Reparations are about more than slavery
Recent columns in The Morning Call debate the extent to which slavery contributed to economic growth in the U.S. This question can be seen as part of a larger discussion about reparations, in which some people claim that wealth created by slavery should be repaid to the descendants of the people who labored and suffered to create that wealth.
This is pertinent now since the issue of reparations has been in the news lately, with the House of Representatives holding hearings in June on a bill to study the issue and some Democratic candidates for president advocating for reparations.
The column by Anthony O’Brien (“Your View by Lehigh professor emeritus: How indispensable was slavery to U.S. economic growth?,” Sept. 14) arguing that slavery’s contribution to American wealth was negligible would support a case against reparations; after all, if reparations are intended primarily as compensation for the wealth created by slavery, and there was hardly any, then presumably there is no debt to be repaid.
Two follow-up columns, one by Roger Simon and another by multiple Lehigh departments and faculty, refute the claim of minimal economic benefits and add other ways in which slavery benefited the white population socially and politically. Slavery has been called “America’s original sin,” and its impact created lasting and pervasive damage.
A different argument against reparations is the one made by Sen. Mitch McConnell, who said he does not favor paying “for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible.” But the House bill, HR 40, proposes the creation of a commission to develop proposals to address the “lingering negative effects of slavery on living African-Americans and society.” It is these lingering effects, not only of slavery but of subsequent American history, that are at the heart of the argument for action.
It is essential to recognize that the debt owed by this country to African Americans arises from much more than slavery. A significant article by TaNehisi Coates makes the case for reparations based on discriminatory laws and actions that continued well past slavery and into the present.
Slavery was a brutalizing system that treated people as less than human and exploited their labor. It was succeeded by other evil systems, such as Jim Crow, discrimination in every sector, and the racially biased criminal justice system.
Hundreds of years of systematic and often legal exclusion of African Americans from the resources that helped so many Americans build wealth — decent schools and employment, health care, housing, and political power — severely limited the opportunities available to African Americans and built the foundations for dramatic inequalities.
In paying attention to the ways in which black Americans have suffered from exclusionary laws and practices and harmful prejudices, we must also recognize that the same practices made vital resources more available to other Americans.
We don’t often realize this, but when a significant segment of the population is excluded from the best jobs, schools and neighborhoods, everyone else gains a competitive advantage. Those advantages then contribute to each other; for example, being able to buy a home in a “desirable” neighborhood gives one access to better schools, which can lead to better jobs.
The advantages accumulate over generations. The post-World War II prosperity many white Americans experienced was made possible in part by high-paying jobs, GI benefits, labor unions and federally supported mortgages, which were mostly off-limits to blacks. Government-funded roads made it possible for many whites to move to the newly created suburbs, from which blacks were barred, and to build equity in real estate that appreciated.
Non-black baby boomers such as myself were able to get a big boost in access to higher education and home ownership due to financial help from our parents, who benefited from these advantages, and many of us are able to pass this accumulated wealth along to our children.
Most Americans believe in the “American dream,” the idea that hard work and ability are the basis for success and prosperity, and that people who do not acquire these must not have tried hard enough or been capable enough. Heather Johnson’s research documents that both white and black Americans believe in this idea, not realizing that it allows whites to take more credit than deserved for their accomplishments and blacks to take more blame than is fair for falling behind.
The discussion of reparations does not require staying focused on slavery nor does it mean that all white Americans are personally responsible for racial disparities. But the many ways in which the American playing field has been kept starkly uneven require an accounting. It is time to address the “original sin” with meaningful atonement and repair.