Reparations for descendants of black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved is an essential element of the healing reconciliation that is much needed. However, I am not persuaded by proposals for cash payments to them. It smacks too much of “Here’s some money so that makes everything OK. Now let’s hear no more of that systemic racism nonsense.” It’s a cheap way out of completing the more difficult work begun with the civil rights movement of the 1960-70 era. To be sure, governments pay compensation to individual victims injured by some act of a government agent or agency. The payments may be needed, but seldom heal anything. Cash payments seem to be written off as a cost of doing business, the tolerable price of paying off an injured party without rectifying injurious practices.
Several recent Supreme Court decisions demonstrate that the nation has farther to go in recognizing the deeply rooted beliefs and practices continuing to deny the full measure of justice to some Americans than are more freely available to others. Conservative Justices of the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s plan to cancel or reduce student loan debt using a legal theory created out of thin air. A web designer gained the right to deny services to LGBT customers even though she had not yet started her business, had no customers, and claimed a request from a gay man who didn’t exist. Affirmative action in higher education was struck down while arguing that it wasn’t really being struck down. An 1868 treaty promising the Navajo Nation all the water it needed from the Colorado River was neutered when the court said the treaty didn’t require the government to ensure it was delivered.
There were a few hopeful decisions appearing to stop egregious gerrymandering of congressional districts, but the overall trend made it clear that the U.S. cannot shake off its long history of legal and socially systemic racism causing injury to real people today, not just those in the past. In a liberal twist on the theme, San Francisco is considering reparation payments to resident black Americans who can show an ancestry of enslavement. California joined the union in 1860 with a constitution outlawing slavery. Chattel slavery was practiced in the South but never in California. However, the California history of American Indian enslavement and punitively harsh laws consigning Asians to little more than bonded servitude remains an issue best ignored, or so it seems. If cash payment reparations are justified, I think California needs to look to its own story. The same can be said to one degree or another about every Western state.
Reparations are indeed much needed but not in the form of cash payments. We’ve got serious structural conditions working against the full measure of justice owed to all Americans but denied to many. Addressing those head on is to my mind the kind of reparation needed. It’s a difficult moment for the nation. A conservative populist movement has gained momentum that has mobilized those who would like a return to a small government laissez-faire economy giving full license to the wealthy to do as they want. At the same time, it’s encouraged outrage from lower income and rural Americans who have been led to believe they are forgotten and treated poorly by elites and urbanites. It feeds the worst of our national instincts and behaviors. The movement is opposed by equally outraged liberals full of self righteous hubris lacking humility and whose most outspoken adherents appear to have all the answers but ask none of the questions. It’s given all the room needed for authoritarian wannabe fascists to strut in the media and on the electoral stage.
It’s embarrassing. Still, I believe America’s better nature will prevail. The 2024 national elections will dominate the news, and they are important. The harder, more necessary work has to take place in elections at the local and state levels. It’s work that can’t rely simply on electing the right candidates. It has to start with responsible voices boldly speaking as liberals and conservatives who know how and are willing to work together for the common welfare of the people. The have to be voices declaring there is no room for blatant prejudice or any policy that denies justice to some while giving it to others.