The Case For Reparations: 40 Acres and a Mule Would Cost America at Least $6.4 Trillion Today

If you were to guess how much the United States owes Black people in economic damages for slavery, how much would it be?

In the part of the “I Have A Dream” speech that no one seems to remember, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared: “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’”

While some people would conclude that no dollar amount can make up for the centuries that Black people were kidnapped, enslaved and forced to work without pay, the fact remains that our misfortune made America wealthy. Slavery built the system of U.S. capitalism. Moreover, some people have estimated what the nation actually owes Black people.

YES! magazine published a fascinating infographic that illuminates the subject of reparations. It begins with a calculation that King made if America would stand by its promise of 40 acres and a mule, which is $20 a week since the late 1700s for 4 million slaves. The total was $800 billion, which in today’s dollars is $6.4 trillion. Just to put it in perspective, this year’s federal budget is projected at $3.9 trillion. U.S. gross domestic product in 2014 was $17.4 trillion. So, this sounds like a significant deal of money, except for the fact that this is a conservative estimate. Other calculations are far higher.

For example, as the infographic shows, the National Legal and Policy Center placed reparations at $15 trillion, which would involve paying $500,000 to every slave descendant.

Time magazine columnist Jack White estimated that Blacks are owed $24 trillion, which amounts to unpaid wages denied to 10 million slaves, doubled for pain and suffering with interest.

Further, Dr. Denis G. Rancourt, a former physics professor at the University of Ottawa, determined the minimum amount of reparations is $59.2 trillion. He calculated that value of the stolen labor was $3.7 trillion, or 2 million slaves working 10 hours a day, 365 days a year for 70 years (between 1790 and 1860) at a rate of $7.25 an hour. Applying a 2 percent interest rate compounded annually, he reached the $59.2 trillion figure.

Without question, there is a strong case for reparations. The institution of slavery created the economic basis for modern capitalism and turned the U.S. into the wealthiest nation in the world. New York was built on cotton — the crop that dominated the international markets in the 1800s — as the city collected 40 cents of every dollar earned in the cotton trade, transforming it into a financial center. Moreover, at the start of the Civil War, slaves were worth 48 percent of the wealth of the South, more than all of the banks, factories and railroads in the country combined.

Meanwhile, the government paid reparations to slave owners, but not to Black people themselves. Rather, America maintained a convict lease system that swept up Black men and created a new form of slavery in the Southern prisons. The Black Codes were designed to impede Black progress and keep whites ahead of the game through discriminatory practices. Special fees for Black people discouraged us from owning businesses, and high interest rates hindered the building of Black wealth. In addition, segregation and racist policies have prevented Black people from benefiting from government programs that were made available to whites. As a result, the Black share of national wealth changed very little between 1865 (0.5 percent) and 1990 (1.0 percent), with very little for us to pass down to future generations. In addition, the wealth gap between Blacks and whites has not changed since 1970. Policies have kept Black people underwater and whites afloat and thriving — on purpose.

This is why reparations make so much sense, and this is what white privilege looks like. True racism exists not solely in the offensive remarks and epithets hurled by individual whites at Black people on a daily basis, but more importantly in the systems of oppression that stack the deck and rig the game. Whites mistakenly believe that racism is a thing of the past, and that slavery is something that occurred long ago from which they derive no benefit. However, there is a continuum of racial discrimination that extends from slavery times up until now, with mass incarceration and the war on drugs creating a new form of enslavement for Black people. White folks have inherited the wealth and privilege derived from free Black labor, which they willingly enjoy today. Similarly, Blacks have inherited, and continue to face the effects of this rigged game — which continues into the present day, even as we have struggled and resisted this system and attempted to build for themselves.

Every year since 1989, Rep. Jon Conyers (D-Michigan) has introduced H.R. 40, a bill which calls for a commission to study reparations. In April, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), led by Dr. Ron Daniels, held an international conference in New York, with participants from 20 countries and throughout the diaspora discussing global reparations strategies.

As for estimating the price tag, this is one way to continue the discussion and bring home the gravity of the issue.

An old-but-good column by Fred Reed

Fred Plops For Reparations

Sells Out To Johnny Cochran

I see by the papers in the Yankee Capital that Johnny Cochran, and of course Jesse and Al, are wheezing and blowing like a county-fair calliope with a leaky boiler. They always are. This time it was about the need to pay reparations for the ravages trala of slavery. It got me to thinking.
I hate it when that happens.
Now, I know I'm hard-hearted, and mean-spirited, and no damn good. It's probably my only virtue. But on consideration, I realized that they might be right. The ravages of slavery do run deep, and cause motingator trouble, with no end in sight. I decided that compensation was only reasonable. Sometimes you don't like a conclusion, but you have to reach it. All right. I'll be a man about it.
You can pay me reparations, Johnny.
To start with, I figure you owe me for three bicycles. Maybe it's a small thing, but I'm tired of losing bicycles. Are we talking market value or replacement? What I really want to be paid for is having to keep my latest two-wheeler in my living room. Do you know how many times I've knocked the fool thing over? And, oh, the scratch in my granddad's antique desk that the brake lever made. What's that worth?
Call it three grand. OK? Direct deposit would be nice.
But . . . how do we dollarize cultural retrogression? God knows I appreciate your offer of reparations, but I'm having trouble with the arithmetic. Help me.
A few years back, my middle-school daughter brought home a horrendously misspelled science hand-out. Now, Johnny: You and I both know that it's easy to make a typo, and write "phenylkeetone" instead of "phenylketone." But "feemelkeebome" is stretching it. The errors were of this sort. An understanding of chemistry clearly had never rippled the serene surface of the woman's mind.
Without thinking, I asked, "What color is your teacher?" (If I had thought carefully, I would have asked, "What color is your teacher?") My daughter responded with an anguished, "Da-d-d-d-y!" She had made the connection, but knew she wasn't supposed to.
I've got no problem with black teachers, if they are competent. No problem at all. But a teacher who is too ignorant to spell her subject, and too lazy to use a dictionary, ought to be flipping burgers. Simple burgers, with no moving parts. Thing is, we can't fire ignorant teachers, Johnny, because of the lingering effects of slavery. I can yell at an ignorant white teacher, but not at a black one. To expect blacks to meet standards is racist. You can send me the price of four years of tuition in a private school outside the country.
What's the cost of permanent welfare? Subsidized everything? Enormous police departments? What do you figure? Just add it to your tab. Have you thought about setting up an endowment?
But here's a large ravage of slavery, Johnny: Fear.
What price do we put on looking over our shoulders? On watching to be sure we don't go one subway stop too far? Warning our girlfriends not to drive on certain streets? Checking the clientele of Seven-Eleven before going in at night?
People in, say, Switzerland can walk their streets after dark. We can't. Why? What have we got that they don't, that might cause fear?
Elvis impersonators, Johnny. Yep. Switzerland doesn't have any Elvis impersonators. Check for yourself.
What's fear worth? Is it a minimum-wage job? Forty-hour week or twenty-four hours a day? Benefits? Seniority pay as people grow older, weaker, and less able to defend themselves? You see the actuarial difficulty. Accounting is a more difficult trade than you might think.
The white guy beaten to death 100 yards from my door last year – they never caught the killers, but – what you reckon, Johnny? Do you figure it was white Presbyterian women from the old-ladies' home? That's my guess. That's who usually does it. Anyway, you can send me $540 for the Sig 9mm pistol I bought after blacks started moving into the neighborhood and crime went up. And ammo, carry permit, Hydra-Shock rounds.
Now, millions of honest blacks might write and say, "Fred, we aren't criminals. Why should we pay for what other blacks do?" Splendid question. But of course whites say, "We don't have any slaves. Why should we pay for what some other whites did?" If it is a reasonable question for blacks to ask, as indeed it is, why isn't it a reasonable question for whites to ask?
But while you are in a mood to pay up, Johnny, let me introduce a useful concept: Civilizational rent. You'll like this. It's such a good idea.
A culture is essentially software. No? Sure, there are physical embodiments: positron-emission scanners, high-bypass turbofans, radar with Doppler beam-sharpening. Yet basically a culture is a body of knowledge, like Microsoft Word. (All right, throw in values. But I don't want to make this too difficult.)
White guys invented these things at considerable cost. We had to. Europe doesn't have much low-hanging fruit, and it gets cold in the north. So generations of people that I'm sure you're familiar with – Newton, Leibniz, Galois, Gauss, Carnot, Dirac – did work that led to all kinds of useful . . . you know . . stuff.
Western civilization, it's called.
As a result of slavery, you have been using our civilization without a license. (I know: You're having trouble with the idea of implied retroactive acceptance of a license I invented five minutes ago. Microsoft would grasp it in a heartbeat. Anyway, I'm writing the column.)
Further, you've been using it for a long time, Johnny. Air-conditioning. Roads. Writing. The wheel. Complicated stuff like that. Medicine. Tractors. Shoes. Houses. I've spent time in Africa, where people live in stick things that look as if a Cub Scout had built a campfire and forgotten to light it. You're getting a deal here, Johnny.
I don't wish stick houses on anyone. I'm glad you have the benefits of electricity, clothes, and daytime TV. I'd love to see blacks study, earn degrees on their merits, prosper. Think of the trouble it would save. But – as suggested by your manly desire to pay reparations -- you owe us licensing fees. Granted, it's hard to set a price on a culture. But if Microsoft Office goes for $250 at fire-sale prices, I guess a whole civilization is cheap at $100K a copy.
I believe we can do business, Johnny. I hope so. I can use the money.

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