Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century
February 1, 2020
A strong and unusually comprehensive case for making economic reparations to African Americans for the injustices of slavery as well as legal segregation (Jim Crow) and "ongoing discrimination and stigmatization." In this thoughtful scholarly assessment of a controversial issue, economist Darity and folklorist Mullen provide overwhelming evidence of "the pernicious impact of white supremacy" and propose a detailed program of monetary reparations, to be paid by Congress, to perhaps 40 million black descendants of slavery. "For black reparations to become a reality," they write early on, "a dramatic change in who serves as the nation's elected officials must take place, both in Congress and in the White House." By chronicling racial injustices since the nation's founding, the authors hope to "rejuvenate" discussions of the need for action to reverse "gross inequalities between blacks and whites." Slavery's "hothouse effect," they write, created "vast national wealth." It spurred shipbuilding and other industries, created the need to feed and clothe millions of enslaved blacks, and provided laborers to work plantations and help build railways and subsidize universities. After slavery, blacks continued to experience job discrimination, attenuated wealth, confinement to unsafe and undesirable neighborhoods, inferior schooling, dangerous encounters with the police and criminal justice system, and a social disdain for the value of their lives. "A variety of metrics indicate that, even after the end of Jim Crow, black lives are routinely assigned a worth approximately 30 percent that of white lives," write the authors," who also detail the negative impacts on black lives of federal highway construction, urban renewal, and gentrification. They consider arguments for and against reparations and examine complex possible methods of financing and making reparations (from lump sums to payments over time) that might, at the outside, cost trillions of dollars. Though academic in tone and approach, and therefore unlikely to reach a large audience of general readers, the authors are convincing in their arguments. Essential to any debate over the need for and way to achieve meaningful large-scale reparations.
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March 1, 2020
"The Case for Reparations," an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates that appeared in the Atlantic in 2014, sparked a fresh look at reparations for slavery in the United States. Darity (public policy, Duke Univ.) and writer and folklorist Mullen build on the arguments by Coates by laying out a comprehensive case for reparations in hopes this book will spark further public discussion and congressional action. They compile evidence of the economic disparities wrought by slavery and the continuing effects of Jim Crow on African Americans today. Darity and Mullen consider the possibilities of a nonviolent end to slavery and the alternatives for compensating slaveholders. The last two chapters include responses to common arguments against reparations and a proposal for how reparations would be carried out in practice, including updated monetary estimates from past studies, a congressional investigation, and a National Reparations Bureau. VERDICT Although this history is well covered in other books, such as Edward E. Baptist's The Half Has Never Been Told and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, and the arguments for reparations are not new, this is a worthwhile compendium on an extremely important topic.--Kate Stewart, Arizona Historical Soc., Tuscon
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