Everyone with reparations anxiety, please...take a breath.
H.R. 40, the 30 year old bill at the heart of last week’s historic Congressional Hearings, is not reparations. It’s merely an authorization to have a conversation about reparations.
As Duke University Professor William Darity, Jr., noted, “We have not had a conversation about reparations on this scale or level since the Reconstruction Era,” Those efforts were cast aside in favor of trusting the genius of American freedom and capitalism to right the wrongs of slavery.
Some 150 years later, what do we know now?
We know, as Tanehisi Coates said in his testimony, that far from freedom, “America had other things in mind” — a nod to Redemption, the apartheid system known as Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration, etc. We know that in 2019, significant racial gaps persist in wealth, health, academic achievement, incarceration and unemployment rates. (Coates 2014 paper “The Case For Reparations”, which reignited the this debate, is required reading to connect the dots.)
What we have then, is 150 years of proof — hard data — that American freedom and free markets alone will not fix the issue. What sense then, does it make to continue down this road?
Spoiler alert — it doesn’t. So let’s talk. And let’s start by dispelling an old myth: Reparations is not (just) a check. Or a series of checks allocating funds directly to descendents of slaves.
This archaic perception, so ingrained in the minds of Americans, keeps people from having a real conversation. Also, as a solution to a man-made problem 400 years in the making, is grossly narrow and incomplete.
We’re beyond checks, now. A more visionary America would’ve expanded on General Sherman’s Field Order 15 (aka 40 acres and Mule) — the proverbial bootstraps for the freed slaves to pull themselves up. But President Andrew Johnson had no such vision. And so, there is 150 years of amortized interest on top of that old slavery IOU. The bill is too high. We are now beyond simply cutting checks.
Reparations, when it ever comes, will be a program — one of infrastructure-level proportions. One that demands enough time do it, the money (or “checks”) to finance it and the will to complete it.
To that end, here are a few ideas, that go beyond merely cutting a check. An exercise of thinking outside-the-box, here are 10 ideas (no specific order) of what reparations might look like:
1. A $23Billion Head Start
A recent report, showed that on average white public school districts receive $23B more in resources than non-white districts. For perspective, a white student will receive, on average will $2200 more in academic funding than a student of color. That’s a top-end MacBook.
Money isn’t everything, but surely a funding gap of this size produces some inequity. It comes out to We’re giving billions to billionaires. We can afford this. CLOSE IT.
2. MEDIA BAN ON GENERIC BLACK BODIES
A FCC-enforced 30-year ban (i.e. a generation) on all stock photos or clips that use faceless black bodies in news stories about Crime, Poverty or topics of an adverse nature.
For example, no more generic pictures of cuffed black hands to tell stories about the opioid epidemic in places where there are no black faces within a 30 mile radius. America’s subconscious needs a cleansing of such imagery — especially the police.
3. TUITION FREE COLLEGE:
For a period of 30 years, any academically eligible African-American who wishes to attend college will have that cost underwritten.
4. CANNIBUS ENTREPRENEURS
Any distribution of commercial licenses to produce, distribute and market marijuana will reserve a set percentage of licenses for African-American entrepreneurs. They also are first in line, with access to favorable financing terms. After a decades-long War on Drugs that disproportionately incarcerated and destroyed black families – black hands deserve the chance to become the next Coors, Anheusers, and Budweisers of this new industry. Not to mention the fact that black people were shut out of the very opportunities that produced post-Prohibition family fortunes.
5. ROOTS
Every African-American who wants one, gets a free DNA test. Enslavement stamped out all traces of Africa to isolate slaves from their identity and create a dependency on their captors. Beyond the 1870 census, where former slaves were 1st counted, there is a black hole that makes it difficult for black people trace their ancestry. For those interested, a DNA test won’t provide all the answers, but it is a great place start.
6. TUBMAN $20 BILL ASAP
Harriet Tubman replaces Andrew Jackson on the $20 - tomorrow. Many hands have fought for the liberty of this country, but no one arguably has endured more and fought harder for that freedom than African-Americans. To have to escape, run, die and fight your own countrymen for your own birthright is freedom fighting at a level no American will ever have to understand. Thankfully so.
Lady Harriet, is the quintessential icon of American freedom and personifies the brave in the phrase “Home of the Brave”. In this respect, she is a greater symbol of America than any president currently gracing our currency. So yeah, ASAP.
7. RESTORE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965
Reconstruct the Voting Rights Act. It’s a disgrace that old Confederate states complaining loudly about the unfairness of clearing voting laws through the Department of Justice were enough to gut such historical legislation. Momentous documents like this, signed over the memories of those who bled and died for it (primarily in those Confederate states!), should be sacred ground. Glass case status. Not to be touched.
The end.
8A. TEAR DOWN ALL SIGNS OF THE CONFEDERACY
All remaining signs of the Confederacy (street signs, bridges, holidays, statues, flags) are removed from public sites and calendars. Those old symbols belong in the attic of American history or a museum. Keeping them around keeps the embers of race burning, to be reignited by people like Trump.
This will be controversial to some — but its worth having that conversation, because part of this process is understanding WHY this all matters. Long overdue, the Confederate wall paper comes down immediately.
8B. RAISE NEW SYMBOLS OF FREEDOM
Let’s take it a step further. Any town, city, county, municipality that was the site of a lynching, bombing or other terrorist act or form of racial violence, WILL commission and raise a statue or rename a major street that honors an African-American Reconstruction/Civil Rights hero. For example, MLK/Malcolm X Avenue would run through the middle of town, not just the black neighborhoods.
9. HOLLYWOOD DOES HISTORY CLASS
My high school European History supplemented our lessons with movies from those periods. Cleopatra. Archbishop of Canterbury. Cromwell. It was both entertaining and it cemented what we got from our textbooks.
With that in mind, this provision requires that high school US History courses show no fewer than 3 movies, that tell US History from the vantage point of the black experience: 12 Years A Slave, Mudbound, Mississippi Burning, The Help, Lincoln, 13th, Amistad, Malcolm X, Glory, etc.
10. REWRITING MIDDLE SCHOOL HISTORY BOOKS
A revision of middle school history books to reflect the critical contributions of African-Americans to the Civil War, during Reconstruction and the honest, gruesome details of the Redemption terror campaign that ushered in Jim Crow. Hopefully, Dr. Louis C. Gates will be kind enough to handle the pen.
There are larger ticket items, of course, but this is a start. Understand, Bill HR-40, the endgame of the Congressional hearing, is just a conversation. A conversation the country can no longer outrun. And, with minority-majority America on the horizon — one that is unavoidable.
What would it look like? How would it work? And, most importantly, a national discussion about why this should actually happen. Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just about strengthening black America. This is about strengthening America.
Happy to get your thoughts and/or better yet, your 10 — get creative. GO!