Having received an outburst of support following the publication of an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, a movement demanding reparations for the past injustices committed against African Americans during the eras of slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining have come increasingly close to realizing their goal. With the April 2021 approval of H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, by the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, the legislation can move to consideration before the full House.
In support of the passage of H.R. 40, the progressive National Council of Churches held a webinar on February 16, the first in a series, addressing the importance of advancing “reparatory justice.” The event featured several speakers, all in support of the passage of a reparations bill. The denominational makeup of the speakers reflects the growing acceptance towards reparations within mainline Protestant churches.
Among the speakers were NCC Associate General Secretary Rev. Aundreia Alexander, the Representative for Domestic Issues at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Public Witness, Christian Brooks, a legislative assistant with the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Israel Harris, the Government Relations Advocate for the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Jarrett Smith, and professor emeritus of Northeastern Illinois University and General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Dr. Iva E. Carruthers, and others.
Alexander, who hosted and moderated the webinar, announced from the outset that the event was being “sponsored by a coalition of religious organizations that have been supporting the passage of H.R. 40,” including the “National Council of Churches, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Episcopal Church…Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” as well as “the United Church of Christ,” among other organizations.
Speakers touched on various topics throughout the course of the panel. In her talk, Brooks highlighted the difference between equality and equity. Regarding the latter concept, Brooks defined it as “giving people the resources they need to have so they have opportunities to achieve equal outcomes as their counterparts.” Equality, meanwhile, “is about giving everyone the same resources regardless of need and outcome.”
Equality, according to Brooks, is problematic, because whereas “equity focuses more on the outcomes being equal…equality focuses more on the resources being equal, basically giving everyone the same resources regardless of need and regardless of historical context.” Ultimately, she said, “the issue with equality is that it still leads to unequal outcomes so the imbalance that was in place” is maintained by the practice of equality.
Further, Brooks asserted, “trying to do equity moving forward without correcting past injustice doesn’t work.” Rather, Brooks radically suggested that “black people cannot have racial equity now or moving forward without reparations. It has to be the foundation.”
Harris, meanwhile, argued in favor of reparations by appealing to the Jewish tradition. He argued that the concept of teshuvah, as explained by the medieval rabbi and philosopher Maimonides, suggests that “victims of a crime…can be made whole by financial repayment for the damages that were done.”
Carruthers, the main speaker of the event, believed that it was obvious that reparations were due, given the failure of the United States government to reimburse slaves with “forty acres and a mule” promised by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. “In fact,” she said, “reparations were passed…and given to, by the government, those who owned the slaves, not those who were freed from enslavement.”
The consequences of this history, Carruthers maintained, were still being felt today. “We should understand,” she continued, “that as the U.S. is the epicenter of the economic ways in which we do business today, that it is literally, figuratively, and metaphorically founded upon a mass grave.”
Carruthers further invoked Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that he “understood that reparations was a moral argument that warranted the capacity for us to identify adequate compensation,” and also approvingly quoted famed black liberation theologian James H. Cone, saying “black lives matter; God hears that cry, and black liberation theology bears witness to it.”
While it is worth combatting reparations advocates on theological and philosophical inaccuracies (such as their tendency to endorse liberation theology or pin the sum of the world’s evils on the United States), they do make at least one good point: without a real effort to address the systemic consequences of past unjust actions or an attempt to reconcile whites and blacks in America, the United States will continue to be haunted by the same problems that have prevented true reconciliation ever since its inception.
This reconciliation does not entail that such financial reparations need occur. As Gerald McDermott argued in a previous Juicy Ecumenism article, reparations “provide an easy way out but rob dignity from both those who give and those who receive.” Perhaps most critically, he said, financial reparations “would never settle accounts.”
What is instead needed is a rededication of the United States to its Christian roots, such that it sees each individual human being as a person in the image of God. Also needed is a culture that recognizes the importance of admitting and atoning for wrongs committed against others. Unless and until that occurs, we should expect no end to the calls for justice, and an inability to heal the divides between a racially fraught America.
Comment by Steve on February 28, 2022 at 9:10 am
We’re not going to see anything called reparations in any meaningful amounts given current levels of inflation. Our experiment with printing money has turned disastrous, there’s no stomach for any more, as demonstrated by the end of the child tax credit. Academic debates regarding reparations aren’t going to change that.
Comment by Steve on February 28, 2022 at 12:57 pm
My wife has blond hair and blue eyes but her paternal grandparents were African American. With interracial marriages commonplace, how many whites will qualify for reparations and how many African Americans whose grandparents immigrated from Africa since the 1960s will not? And how will we make sure those who deserve them get them while those who do not don’t? Reparations is an issue that may have been appropriate generations ago but now its time has passed. There is a reason its advocates have moved from equality to equity. Equality is attainable and equity is not. The issue is more important than the solution.
Comment by Say what it is! on February 28, 2022 at 5:02 pm
I never hear people define the term ‘equity’, nor do I ever hear them say who determines what ‘equity’ is.
They cannot define what equity is because they have little idea of what ‘good’ is. For some equity is best defined by modern day China, the old Soviet Union, or one of several other totalitarian states. Sadly, the project fails because the people who determine what equity is will always make sure they are more equal than others. Then you have a small elite dominating a massive lower class.
But it is quite instructive to note that almost every time the people who cry for equity speak, the answer they offer is that the definition of equity is found in a government definition of equity.
Inevitably, the answer to the second question is they (the people who spoke at this event) decide what that answer is. Or they choose those people who they agree with politically and let them determine what equity is, and enforce their will on other people.
In other words, the individuals involved in many of these conferences want their brand of Marxism to dominate society, and want to be the ones with power to enforce their will on others. In some ways their theory might be good, but the practical affect of them is destruction.
Comment by Dan W on February 28, 2022 at 5:02 pm
Steve asks the right questions, but I think he understands this isn’t about compensating injured parties. It’s about grifters getting paid. It’s always about grifters getting paid.
Comment by Tom on February 28, 2022 at 5:27 pm
Translation: “Gimme!”
Comment by David S. on February 28, 2022 at 9:19 pm
A few observations, first the comment by Ms. Brooks asserting that “equity focuses more on the outcomes being equal”, demonstrates that she has a total lack of understanding of the Scriptures regarding these matters.
Second, who pays? My ancestors, who owned a plantation about 30-35 miles south of Atlanta certainly paid dearly, when they lost the plantation due to the war tax penalty. Other ancestors were not necessarily responsible, since as Irish Catholics, they were generally considered slightly better than the black man. Others were farmers, who did not own slaves. And during Jim Crow, ancestors ran the gammut.
Third, what about the African tribes who willfully and eagerly participated in the slave trade, which credible historians as opposed to that so-called NY Times writer, pointed out existed for millennia prior to the arrival of European traders?
But, I guess when you reject historic doctrinal standards then one is willing to say and believe anything as long as it sounds good.
Comment by Richard Bell on March 5, 2022 at 12:33 am
The author, Collin Bastian, would have helped me understand him by adding a little specific information about H.R. 40.