributive justice tells us to focus on the history of the distribution. He says there's nothing inherently wrong with a grossly unequal distribution, for instance, if the history of the distribution does not involve coercion or fraud. But any reasonable look at the history of our country shows a truly epic series of historical injustices against Native Americans and people of color that has shaped the distribution of goods and opportunities here ever since. For Nozick, a critical part of the theory of distribution is a principle of rectification. The massive size of the injustice that must be rectified cannot be accepted as an argument against even trying.
2
For a moment forget history. We have a large majority of people who, probably through the fundamental attribution error, don't see the racism that still is pervasive now. To ask them to consider reparations for the legacy of racism is futile.
When we have loud voices crying that "reverse racism" is the real problem and that white people are the ones suffering it is futile to expect that those people will see reparations as a requirement.
When we have a man in the White House who rose to political success by shouting those lies and falsehoods, and who maintains the support of his party because he is willing to shout those lies and falsehoods, I doubt that, at this juncture, serious reflection on our racist history is possible.
248
If not now, when? If we wait until it is easy, we’ll continue to tear ourselves apart.
25
@Marc.
Perhaps. But if in the face of daunting obstacles we always shrink back from trying, then can anything ever change? The movement against the Vietnam war was hopelessly futile in the beginning--yet look at how that turned out. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we have to take a bold step to eradicate the stain of racism in America.
Brooks's observation that we don't talk about sin much in the public square anymore is spot on. I thank him for injecting the word "sin" back into our discourse.
24
Fine, @Marc. Then Party-of-Lincoln offspring can't use zero-sum accountability as the basis of their false meritocracy if our little experiment's IPO to France -- causing our capitalism to spike -- was based on the very free labor w/o which we'd've never won our Independence in the first place.
Don't wanna bring race into the equation? Fine. Then all those who unduly support our White [Supremacist] House are suddenly no doubt the biggest "Welfare Queens" in the nation. Not the blacks on whose backs prosperity was literally hedged for free.
13
With emphasis on slavery and "the original sin," those of us whose families immigrated to the United States long after slavery ended may claim to be innocent. However, as some of the responses to this article indicate, systematic, government sponsored discrimination in housing and employment-related laws and regulations have persisted. They have diminished the ability of all African Americans to accumulate wealth, regardless of their slave ancestry. And as a white immigrant myself, I have been the beneficiary of laws, customs, and attitudes that favor whiteness.
Reparations will face an insurmountable hurdle, when even affirmative action is opposed by so many. But our society carries a heavy burden and owes those who have been disadvantaged by design. An acknowledgement of that burden is a first step.
1
Some 400,000 white Union soldiers gave their lives during the Civil War to end slavery (and countless others contributed their limbs in the effort). It seems to me that should count for something as slavery in the United States was ended by the sacrifice of whites who actually lived in the era of slavery.
4
@James
More than 1 million young American white males died or were maimed into permanent disability. Half the nation was left destitute and starving, especially women and children who were also victims of war crimes no one was held accountable for. Such is the folly of every civil war in every nation on the planet; it should always be avoided and there are few winners.
1
There is currently in place a feeling of social obligation, often unstated but ever-present, that informs everything to do with race in this country from daily interactions to laws. Could the explicit transfer of wealth from one group to another foreclose a debt, allowing two distinct groups of people to then sever that social obligation, drop all pretense of a shared society and feel they can go their separate ways (Go? Go where?)? Will white people then feel that, with the debt paid, that they are "done" and walk away from the table to pursue their own interests with no further thought to the aforementioned debt?
I’m not claiming that this discharged debt would actually eliminate racist and discriminatory actions going forward, but there would be plenty (possibly a majority) who would. The basis for Civil Rights law would be largely nullified (that’s what discharging a debt does). Is there no downside to this at all? Could the inevitable inter-group resentments manifest in ways as yet unseen?
Brooks closed with "...but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story." Are we really sure that the wound will be thereby healed and that the new story is one that we would want? Yes? Then let's do this.
3
@George: No, we can be sure that the wound won't be healed. It's not the kind of debt that can be paid off with the signing of a check. There would be resentment and bogus interpretations of what it all means. But we have all that already: it doesn't mean the reparation shouldn't be paid. There are a lot of things we do without being entirely sure what the results will be. That's kind of what Lincoln was saying: we just have to do the best we can to be just, and then, he said, rely on the ultimate justice of the Lord. Or maybe, just keep doing our best, and see what happens.
As a conservative, I must admit I enjoy when the other side starts to "get serious" about discussing this. We all know it will never happen in the form of a direct monetary payout (do the math if you haven't already to see why).
So let's get into specifics. More affirmative action? Even larger diversity departments at universities? What?
4
My ancestors came to America well after the Civil War. Yet, I am white and aware of how white privilege has served me in this life. I am as much a recipient of the racism of slavery as anyone whose ancestors were here at that time (regardless of which side they were on -- if white, they've still benefited from the inherent racism). So, it is more than the practical consideration of who is who, when and where in regards to slavery reparations. There's no easy way to do it. It should happen, all the same. Society as a whole has not paid for this sin. It continues, only without legal slave ownership.
6
Canadian reconciliation began with attempting to right the wrongs done to the First Nation's people of this land. Actually that's not true. The Francophone population fought for and gotten distinct status to help preserve their heritage and culture. (Let's not get into original treaties and their implementation). Reconciliation has grown to include recognition of all marginalization of people of colour and people with disabilities resulting in programs and grants to even the playing field, implement accessibility to workplace, entertainment and government (physical and career wise). That means the once privileged resulting from the marginalization of these groups take a backseat in grants and other "opportunities" until the playing filed evens out. About time.
An ethical man who is capable of changing his mind, that is a good story. Thank you for sharing your enlightenment, and I am hoping that your sharing your experience will positively influence other white people's attitudes.
3
Reparations. I don't think so. Unless that means ensuring that everyone has access to quality education commensurate with their needs. And everyone has access to housing in any community which they are able to afford. And everyone has access to jobs according only to their qualifications.
David is like justice Kennedy who voted for civil rights legislation knowing full well that those decisions fully engaged the reactionary right, emboldened the base conservative voter and ultimately gave us Donald Trump.
1
Reparations have begun. They’ve been going on for at least 50 years: affirmative action programs were employed in my college in the 70s. Companies followed soon after. The federal government actively started seeking black employees for many positions in the late 70s/early 80s.
Should more be done, including cash payouts?
That’s up for discussion-/ but let’s not pretend significant steps haven’t been taken in this area for decades.
7
I'd like to see reparations include free higher education and trade schools for as long as it takes to become a just society. Special home loans government funded. Other ongoing programs to provide opportunities so long denied.
When the word "reparations" is used it immediately invokes the notion of cash payments. But the more general definition of reparations is "the making of amends for past wrongs one has done."
When Lyndon Johnson delivered his "Fulfill These Rights" speech at Howard University in 1965 he articulated the necessity of making amends:
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates."
This is the underlying logic of reparations. We have been arguing about it ever since, though unfortunately mostly through the narrow approach labeled "affirmative action." Yes, we do need to have a national discussion about making amends, but we recognize that we've already been having it for 54 years.
4
The moral arguments for reparations are strong; the practical ones, not so much. Elizabeth Warren gives us one example in the brouhaha about her Native American ancestry. The first challenge would be to identify victims, which seems nearly impossible since race is largely a social construct, not a scientific one. Good luck.
3
@Dave Parks: It's a social construct, but we are social people: in fact, we constructed it. You might say, this is right in our wheelhouse. Yes, there would be bogus claims, but they wouldn't be that hard to sort out. And a few marginal pranksters bragging about "passing" wouldn't be that big a deal, really.
Although there are undoubtedly many ways to address the complicated topic of reparations, I think community building is one way to start. A good example is Bonton Farms in Dallas, Texas. It started with a small urban farm and has transformed into creating a community within a community. Their mission of growing a healthy community, creating jobs, and igniting hope in one of the most distressed inner city areas in the country is truly remarkable.
I’ve been writing you off for a great while now, Mr. Brooks. You seem to dither around a great many monumental issues showing us your heart battling against your mind. But this... this is huge. You are so right. Until this country deals with - and forthrightly accepts responsibliity for - the ways in which we unjustly and cruelly commandeered much of the land on which we sit and embraced the unconscionable evil of chattel slavery in order to become what we are, the United States is doomed never to live out the promise of a viable,vibrant, and peaceful nation. The myth of American exceptionalism must at last be tempered by an authentic acceptance of ALL the truths of our history, and those whose lives are still impoverished, threatened, and made less by that history deserve our acknowledgment, our sincere remorse, and a concerted attempt to begin to repay the enormous debt the nation owes to their ancestors and to them.
4
Thank you very much, David Brooks, for lending your significant voice to this fundamental issue. I agree wholeheartedly.
3
Looking at the comments, I see some confusion over the word "reparations". It doesn't necessarily require some sort of direct payment made by descendants of the exploiters to descendants of the exploited. Hardly practical or possible. But there are other sorts of "reparations". A simple acknowledgement that certain groups continue to enjoy benefits that are a direct consequence historical injustices would be a start. So would an acknowledgment that some communities still suffer as a result of those same injustices. Even better would be an acknowledgment that we would all be better off if we worked to correct this imbalance.
But -- unfortunately -- even that seems to be too much for some people. We see that exhibited in the President's contemptuous dismissal of the BLM movement and the associated NFL protests.
4
@curious Your point is taken. Slavery and segregation are certainly parts of our history that should be acknowledged. They are times when leaders failed to follow through on the philosophies that lead to the founding of our nation. All people should have the same freedoms and responsibilities under the law.
1
As the comments reflect, this will not be an easy task. And yet there is so much we can do to reverse the inequality gap that is separating our country. If some choose not to see the racial divide resulting from treating others as property based on skin, so be it, but that should not slow us from doing all we can to make all ghettos a thing of the past. We have the means. We have the insight. We have the will. We need the leaders.
1
Important article. sorry that Native Americans only mentioned in parentheses. Here in Canada, where the horror of slavery is not so prominent in our history, we have been tackling this issue for a while now (maybe not well, I agree). In fact that is a core matter in the resignation of our first Indigenous Attorney General, who resigned after being asked to oversee the implementation of the racist Indian Act - what another prominent Indigenous intellectual asserted was akin to asking Mandela to oversee Apartheid. The question is what are those who colonized and settled this place (and their descendants and newcomers), like myself, without permission or in other cases honouring the terms of our agreements to settle going to do to make this right. That, I believe (as originally a New Yorker), is the true original sin - or at least the co-equal original sin as slavery in the States as well (but also includes the illegitimacy of capture by conquest - something the US condemned in the colonial context in the UN decolonization resolution in the early 60s. I really hope that my former compatriots begin to focus more on that. But I fear that will only be when more progress has been made on slavery. In that regard, Brooks' mention of this issue, even in passing, is a welcome sign.
African Americans were certainly at a disadvantage, but so were many of the rest of us for one reason or another.
4
My take on this is at what point does the ownership of the present circumstance shift to the person(s) in it. Don't disagree that discrimination exists and that slavery was a blight on our history, but to see those who have risen above their circumstance seems to prove out that circumstances don't eliminate responsibility for choices. Things are how they are today, not because of circumstances and history, but because of choices, recognized and unrecognized. Until people take ownership of their choices, their circumstances will never change. Reparations therefore would be owed by those at fault to themselves!
4
It sounds to me like people want infrastructure spending that is entitled reparations. If that’s what people need then go for it. I doubt there will ever be direct repetitions but that’s not really what’s needed.
1
As many of the comments reveal, when people think of "reparations" they immediately think that their purpose is to punish wrongdoers and compensate the wrongdoers' victims. This then leads to objections because the wrongdoers are dead and their descendants alive today have no responsibility for what was done by their ancestors and may not directly benefit by those actions of their ancestors. Similarly those who were hurt are dead and their descendants are not directly suffering the same injustices their ancestors suffered.
But reparations are not about punishment of wrongdoers or the compensation of victims. Instead, reparations are about fixing an existing problem that persists because of what was done in the past. "Repair" is the key concept. Centuries of discrimination against Black people—lingering even today—has left the Black community in America highly disadvantaged. Reparations are about doing something to fix the problem—a problem not just of the past, but one of the present. The Black community is still broken because of what was done to it in the past. It's about time we invested whatever is needed to fix it. Reparations are that investment. They make up for the past by fixing the present.
4
@617to416
And how much of the current problem in the black community is due to slavery? Can you honestly say you have any measureable way to state what % of current black problems are attributable to slavery/Jim Crow? How much of it is due to the epidemic of fatherless black households? That is a much more recent phenomena (post civil rights). The fact is in todays world if you A: graduate high school, B get a job and C do not have children before getting married you are virtually guaranteed of not being poor. How much of that can you honestly say is now due to slavery which ended over 150 years ago? What about the fact that if you even look at different subset of black populations (black American, west African migrants etc) you see vastly different numbers in terms of poverty rates and what not, with black immigrants from west Africa with intact families are far outpacing American blacks and seem to not have any problems getting ahead? Please go read Coleman Hughes.
2
Slavery in North America predates recorded history. (The largest slave market that ever existed in the Americas was the Aztec slave market at Tenochtitlan.) Yet slavery, which was a global institution, is unfairly described as the United States’ original sin. Slavery lasted only one lifetime in the United States. Some slaves born before the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 lived to see the end of slavery in1865.
The United States inherited slavery from the colonial powers, and almost immediately set about set about abolishing it. Vermont, for example, abolished slavery in 1777. In 1787, the United States banned slavery in the Northwest Territory (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota). Other states like New York enacted gradual emancipation laws. The United States banned the TransAtlantic Slave Trade in 1808.
The Civil War did not completely end slavery, because the 13th Amendment did not apply to the Indian Territory. So, the United States conducted separate negotiations with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creeks, Seminoles and other tribes to free their slaves.
By contrast slavery endured in Africa until 2003, when Niger outlawed slavery.
7
@William Case
This is the perfect example of why we need reparations. Too many Americans persist in the belief that no serious wrong was done to Blacks by slavery. This is why Blacks continue to suffer in America. Until America can admit its error it will never get beyond it.
@617to416
America did not originate slavery in North America, but it ended slave in the territory it controlled.
2
What David Brooks highlights is the continuing racial divide in the U.S in terms of wealth, health outcomes, property ownership, educational attainment, and employment opportunities that all put African-Americans and Native Americans on the bottom, sometimes by wide margins. The division is so widespread that any particular solution only addresses a part of it. It's not clear to me what part reparations would address. What needs to happen is that politicians, the media, and the American citizenry need to face this problem and take serious steps to remedy it. In many cases, addressing poverty and enacting policies and programs that have the goal of erasing it will de facto solve the problem for African Americans and Native Americans. In other cases, such as criminal justice and health, the racial disparities cross income lines and the answer must be more directed as race as a determining factor in itself. These are not identity issues, although they may be within the members of the races themselves, but they are discrimination and prejudice issues. Political pronouncements about the "plight of the middle class," which get votes but do not address the groups who are truly suffering in our country. Neither does immigration have anything to do with the problem. What we need is to take the racial divide in this country seriously. I'm not sure of the role of reparations in this, except as a symbolic gesture that would probably divide us more than solve the problem.
I ask readers to think about how "separate but equal" exists in our country today. Does it exist in your community? It surely does not exist in mine.
Some want to offer free college education. A lofty ideal, but could we perhaps agree to get the cart before the horse here? The state of our public schools is deplorable. I fear it will be ever thus as long as schools are funded by local property taxes, but that's another column for Mr. Brooks.
Are YOUR schools adequately educating students of ALL backgrounds to thrive and prosper in today's America and possibly achieve the "American Dream"? From where I sit, we have chosen to incarcerate rather than educate as a 20th century version of slavery. Reparations can take many forms. Free and equal public education in clean, safe schools is a start.
4
Re: the ‘case for reparations’
If there will be one it would come down to action being imbued in its truest essence with ‘love’. But we unfortunately have found the nation seemingly tied to projecting a hardness to existence.
Apparently we would first avoid and ignore the ‘other’ rather than test and use power to ameliorate their conditions. Perhaps individuals (and the world) would be better served if they could live and love as to the way they preferred to be loved.
If we had a Lincoln I am sure we would be on the way to a more ‘perfect union’ on that score.
On my walk over to the train this morning, I was reflecting on Jill Lapore's THESE TRUTHS. Our history is driven by ideas that generally begin at the fringes and gradually become dominate. At the same rime the defenders of the old ideas (for want of a better term), double down to oppose the new thinking. I agree with David, it is time, past time, for moral transformation, to face up to the horrible injustice white supremacy has woven into the fabric of our collective and individual souls. It is time for repentance and reparation and deeply transformative thinking and action. Let's not get mired in pretty details while continuing to ignore our original sin and its pervasive consequences.
4
I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s article and book w/the same feelings. Struggling w/the practical questions. I'm on board that this needs to be done but I still struggle w/the practical questions. I don't think I need to read more about why it needs to be done but I'd love to read more about how it would be done.
The New Green Deal is a proposal taking on some big things. Like most new proposals it needs work.
I'd like to see a New Reparations Deal or something that helps map out how and start the debate, refinement and process necessary to get something done.
The need is clear, the path forward less so.
5
Reparations are a long, slippery slope that ends where, exactly? I fear that everyone in America could find some way to be in an aggrieved group and then the only people making out are lawyers. Money doesn't fix history.
Where does all this money come from? I fear this is one case where many US citizens would be thinking "those people are taking my money."
4
Today, in a classroom in the U.S., a child of color will be singled out and punished more harshly than a "white" child who committed the same type of offense. That "white" child's offensive behavior might not even be noticed by the teacher. That's only possible in the declining number of schools with both children of color and those who are "white." The vast majority of schools that teach children of color have fewer financial and physical resources to teach, as compared to schools attended by "white" students.
A bank somewhere in the U.S. will deny a loan to an applicant only because of a slight concentration of melanin in the applicant's skin.
And somewhere in the U.S. today, a cop is likely to shoot and possibly kill an unarmed person of color. Cops are less likely to shoot someone considered "white." A judge will almost certainly sentence a person of color more harshly than someone that judge considers "white."
Even if people of color faced only a small amount of bias in our educational, financial, and judicial systems, that small bias would have denied opportunity to millions.
And no one can honestly think it's been only a small amount of bias. The examples above and the mountains of other evidence of systemic racism demonstrate how corrosive and enduring this bias is.
Let's at least talk about reparations.
And let's stop the ongoing racism and other biases that are tearing us apart.
5
@wholecrush
None of your speech is based in fact.
The dividing line in schools and police fatalities and in all of American society: poor males who do not adhere to rules and laws of justice, nor do they think they have to.
That is why everyone double dead bolts their homes, cars and workplaces. That is why all females look over their shoulder 24/7 to keep from being a rape victim. That is why parents of girls in public schools worry daily as to the basic safety of their daughters from those special snowflake sons coast to coast.
We might write a book about David Brooks' evolution. Yet the most immediate reparations must go to Native Americans who have arguably suffered the most under the rotten conquest of whites. In the end, corporate capitalism is to blame so until we defrock Wall Street, any sense of justice will be illusory. We have alternatives such as worker owned companies that don't owe their allegiance to those who do nothing in turn for profits. It's interesting to see the worst sins, in fact all sins, lead back to Wall Street. This is where the mother of all abuse corruption resides. The ultimate sin is committed when people are short changed and discriminated against as a result of the Wall Street credo: anything goes when it comes to business . Bless the almighty dollar!
@LH
They kept and traded slaves too.
You did not kniw that?
While I profoundly disagree with conservative Republicans, I’ve always admired their strategic political skills.
It’s been a rough week: the damming House testimony of Trump’s personal lawyer, the failed Trump/Pompeo/Bolton summit, the resumption of North Korea’s nuclear/missile program and Trump’s two-hour harangue before a supposedly serious conservative conference; now Brooks introduces another racial distraction for which the timing is inopportune.
Briefly, Cong. John Conyers introduced a Reparations Bill in each new session of congress—the bill never got out of committee no matter which party controlled the House.
Here is the thinking behind the Conyers effort: WW Rostow introduced the “Stages of Economic Growth” and one of the stages was “the pre-conditions for ‘industrial take-off.’ Which was the accumulation of capital to finance industrialization.
Conyers’ bill was to provide funds for academic and private research to determine the role of slavery in the preconditions of industrialization.
Nobel Laureate Robert Fogle, using econometric tools and historic data demonstrated that slavery was not a failed system which would have died of its own inefficiencies without a Civil War. Instead, its excessive profits financed America’s industrialization.
Conyers’ idea was to prove to Americans, that it would not have become an industrial giant without slavery.
There was never any thought on paying the interest on “2o acres and a mule.”
I'm more than a little confused by David Brooks recently.
A couple of days ago he wrote a column telling us that while single-payer/Medicare-for-all would be great it was far to difficult for America to organize. We simply couldn't get "there" from "here". Sorry can't be done ! Was his message.
Now reparations (dictionary definition: "the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.") would seem to be a more difficult task by (one or two orders of magnitude) and risks making the problem worse.
Efforts to eliminate current racism in all it's forms (c.f. Judge Elliot's sentence in the Manafort case) - absolutely ! Reform of educational funding systems so that all poor kids get a fairer chance - absolutely! High (80 or 90%) estate tax rates on everything above (say $10 million ~ we can argue about the threshold) to fund these things - absolutely!
But (for example) taking money from the poor white family who immigrated in the 1950's (say) to give to the successful black attorney whose parents also arrived in the 1950s, because one is white and the other is black - absolutely not!
3
I think there are two concrete things we can start with. One is educating ourselves on the history of racism and what it means and the other is to look at our own family history in terms of how we are part of the racism in our country.
I personally never thought of myself as privileged or having white privilege. Recently I listened to a podcast called Scene on Radio. The host John Biewen produced a 15 part series called "Seeing White". This program opened my eyes to the history and continual designation of people of color as the 'other' and how that has been perpetuated for centuries. I think reparations are the answer and this podcast makes a good argument for just that type of healing.
Another article I read recently related the story of a woman who researched the genealogy of slaves her ancestors had owned and made personal reparations to the ancestors of those slaves.
2
When or if the north of Ireland ever rejoins the Republic of Ireland, many Irish and the Irish diaspora will feel a little more whole, a little repaired from the sins of colonialism. It may not be economically prudent for the Republic to allow Northern Ireland to rejoin. But if Northern Ireland ever does rejoin the Republic, there will be tears of joy and much dancing. I will be one of those dancing and thinking of my dead parents and grandparents who would have been so happy. If I wish this healing for Ireland and the Irish, I must wish as much healing for African Americans and Native Americans. I do. Reparations are due them. It is the right thing to do. It will help to heal all of us.
3
As a bleeding heart radical,I confess I usually read David Brooks, if at all, only so I can understand the context of the outrage thrown at him in the comments section. In this essay he shows real understanding of the issue of why reparations are essential to moving forward as ONE nation. His ability to change his mind is rare and admirable. I have new respect for him.
4
I am all for financial reparations if executed smartly and justly. But what about emotional and societal reparations? How certain are we that after paying a lot of money things would change fundamentally for a better, more homogenous society really based on equal rights and equal dignity? I am afraid that societal divisions are running so deep that anything we do in terms of material reparations will not change the basic dynamics of racial divide and the gap between haves and have-nots.
2
Is better to err with additional reparations than to fall short.
What would it cost?
Maybe 10 or 20 years of Republican subsidize the wealthy while nearly eliminating their tax burden.
David,
Better late than never. Welcome to the cause.
Here is a practical suggestion that unfortunately seems to be against your ideology:
A government that pays the debt to African Americans and Native Americans back by creating functioning schools, roads, housing, affordable or even free medical care, living wages and the like.
But you support the GOP with all your heart and mind. So there is a contradiction there. If you don’t see it try again.
5
Great start, but really shouldn't functional schools, roads bridges, abating pollution that harms humans be the default in an exceptional country?
but yes stop the harm now. Reparations are in order for the original sins of the republic. But we must also address the ongoing sin of racism. Differential policing, sentencing, housing, employment, and on and. We are adding rapidly to the debt we all owe to our fellow Americans.
We've really forgotten we must strive to a more perfect union. When all that matters is the content of their character.
1
Maybe he can get the Koch brothers on board. That seems to help.
"Reparations" is a freighted term.
Better we should recognize that all children start life with a legacy that will either benefit or hurt their prospects in life. The rich and privileged classes have access to the best schooling, internships, networks that are often unconnected to their skills and merit. The poor and minorities have little to none of that, facing real barriers that keep them poor.
None of this will be fixed unless we ensure all citizens have healthcare access, a living wage, accessible daycare and higher education, fairness from the judicial system, a fairer tax system, etc.
3
As a brown immigrant to this country, I had nothing to do with the original sin, but would be more than happy to help pay for the reparations (both to the Native Americans and the African Americans).
Both populations have had horrors showered on them forcibly. But as pointed out, it’s going to require more than money. It will require genuine contrition, from white people in general (and I truly believe a lot of white people are horrified by the past) but especially from white southerners.
3
My family was busy being persecuted by the Russians before they fled to this county after WW1. Exactly what am I owed for this injustice, and why am I responsible for events taking place before my family arrived? Human history is basically characterized by oppression, forced migration, wars etc. Why draw a bright line with slavery, what about the displacement of Neanderthals by H. Sapiens, injustices against First Americans, heck, even reparations in the South post-Sherman’s march to the sea. This idea is a recipe for even more divisiveness, driven by the narratives of the victors who write history and a seeming to need to expunge guilt. It will not cure anything. Let’s solve tomorrow’s problems, not pander to the past.
11
For anyone who remotely thinks the idea of reparations are a good idea, please take 15 minutes and read an essay or two from Coleman Hughes. I cannot think of a better way to ensure a permanent Republican majority in this country than for Democrats to make this an actual plank of their election strategy, and I say this as a center-left Democrat.
8
@Tommy Perhaps that is why Brooks is proposing it.
Ta-Nehisi Coate's book, "We Were Eight Years in Power," which includes his article on "The Case for Reparations," should be required reading in all high schools in America, and it should be on every adult American's must-read book lists.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for shining this much-needed light on an issue that affects us all. I don't always agree with you, but after reading this thoughtful Op-ed you penned, I know your heart is in the right place.
2
The phrase "moral injury" in the world of spiritual care refers to cases where someone commits an act whose consequences work against that person's moral code. Moral injury is associated with PTSD. Mr. Brooks's suggestion that our citizens have experienced a moral injury because of our practice of slavery and our continuing acceptance of racism rings true to me.
2
Thank you for this thoughtful article and for all the thought-provoking comments. Why not “and/both” rather than “either/or.” Keep our eye on the purpose which is to heal our country and our individual selves as part of the collective whole. We are all in this together. Every movement towards healing will help.
2
Reparations are a great idea—if our goal is to further fragment American society.
From the perspective of a Brooks Republican , there is a real danger that Americans will band together and share our wealth more fairly. Leading Democratic presidential candidates are putting forward practical concrete ideas for doing so, for the first time in half a century
From a Republican perspective, it is much better to get Democrats talking about national “sins” and stoking resentments than about banding together to further the common good. The last thing they want is white and brown workers standing together effectively for shared goals.
5
After reading the recent Frederick Douglass biography I do believe he would scoff at the notion of reparations.
2
My partner and I just returned from three weeks in Australia and New Zealand and one of my observations is how each of those countries is attempting to come to terms with their original sins against the original peoples. In Sydney for Australia Day we heard the national anthem three times and each time it was sung twice, the first time in the local aboriginal language. Has the Star Spangled Banner ever been sung in Cherokee. In New Zealand they are actually paying reparations to the Maori for abrogating much of the Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840 and designating Maori lands and sovereignty. With the dual sins of genocide and slavery I am not optimistic that this country will ever come to terms with either. Reparations would be a start. Neither a person nor a society can become healthy without acknowledging the sins of the past.
We are still engaged in slavery. In 1860 3.9 million slaves were the backbone of our cotton industry in the south and our textile industry in the north. In 2019 we have 10.8 million undocumented residents that are the backbone of much of our agriculture and much of our healthcare—doing the jobs that US citizens won’t do. They are not property and they may not get whipped, but they enjoy none of the benefits of citizenship. No social security. No healthcare. They live in fear.
4
The place to start with reparations is to read Coates' essay. Then read it again. And again, and again, and again until you fully understand what he is arguing for. If you think he is arguing for money, you don't understand, and you need to read it again.
There is no amount of money we could conceivably pay that would make things whole. Even if the amount were practical --- in the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars --- simply paying out money would not resolve the issue, because the kind of damage done is not the kind that money repairs. I know this sounds like a weak excuse for not paying anything, and I do, in fact, support reparation payment of some kind, in some amount. But, read again the quote in Brooks' column from Coates' essay. He is saying that true reparation is the "acceptance of our collective biography...". Coates' definition of reparations is a national reckoning that leads to a spiritual renewal.
This would be far more expensive and far more difficult than cutting checks. For starters, the vast majority of white Americans, myself included, have an extremely limited understanding of life as a person of color in America, if we have any sense of it at all. It's hard to atone when you don't understand what you've done wrong, or don't even see it as a wrong to be atoned for.
There has always been an inarguable case for reparations, yet this is what we argue about, not what those reparations should be. I have several more readings of Coates to complete.
5
Wow, this really struck a chord. I’m white, liberal, consider myself non-racist. But as I’ve gotten older and maybe a little wiser, I’ve come to realize that the link between slavery and where we are as a society and a country today is far more direct and immediate than we like to pretend it is. If we continue denying our shared sin or sweeping it under the rug, it’s going to keep eating away at our collective soul.
8
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Eloquently put. I see many readers going straight to concern about just who is to blame and therefore who should pay. But what's at issue is repair, not retribution. We all have good reason to support repairing the damage of racism in the US, including those who just arrived and those who were never part of the problem. The civic duty to form a more perfect union doesn't depend on culpability.
2
The point has been correctly made that this question necessarily becomes two questions: should reparations be paid? And, if "yes", then how is it done?
The country hasn't answered the first question.
And I ask this: how do recent, gargantuan efforts fit into answering either question? Wasn't the "War on Poverty" - understanding the phrase being very broadly shorthand - a beginning? Dozens of programs, set-asides, affirmative action and - my god bussing nearly tore the country apart!
Are these efforts actual and real reparations? Or not?
2
All former slaves deserve reparations.
2
@Justinia
All who are still alive.
@Justinia
All former slaves are dead
In 1865, the largest asset class, by far, was slaves. Unlike land, relatively liquid, slaves served the role of securities as the US economy became financially more complex to collateralize investments in land and technology. Truly an example of American innovation. Based on the market value established by the sale of the Pierce Estate, $12T of the current $90T wealth of the US should now belong to the descendants of the people kidnapped from Africa. Currently, they hold not even a 20th of that. While there is no way, in my opinion, to provide individuals with direct reparations without creating more wounds and resentments, these economics are more than enough to justify the creation and support of high quality truly universal healthcare, education and childcare systems that would at least level some of the vast inequities that developed from this history. Even libertarians have to agree that $12T ripped off means that the foundations of our system as a whole owes an economic debt to the enslaved that was never repaid.
2
The moral rightness of Brook’s argument is unassailable; its implementation would be fraught.
But that doesn’t mean attention mustn’t be paid.
An initiative that speaks to this matter would address the material and legal debt owed by a wealthy society to its most vulnerable minorities.
We all know what such an initiative must encompass: addressing income inequality, educational inequality, health care access inequality, and more.
But the initiative must also speak to a reparation of the heart: an acknowledgement of the humanity of the other and the imperative of recognizing our shared fate.
2
First, let's be open to each other's stories.
And experiences.
Stories from us all - they shape us as Americans.
If we are willing to hear from our African-American fellow citizens, to listen, we'll understand life through their eyes and souls.
We'll understand ourselves too.
The first step is to listen.
With head and heart.
Good things always come from that.
2
White owned or controlled institutions have been harming people of color disproportionately seemingly forever. Starting with slavery, through 19th century segregation, 20th century redlining, which deprived people of color's ability to grow a nest egg to send their kids to college, and into the 21st century's selling ARM's in inner city churches, which wiped out wealth, also disproportionately. As written here earlier, reparations does not need to mean handouts but rather social programs, including education, sharply focused on skill development as important in the inner cities as impoverished rural America. This incessant cycle of poverty must stop.
1
I can't believe the Democratic Party is going to seriously take on reparations during a campaign to defeat Donald Trump. 2020 is a terrible time to try to do this.
4
If not now, when?
Seriously, the best time is often the most risky time.
1
Reparations will happen. It may not be in our lifetime but reparations will come to pass. The issues of reparations is now catching fire in the Black community like never before and the movement to mobilize as Black people around this movement is growing by leaps and bounds. It is now one of the hottest topics on new black media and is booming on the social media platform. Most white Americans today oppose reparations as did most whites oppose integration in the 60's. Reparations is inevitable for America because we can't escape the payment of slavery, whether we like it or not,the bill will be paid if not in this generation then in the generations to come.
3
What? To whom? Based on what quantum of proof?
4
Several years ago, I myself evolved towards the position David Brooks advocates here. Like Brooks, I don’t profess to have answers on how we might go about compensating African-Americans for injustices suffered by their ancestors at the hands of generations that came before us, or more pressing, injustices of another order most African-Americans experience today.
Even Black Americans of privilege have had to have “the talk” with their black teen-age sons. Even these prosperous Black Americans have faced discrimination in high-end stores or at Airbnb’s. How then, are those black kids who live in ghettos — in neighborhoods most of us are politely told to avoid — supposed to become respected members of society when our own perceptions of such neighborhoods are hardwired into our DNA with a red flag saying “stay away!”
I know there are exceptions to every situation. I understand some rare kid rises to the top and overcomes his position in life with everything working against him. But I’m willing to bet that behind every one of those stories is a lucky break, a chance encounter, that changed everything.
Wake up folks. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re only a first generation American or your family goes back to the Mayflower and fought on the Union side of the War. We Americans must face the fact that slavery remains our “original sin” and that we have never truly rid ourselves of the stain. And it’s more than just a stain now — it’s a cancer rotting our nation’s core.
5
@Diane Schaefer
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/08/women-biggest-problems-international-womens-day-225698
The above seems a bit more pressing, not a pantload of sons.
FYI: The American original sin was and remains sexism and misogyny - the legal and bodily and cultural and societal and financial and moral enslavement of all females, none of whom could even vote or own anything till 1920, though black males were gifted that right in 1865 by white males.
Reparations from whom to whom? The slave trade was conducted by the English and Spanish. Do they owe reparations? My mother’s parents were immigrants from Poland and my grandmother worked in the garment sweatshops of NYC as a child. Why do their descendants owe reparations? My father’s lineage includes ancestors who fought on both sides of the recent disagreement between the states. So what?
And if the collective “we” owe reparations to African-Americans, what do we owe Native Americans? And do the Mongols owe reparations to Europeans for spreading the plague? This can be endless.
The notion,of “reparations” is an abstraction detached from any reality. It is an an exercise in mental masturbation and leads no where.
6
@Profbam
It’s time for Great Britain to pay up. They established and supported slavery in North America. It took the US to destroy it at an unimaginable cost. Thanks US. You don’t get enough credit.
@Profbam
Yeah abstract concepts are hard, better not waste time, abstract thinking can't possibly lead to anything of value, said no advanced civilization ever.
Right. According to David Brooks a single-payer healthcare system in the US (aka "Medicare for all") is impossible because there is no practical path to it. But slavery reparations must be easy-peasy. Then how about we start with providing all black people with universal health coverage free of charge? Not saying that would fully compensate for slavery but that would be a good start.
2
When the proposed removal of the statue of a Confederate general from the public square is hugely controversial; when a significant portion of the white community believes discrimination against whites is a real issue; when we frequently hear the argument that the Civil War was not really about slavery -- maybe we're not ready for an honest debate concerning reparations. The reason the US has the stingiest welfare system in the developed world is because even though most welfare recipients are white, the stereotypical recipient (in the mind of white America) is black. You hate the people you wrong; this certainly applies equally to Native Americans.
6
It is certainly possible that my ancestors were slaves in Greece or the Roman empire, if my ancestry DNA results are to be believed. Am I owed reparations for that?
Certainly the Greek and Roman empires, profited off their slaves. This work, which advanced the whole world was done in large part off the backs of slaves. Doesn't the world owe me something for this?
If not, why not?
4
But Mr. Brooks, what, exactly, do you mean by reparations?
Your essay is just a bunch of words with no prescription.
4
Thanks David. I am beginning to believe that you have really started to change.
1
@Andy Don't hold your breath.
We should reclaim the term "manifest destiny"- once used to justify the domination of white settlers over the North American land.
Modern day "manifest destiny" should proclaim the divine obligation to empower minority communities throughout North America through targeted, priority public and private support so that they may rise up and reclaim their rightful place as the equal siblings of European descendants.
1
Forcibly relocating folks from their ancestral homelands and shipping them to the continental US was the stupidest idea ever endeavored upon by this country. Everyone involved has been harmed by this. Think how much better off everyone would be if this dastardly policy never occurred. True reparations MUST include repatriation to ancestral homelands with 40 acres and a mule at least. Otherwise we're just talking about writing checks and everyone who ok'd this dastardly policy is already dead.
1
You distill race into a black / white, Civil War and civil rights era dichotomy.
The biggest racial group wasn't a racial group until about 100 years ago. "Whites" emerged only as Italian, Irish, and German Americans let go of many of their traditions and assimilated with Anglo Saxons.
Latinos, also a diverse group, are a larger population than African Americans.
Asians are the fastest growing, and still the least culturally represented.
I think your heart is in the right place David, but let your rationality guide you here. The Democrats couldn't even condemn anti-Semitism today without a catch-all intersectional blanket statement. Imagine trying to resolve racism in one government act.
1
Isn't it interesting that America has become more like what people were escaping from when the settlers first arrived. Persecution and the inability to worship the way you wanted were the driving forces of people coming here. After 250+ years we are more like the ones we ran from than the idealists we thought we were. We have come full circle in many regards. We enslaved millions and many here would prefer it stayed that way. So they tried getting around emancipation in any way they could. And do so to this day. We have even tolerated genocide not long after the Holocaust. They try to convince themselves that by not allowing "all men to be created equal" they are still following the tenets on which our country was founded. The bill of rights applies only to us. We want Democratic rule to spread around the world. But if other places treat their people inhumanely, not our problem. It's like religion....as long as you go to church or temple or to the mosque on your Saturday or Sunday, you have met your spiritual and moral and ethical obligation. How you behave the other 6 days means nothing. For every day of obligation resets the moral compass once again. As long as we hug the flag or have a grand parade or honor Vets on the local TV news every day, we reset our human compass. All the other sins against humanity are forgiven. No penance required. Until that changes, expect tribalism to remain the law of the land.
2
America needs to finally pay what the Party of Lincoln had duly charged for our "new birth in freedom" when we were but "four score and seven years" old or our of/by&fors WILL "perish from the earth."
Reparations NOW. It's STILL too early for "too late" to be an excuse!
2
Sounds like the shortest path from here to civil war if you ask me.
The last thing we need is another big push down identity politics lane.
That isn't to say there aren't merits behind the arguments, but you can't fix history's sins this way. The damage has been done. The best you can hope for is to get it right going forward.
By the same argument Eurasians should be seeking reparations from Mongolians. Celtic looking people should be seeking reparations from Rome (the Church I guess).
This is obviously ridiculous...as are reparations fin the American context.
You can't fix what was wrong without doing injustices to new generations, such as race-based transfers of wealth, based on the color of skin, from people who most likely had ancestors come over from Europe penniless after 1865, to people who may, or may not have, ancestors who were slaves.
Again and again the do-gooders fail in not seeing that the underlying sin is racial prejudice and collective punishment/subjugation of a people.
Race-based solutions can't fix a problem that was created out of race-based thinking.
Drop the racist, 'intersectional', approach to every problem and we might see some movement forward. Sooner or later this is the old would that is going to become mortal to the country...and some people just can't resist picking at the scab.
4
Two simple words to describe the results of reparations "Political Suicide" . Put simply it would give Republicans control of congress for at least a generation or more. Telling voters they have to pay for the sins of people dead a hundred and fifty years? Not going to fly. Bluntly as any historian could tell you there are no people whose ancestors were not held in slavery at one time or another. So where do reparations stop? I personally would prefer the Democrats not cut their political throats. But that's me, your view may differ. And that's what this would do ....Cut the Democrats throats.
4
Many commenters here are thinking too zero sum, too individualistic (an American specialty), too lacking in moral imagination, too “what’s in it for me and what did I do to deserve this?” I think. The reparations argument does not claim all Whites are racist and all Blacks innocent, rather it claims, as I understand it, that AMERICA has a fundamental sin rotting in its core that affects ALL OF US. Reparations are a concrete but also symbolic gesture of righting this wrong, and until we take such a step to acknowledge that sin, we remain fragmented, broken, unwhole as a nation.
3
If you believe in reparations make a donation to what could be a newly created foundation designed for that purpose. Better yet, pay a visit to those neighborhoods you tend to avoid and volunteer your time to somehow improve the lives of the people who live there. Otherwise, forcing this issue on tax payers will result in widening, rather than narrowing, the racial divisions in our country.
2
The US pay reparations? The US destroyed slavery. England is responsible for slavery, Spain responsible for Mexico, Central America and South America. This isn’t hard. No one blames the Soviet Union for serfdom in Czarist Russia. No one blames The Ottoman Empire for the attack on Israel in 1967, etc.
5
Lincoln also reminds us once again and forever:
"If slavery be not wrong, nothing is wrong
1
If cash payments to the descendants of former slaves becomes a serious policy proposal by the Democrats....
...then I am out of here. I'll move to Ireland, Canada, Israel, wherever. I am not sticking around for the Race War that will surely follow.
Look, Democrats have to play the game. Any meaningful uplifting of minority groups must always be expressed in colorblind terms. It doesn't matter if it's not fair. It is what it is.
Recognize the political limitations of the US and work within them.
3
How come David Brooks has never argued for universal healthcare coverage or free in state college tuition or raising the minimum wage to ensure that the descendants of slaves got good health care, a good education and a decent livelihood.
Something smells when a conservative like Brooks writes in favor of liberal position.
2
If you want to keep it to the families--North and South--who owned slaves--go for it. But for those who arrived after, sorry about that. Original sin only works with those who believe in it.
4
For all who are asking why they, as descendants of white people who fought for the Union cause or who didn't own slaves or who themselves suffered injury in the Holocaust or other tragedies should pay reparations with their tax dollars (which, by the way, black people would also be paying with our tax dollars), let me offer two words: white privilege. Your lives are immeasurably easier in ways you may not even understand. Our life expectancy is shorter. Our infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates are much greater. Our opportunities to build wealth were cut off at the knees, starting in the reconstruction era when efforts to build black businesses were often met with the the lynchman's noose. There is a long conversation we can have about poor white people who also have a history of suffering in this country that did not immediately grant them the franchise, but even they were afforded privileges and protected from injuries, based on their skill color alone, that black people were not. Reparations would be an effort to redress these imbalances that black people did not deserve and that white people did not earn.
1
Using “sin” to argue for reparations is troubling. Moses supposedly lead slaves out of Egypt. Old Testament Israel was a land of slaves. It all seems irrelevant ( as do the various claims of ancestral land).
How about reparations for American Indians, American Japanese thrown in prison camps, American Chinese discriminated against? This list is a long one and if you pay one, you rightly need to pay all.
The logic here if flawed. Reparations paid in the article mentioned were to Israel by Germany after WW2. This case is simply not comparable.
No, David, reparations is not a solution. Better policies and treatment of all minorities is what is needed, not a handout
2
Wait until white people become the minority in this country in a couple decades. The wealth disparity by ethnic groups will remain, not by discrimination and capitalist "oppression" but by the choices and skills of ethnic populations.
Then there will be a revival of the word "apartheid" like "wealth apartheid", similar to the way "white supremacy" has been resurrected by bitter and resentful non-whites, steeped in the poison of "wokeness". Keep your eye on South Africa this next decade, where white people are at risk for persecution and bloodshed. Even more than now.
And with their dominant political power over whites, they may very well enact reparations fees from only white people. That is, if we can hold together as a peaceful multiethnic country until then. Which is by no means guaranteed. Diversity apparently is not a strength, but a weakness, as it seems to be rapidly fomenting rancor and divisions across every level of society.
Btw, the most successful ethnic groups in the US are Indians and Asians.
"White supremacy" indeed.
3
There is zero case for reparations. Many immigrant groups have come to this country with nothing and succeeded. No one alive born in America experienced slavery. Neither did their parents. Many African-Americans today are richer than many white people. It's time to take some personal responsibility and stop blaming others for your ills.
7
What definitely doesn't help is referring to people as "White" or "Black". Labeling people as absolute opposites seems a premeditated attempt to pit us against each other. This is admittedly just one minor aspect of racial division, but it's unnecessary, and it's not descriptive. Nobody has white skin, and very few in this country have truly black skin. If you saw either you would gasp or maybe cry out in shock. All we have is varying levels of melanin. Let's get that out of our systems as a first step toward racial harmony.
Our sin against African and Native Americans is akin to our 'sins' against immigrants. Looking into the mirror we will see all of the savagery committed against those in the past and now at our borders (extending into Central America). When we acknowledge our 'sins' this will be the first step to real reparations.
I cannot think of another mainstream newspaper that would print such an opinion. That is why they are the best.
This is a tough issue for our country that must be addressed to heal,
2
Mr. Brooks is right on the mark here, and I too was converted when I read Mr. Coates's article.
Let us not forget the most important idea here: 250 years of slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow, and the 70 years of desegregation are the products of White sin. All Whites did not perpetrate and perpetuate these crimes directly, but all Whites benefitted directly and indirectly. Slave labor built this nation -- it powered the agricultural engine of the South and provided the cotton to textile factories in the North. Later, after the Civil War, when African-Americans were not allowed to pursue an education or vote; when African-Americans were not allowed to live where they wanted, love who they wanted, or worship as they wanted; when African-Americans were not allowed to work where they wanted, or join labor unions; when African-Americans did not have freedom of movement and were not allowed to own firearms; and when African-Americans were intimidated, beaten, jailed, imprisoned, and lynched -- all Whites benefitted.
What was it worth to Whites to have a 400-year head start on the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness? How much wealth was accumulated?
Because no one was unaffected by the sin of slavery, Jim Crow, and desegregation, no one should expect to be unaffected by a national reckoning.
After all, when Nazi Germany lost the war, did the average German have to pay the price for unfettered racism, even if he were not a Nazi? Did not all Americans expect him to?
2
reparations for native americans? Not discussed because we would have to transfer the entire wealth of this country to those remaining native americans whose land was stolen.
1
Thank you David,
We white people continue to benefit in myriad ways from the laws created to segregate us, from the socialization that makes us “in” and special and our history which seems difficult to shake off.
Reparations make sense for the soul of our country. What are your actions beyond writing? I have ideas for you if interested.
J.R.
I have an idea for reparations.
People who are descended from slaves would be allowed to forego paying personal federal income tax on rotating years.
It could be based on Last names; so for example those beginning with letters ABCD don't pay one year and EFGH don't pay the next. You run through the alphabet and then start again. the percentage of slave heritage depending on ancestry would determine how many times you rotate through the alphabet (determined by genetic tests as well as historical records).
If you are 100 percent descended from slaves then you would participate for 100 years or the length of your life,
If you are 20 percent descended from slaves then you would participate for 20 years. (100 years of slavery divided by the percentage of slave ancestry)
If you cheat you lose all right to participate and it wouldn't be transferrable.
Being considered someones property harmed the african american community in ways that are still affecting it today. A vibrant wealthier black community would go a long way to helping our overall economy and very few would argue that giving Washington less money would be a bad thing.
Reparations, then, must be paid to every generation, in perpetuity: Italians to the Gauls, Turks to Greeks, Israelis to Palestinians - because if this living generation, if they are wronged and owed for the past, why not the next? In truth, the wronged from 100 years ago were wronged, and are dead. Nothing can make up for that - that is the nature of injustice. Accept the history and don't repeat it is the only lesson.
2
I know that at least four generations of my family have not owned slaves, therefore i do not feel obliged to pay reparations. There are many evil people in the world today that go unpunished lets focus on them and now. To make reparations is to keep rubbing salt in an old wound.
2
While we’re at it, can we jettison the repulsive and obscene use of the word “slavery” to describe every poorly paid job? If you are not black, haven’t been targeted due to the color of your skin, have never been kidnapped from the continent of your birth/ancestry, weren’t transported in chains, are not traveling in steerage and were never sold as property on the open market, nothing you’ve experienced is comparable to slavery.
2
If you think a racial divide exists now, wait and see it after one race is told to pay reparations to the other for things done centuries ago. Too many whites already believe that blacks live on benefits and receive jobs thru quota assistance ; give reparations and forget about any idea of racial acceptance.
Next will be reparations to females, native Americans, Japanese, who knows who else.
Just another well-intentioned, terrible idea.
5
Lincoln was one of our great Republican leaders. Thanks for bringing his leadership in removing slavery from our country to the forefront.
I'm crying and I'm white. Yes, let's converse, plead forgiveness, and heal.
2
Good for you, David Brooks! I thoroughly agree with your point. Now please go further and give us your best thinking about how to start making those reparations.
Will the reparations bill only be presented to those who are direct descendants of slave owners? What about the slave owners who were themselves black? What about the people in Africa (most of them black or Arab) who captured the slaves? What about the boat owners who did not themselves own slaves but who provided the transportation?
What about the native people? What about the original cave dwellers who were displaced by the native people?
What about all of the unfairness of the past? How does that unfairness get corrected?
What about the people who bullied others in school? What about the unfairness of people like the Lebron James being lightning quick and tall (and earning millions as a result) while others (like me) are not-so-quick and not-so-tall?
Is there enough money in the world to offset its unfair nature?
3
Agree or disagree with Mr Brooks, the thoughtFULLness of his column is so welcome on what has become a very dreary media landscape.
1
Approximately 650,000 Civil War deaths out of a total population of 30 million ... not enough?
5
Mr. Brooks,
Simply one of the best pieces you have ever penned. Thank you
Tom Murley, Portland Maine
2