Posted on 01/23/2015 12:04:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
A national correspondent for “The Atlantic Magazine” who gained attention for an article calling on the United States to study possible reparations for slavery was in Iowa this week to speak at Grinnell College’s Martin Luther King Junior Day events.
In an interview with Radio Iowa, Ta-Nehisi Coates says the idea of reparations for slavery is as old as the country itself. “Immediately after the Revolutionary War you had black people who had been enslave by the British making that argument that post-colonial, not really colonial government, reclaimed the property of British slave holders that African Americans who had been enslaved and had helped contribute substantially to that property were owed reparations,” Coates says.
He says he was always aware of the idea, and really started thinking about it around two years before the published article “The Case for Reparations” in June of 2014. Coates says as he looked deeper into the issue he found the problems created by slavery went on well after President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. “One of the first thing people say about reparations was ‘anybody is owed reparations is long dead.’ But there is a fairly good claim that can be brought up at least into the mid 20th century, perhaps even further, on behalf of people who are very much alive today dealing with reparations,” according to Coates.
He says he believes there is a “tremendous gulf between White America and Black America” that has not been addressed. “And we’ve tried all sorts of various means — except directly addressing the problem — directly addressing the gulf, admitting to the fact that the gulf is not there by magic, it didn’t just appear for no reason, and we made the gulf through our policies and our decisions,” Coates says. “Throughout our history we made a decision that we wanted there to be a gap, and just as we made that decision to make that gap, I say that we have a responsibility to unmake it.”
Coates has no idea how to get rid of the gulf, he says the purpose of the article was to make the case that it is something worth studying. He says when you mention reparations now, “people bust out laughing.” “The first thing is to get people to admit that there is in fact a chasm there and that it is the result of actual policies and decisions that were made, that there is an actual debt. And then we can talk about how to service the debt after that,” Coates explains. “In terms of where we are in terms of our conversation in this country, we won’t even admit that there is a debt yet.” Coates tries to explain how the polices and decisions have led to the problem.
The home mortgage loan crisis is the most recent example of the gulf created between whites and blacks cited in the article by Coats. “The African-Americans disproportionately — after you controlled for income, after you controlled for credit worthiness, after you controlled for all relevant factors that might explain this — African-Americans received more sub-prime loans than anybody else,” Coates says. “And the only thing that is not controlled for when we do these experiences is the experience of racism. And that’s not just a rhetorical charge, African-Americans live in segregated communities more so than any other population in this country.”
He says African-Americans also have a large number of people who have not enjoyed access to credit to buy homes. “If you are looking to hawk a sub-prime loan, African-Americans are the prime audience for it because you have all the people, all your likely customers centered in a particular place. And we have to ask why are those people there to begin with? Well they are there because we had housing segregation for a good part of the 20th Century,” Coates says.
Coates says the idea of studying those issues has been put forward in Congress, but has never been taken seriously. “For probably I guess about 25, 26 years, Congressman John Conyers (Michigan) has introduced a bill into the House of Representatives arguing for a study on the affects of slavery, enslavement and everything that came after enslavement, it’s ensuing legacy and it’s affect on African-Americans and decide if reparations are owed and how they might be done,” according to Coates. “Regrettably H-R-40, that’s the bill’s name, has never picked up any traction under the Republican majority or the Democratic majority. So it’s there, it’s there waiting for us, somebody just has to decide hey this is a serious thing and we need to move forward.”
Coates believes we could study the issue and figure out a solution like Americans have with other big issues. “I am certain we can, certain we can, we are the country that invented the atomic bomb, we’ve have all these great engineering miracles, we are the country that engineered this great Social Security thing, Medicare, all the things that we’ve done,” he says, “we’re supposed to be the greatest country in the history of the world. If we are, we have the responsibility to live up to that billing. So we can get this figure out too I think.” Coates says the impact of studying and dealing with reparations would be “gigantic.”
He says one of the first benefits is the country would not have to go through what he calls “theater” that happens in the cases like those of Eric Garner, a black man who was choked to death by white police officer. “This just theater that does not actually get at the root of the problem, that’s the first thing,” Coates says. “But the second thing, I think this is the big, big deal. An America that accepts reparations is a very, very different America. Its a much more historically aware America, it’s a much more frankly, deeply patriotic America. Because it’s not just an America that embraces patriotism when it’s time to wave the flags and fire up the grill on the Fourth of July. It accepts its heritage in its entire totality.”
Coates says that type of America would have a big impact on all of our politics. He says the country would be more “politically aware” and the impact of that awareness would not just end with dealing with white supremacy and racism. Coates isn’t jumping up and down and saying “do this now”, but he believes it is an issue that has to be addressed for our children and grandchildren.
“It took the United States almost 250 years, to really get to a point where all of its citizens were empowered. And we are always fighting even today to make sure that is the case,” Coates says. “So it’s not so much that we have to have the idea right now and then the solution has to come tomorrow. The ideas are put out there and hopefully at some point society gets enough integrity, enough courage to do the right thing.”
You can read his entire article here: www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631
yes the african nations that sold their own people should compensate them.
Would “Full Reparations” include relocation to one’s continent of ancestral origin?
I’m in favor, as long as the money for this process be raised by introducing a tax on all cable outlets: How about $1/subscriber/month?
Or a movie tax: $2/ticket.
There is more slavery today I believe going on that at the height of the Civil War but overseas. So what is this person doing about it? Cashing in somewhere else.
>> He says he believes there is a “tremendous gulf between White America and Black America” that has not been addressed.
Totally true. A gulf created by blacks themselves.
And as soon as BLACKS address their many and serious shortcomings — by learning, exercising, and teaching respect for EDUCATION, FAMILY, and WORK ETHIC — they’ll be on the way to bridging that gulf.
Oh yeah, and quit your endless bellyaching, pull your damn pants up, learn to speak proper English, and stop naming yourselves stupid bush names like “Ta-Nahisi”.
OK. The chasm exists. Its a result of Welfare policies and other liberal policies that destroyed the black family. The one national institution that benefited the most from slavery, Jim Crow and other policies that hurt blacks is the Democratic Party. It probably deserves the equivalent of an institutional death sentence so it should be banned and its assets seized.
Here it comes.
I’ve been saying this for a year. $1T as reparations through executive order
Money won’t do it. Only Christ can fix whats broken.
I’m in favor of reparations, but only in the form of a non-refundable, one-way ticket to Africa for anyone who wants it.
For White slaves of Black slave Masters? Or just reparations for Black slaves of White slave holders?
This is nothing new but bears repeating. Reparations are extortion paid to people who were never slaves by people who were never slave owners.
Give them reparations with the understanding that they will leave the US and NEVER return.
I think that anyone who was held in slavery should collect reparations. Just go to the local IRS office with proof of enslavement and then collect the big check. Person must be alive however, no payouts to dusty skeletal remains. Ancestors of slave traders should be forced to pay into reparations fund. So if someone’s ancestors belonged to any East African Muslim slave trading marauding tribe well they should be forced to pay big time.
I’ll settle for numerous ships heading East.
Practically no one is aware there were white slaves here before there were african slaves. No mention of the 100,000’s of Irish slaves dragged to the New World in the “coffin ships”. It is thought there were even some on the Mayflower. Do a search on Amazon or B&N for “White or Irish Slavery. You’ll be surprised at the numbers of available books.
Reparations were paid in full when 700,000 white boys slaughtered each other over whether blacks would be free or not. Tens of thousands more gave lost arms, legs, eyes in that conflict between 1861 and 1865.
Just giving them money or property won't work because they will just piss it away and we will be right back where we started from in five years.
These absurd requests will only stop when whites start demanding slavery be reinstated to get some form of payment for all of the food, clothing, and shelter doled out since then. The fact that “reparations” is even discussed openly with a straight face should terrify taxpayers.
I want some return on the funds taken from my paycheck and transferred to unproductive, shiftless parasites.
I am in favor of paying reparations to any living person who was held in slavery within the United States while slavery was the law of the land in the United States.
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