Category Archives: Discussions, Information and Opinions: Reparations

Discussions and opinions regarding proposals and the issue of reparations for the descendants of the American chattel slave system.

The b[B]lack woman who launched the modern fight for reparations – The Washington Post

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“Indeed, b[B]lack women have been at the center of the push for reparations for more than a century. Excluding them from the reparations debate blinds us to the multifaceted modern movement.”

“The reparations hearings in the House of Representatives last week turned contentious as experts such as writer Ta-Nehisi Coates traded barbs with politicians, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The bill at the heart of the hearings, H.R. 40, first introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr. in 1989, would create a commission to study and develop proposals for reparations for descendants of slaves.While Conyers should be lauded for his original efforts to introduce this legislation, this month’s hearings would not be possible without Audley “Queen Mother” Moore, the founder of the modern reparations movement. Indeed, b[B]lack women have been at the center of the push for reparations for more than a century. Excluding them from the reparations debate blinds us to the multifaceted modern movement. It also runs the risk of omitting some of the most generative and inventive reparations proposals developed to date.The debate over reparations is not new.

Since the Civil War, b[B]lack Americans have been imploring the federal government to rectify years of racial terror and prejudice. Some followed Callie House, an ex-slave turned reparations organizer who formed the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association to mobilize freed men and women to lobby Congress for pensions and land in the late 1800s. Others called on the federal government to make good on Special Field Order No. 15, a short-lived Civil War-era law that redistributed confiscated Confederate land to former slaves in 40-acre plots. By the turn of the century, the phrase “40 acres and a mule” became a catchall term for reparations claims.”

Source: The black woman who launched the modern fight for reparations – The Washington Post

Slavery Reparations Could Cost Up to $14 Trillion, According to New Calculation

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The Permanent Memorial to Honor the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in New York City, acknowledges a tragic chapter in the nation’s history. Some have argued that reparations for slavery would help heal long-festering racial strife. EDUARDO MUNOZ / REUTERS

” In 1865, toward the end of the Civil War, Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman promised slaves that they’d receive 40 acres and a mule. Land was even set aside, but the promise was recanted by President Andrew Johnson. Ever since, the issue of reparations has come up many times, often fiercely debated. Although most Americans generally don’t support reparations, according to University of Connecticut researcher Thomas Craemer, it matters greatly how the question is worded, who would get reparations and in what form. For example, the idea of reparations paid in educational benefits are more popular than others, Craemer says.

On the other hand, one of the cases often made against reparations is that it’d be impractically difficult to calculate how to fairly take and give so many years after the fact. But in a new paper, published in the journal Social Science Quarterly, Craemer makes the case that there are other examples of historical reparations paid many decades later after “damages” were incurred. He also has come up with what he says is the most economically sound estimate to date of what reparations could cost: between $5.9 trillion and $14.2 trillion.

Craemer came up with those figures by tabulating how many hours all slaves—men, women and children—worked in the United States from when the country was officially established in 1776 until 1865, when slavery was officially abolished. He multiplied the amount of time they worked by average wage prices at the time, and then a compounding interest rate of 3 percent per year (more than making up for inflation). There is a range because the amount of time worked isn’t a hard figure.

Previous estimates of reparations have ranged from around $36 billion to $10 trillion (in 2009 dollars), Craemer says. Those calculations mostly looked at wealth created by slaves as opposed to services provided, resulting in underestimates. Craemer believes that “the economic assumptions underlying [his method] are more sound” than those used in previous papers.

The paper also illustrates several historical examples in which reparations were paid, many decades later, despite being initially unpopular—showing that repayment of age-old claims is not without precedent . . .

Reparations will never bring one life back, and it’s totally inadequate to the terror of the [past], but having a meaningful symbol of reparations is a good thing, not just for recipients but for the people who provide it,” he says.”

Source: Slavery Reparations Could Cost Up to $14 Trillion, According to New Calculation

We Have the Means to Fund Reparations. Where Is the Political Will?

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. . . Between 1983 and 2016, the median net worth for Black Americans actually went down by 50 percent. Paired with a growing Latinx population that also lags far behind whites in household wealth, the U.S.’s overall median wealth trended downward over those decades, even as median white wealth increased.These trends go hand-in-hand with the rigging of the overall economy. Over the last 30 years, the wealthiest 20 percent of households have captured almost 97.4 percent of all increases in wealth, leaving only scraps for the rest.To repair these breaches — between Black and white, as well as between the rich and the rest — we must restore the wealth of communities that were literally used as a foundation of the nation’s wealth, while being prohibited from building their own.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his groundbreaking case for reparations in The Atlantic, reparations are “the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely.”It won’t be an easy task. But it’s by no means insurmountable.”

Source: We Have the Means to Fund Reparations. Where Is the Political Will?

INCREASING PUBLIC POWER TO INCREASE COMPETITION: A FOUNDATION FOR AN INCLUSIVE ECONOMY

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INCREASING PUBLIC POWER TO INCREASE COMPETITION:  A FOUNDATION FOR AN INCLUSIVE ECONOMY

ISSUE BRIEF BY WILLIAM DARITY JR., DARRICK HAMILTON, AND RAKEEN MABUD
MAY 2019

Executive Summary

The United States needs an economy grounded in justice and morality, where everyone, free of undue resource constraints, can prosper. To achieve this, citizens ought to have universal access to undeniable economic rights, such as the right to employment, medical and health care, high quality education, sound banking and financial services, or a meaningful endowment at birth (Paul, Darity, Hamilton 2018). Currently, our system provides these rights primarily through the “free market” by private providers, but these private companies often fail to meet the following criteria:

•   Quantity: Are goods adequately supplied?
•   Quality: Are the goods high quality?
•   Access: Do people have adequate access to these goods?

Because of the failure of America’s markets-first approach to policy, the federal government should intervene by introducing public options that provide these essential goods and services in direct competition with private firms. Doing so will set “floors” on wages and quality and “ceilings” on price for private actors who are intent on providing important economic rights at a cost. In employment, this might mean providing a federal jobs guarantee (FJG); in financial services, this could mean access to bank accounts and safe, nonpredatory loans. Throughout this issue brief, we explore what public options might look like in employment, health, housing, education, and financial services. We argue that in these sectors, public options are necessary to combat high-cost, low-quality provision by private actors and ensure universal and better quality access to all Americans.

Full Report here.   https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/RI_Increasing-Public-Power-to-Increase-Competition-brief-201905.pdf

CREATIVE COMMONS COPYRIGHT 2019 | ROOSEVELTINSTITUTE.ORG

The report features the work of OUR COMMON GROUND Voices, Drs. William “Sandy” Darity and Darrick Hamilton

Darity Hamilton