Mike Norris, Co-Editor, The American Dossier
As the 2020 presidential race heats up, the topic du jour amongst Democratic candidates is reparations.
Previously relegated to the fringes of political conversation, reparations could be the litmus test for the 2020 Democratic Primary. Yet, despite the perceived importance of reparations, no candidate has articulated a detailed reparations policy.
What are reparations? And what would implementing them look like?
Reparations are based in the idea that descendants of slaves should be compensated in return for the forced labor and bodily harm done to their ancestors.
Proponents of reparations say that America, through slavery, built its wealth through the labor of the enslaved. Although President Lincoln emancipated American slaves in December 1865, the century that followed saw the enactment of policies that discriminated against African Americans and largely excluded them from wealth building, creating an inherited disadvantage for future generations.
Reparations, supporters argue, provide compensation for both slavery and America’s subsequent failure to address the disadvantages suffered by generations of African Americans.
All of the major declared Democratic presidential candidates have either stated a position on reparations, or stated that they support having a national conversation about the issue. However, this is not the first time America has considered reparations.
In January 1865, General Sherman was finishing his scorched earth “March to the Sea.” In one of Sherman’s final acts, he issued “Special Field Order 15” which confiscated 400,000 acres of land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Sherman’s order dictated that an African American family was eligible to receive 40 acres of this seized land. Later, Sherman ordered that the Army could give each of these families a mule, giving birth to the phrase, “40 acres and a mule.”
Sherman’s order ultimately had little effect, as President Johnson quickly proclaimed the order illegal and returned the lands to the legal owners.
In Congress, only one piece of legislation has ever dealt with the issue of reparations. In 1989, Representative John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 40, which called for the creation of a commission to study reparations.
Although the bill was never heard, Conyers filed the legislation in each subsequent Congress, until he resigned in 2017. In 2019, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) again filed Conyers legislation as H.R. 40. Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) introduced parallel legislation in the Senate.
Whenever reparations are discussed, the biggest questions raised revolve around what a reparations program would look like, who would benefit, who would pay, and how it would be funded.
Reparations programs generally follow one of two models.
First is the settlement model. This model is designed to financially compensate victims for their loss and proposes direct payments to the descendants of slaves.
Supporters say that the settlement model would be the simplest solution. Critics say it would be impractical.
This model would require Congress to identify who would be eligible for payment and who would be responsible for paying for this compensation. Proposals include limiting reparations to people who can trace their roots back to at least one ancestor enslaved in the US.
Bayard Rustin, who organized the March on Washington and was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr, called direct payment of reparations a "ridiculous idea.” Former President Barack Obama also thinks the idea is not “practical.” He suggested the better approach might be to allocate more resources into moving children out of poverty.
The settlement model is not proven to lift recipients out of poverty. South African scholars report that victims of apartheid who received cash reparations were poor again within a year of receiving them.
Direct payment of reparations could also put the nation’s budget on a slippery slope, as other minority groups would begin to demand financial compensation for historical injustices. Elizabeth Warren has publicly stated that Native Americans should also be “part of the conversation” on reparations.
The competing model is the atonement model. Under the atonement model, reparation comes in two stages.
First, the government acknowledges slavery and issues an apology. Then, government actively works to address systemic inequalities that continue to affect African Americans, such as:
- the racial gaps in homeownership (43% of African Americans are homeowners, compared with 73% of whites);
- net family wealth (the median white household owns 86 times the assets of the median black household); and
- educational funding (predominantly black school districts annually receive $23 billion less in K-12 funding than similarly sized white school districts).
If Democrats truly want to erase the inequalities affecting the descendants of slavery, this is the better approach. Offering cash payments to claimants, without addressing the underlying inequalities, would fail to address these issues.
The most effective reparations will be rehabilitative to the African American community, as they will be designed to encourage self-empowerment and community building.
These reparations should focus on issues like ending mass incarceration, investing in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and increasing federal investment in small businesses.
With no candidate currently offering a detailed plan, it is anyone’s guess how the candidates will propose to determine who gets reparations, how much they get and who pays for it all.
But soon, we will know if it is just another case of pandering for African American votes, or if they actually have a plan to deal with the inequalities faced by the African American community.
After serving as an Airborne Infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division, Mike attended Florida State University, where he received his Bachelors Degree in Political Science and George Washington University, where he received his Masters in Political Management.
Since 2004, Mike has worked in the Florida Senate, where he was one of only two Chiefs of Staff under 30 and in the Michigan Senate, where he served as the Legislative Aide to the Assistant Minority Floor Leader. The 2018 election cycle was Mike’s eighth as a Political Consultant.
Mike previously served as the Secretary and Vice President of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans, Regional Vice Chair for the Florida Federated Young Republicans and attended the 2012 Republican National Convention as an Alternate Delegate. He currently lives in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, with his rescue Pit Bull, Ike.
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