We need a truth and reconciliation moment with slavery
There has been a lot of discussion about reparation in the news recently. It was a new idea for me, but not a new topic in the U.S. Congress. There has been a bill in Congress since 1989, but like many bills, it failed to come out of committee and died an unnoticed death.
The basic premise is that even though slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment, freed slaves never really had a chance to rise in the U.S. socially, financially, politically, legally or in any other meaningful way. The lack of money, land ownership, education, and any expectation of social advancement handicapped these new citizens as much as the attitude of whites that saw black skin to mean poor, uneducated, and incapable of meaningful employment. This basic white attitude was prevalent in the North and South alike. This failure to the freed slaves of 1865 resulted in a lack of opportunity to their descendants that continues today.
The bill does not call for payment to all descendants of slaves, although that is the idea behind reparation and where much of the public dialog is focused. The bill calls for a “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans.”
Reparation usually does mean cash payments. Indeed, the U.S. government paid slave owners for each slave freed by the 13th Amendment. The U.S. also paid Jews who suffered in the Holocaust and Japanese imprisoned in the World War II internment camps. It is a common practice in history. Many countries - when a group has been disadvantaged - pay members of that group to repair the damage incurred. Its precedent can even be found in scripture, Deuteronomy 15: 12–15.
I am a white male and remember the bigotry I was raised in as a child. Some of my contemporaries learned earlier than me to be more accepting of African-Americans, mostly by association in sports, and others carry their bigotry with them today. I think I have come a long way since my naturally acquired bias, but I remain a white man in a racist society, even though I reject bigotry, recognize my white privilege, and support efforts that move toward a more just society such as “Black Lives Matter.”
It does appear to me that as a society we have become less racist, and I hope that time will eventually remove this line that separates black and white. But when I examine that hope, I doubt my conviction. I do not think every policeman is a racist but cannot dismiss that blacks are more likely to be stopped, arrested, and killed by police. I have never been stopped driving while white and my dad never had to have the talk about what to do when stopped by the police.
Changing my beliefs is just not enough. I easily identify with Bernie Sanders when he says racism will not be solved by writing a check to every slave's descendant, but isn't it natural for a white man to feel that way?
As a culture, we need something, a truth and reconciliation moment, and it needs to be a lot more than our nation’s leaders saying we’re sorry, slavery was wrong. Money talks in America and maybe a $100,000 check to every black person on their 18th birthday will not compensate for the history of discrimination that has been the American way. But it does say as a nation what we did was wrong and we make amends in the currency that matters most in America, green U.S. dollars.
Greg Wells lives in Ashland.