A lot of people don't know how to feel about reparations. I'm torn myself. I don't support the handing of money to anyone, least of all me (I'd have more shoes and shit than I knew what to do with in a heartbeat- I've got a problem). But I am in favor of spending much more money on Black communities to begin to fix the problems of the ghettoization of the Black people spatially, politically, educationally, economically, medically - the list goes on and on and on...Anyway, most of my reservations about reparations seem to fly out of the window when I think about teaching it in a classroom and the likely responses I'll get. It's hard to imagine some of the things students say. I just want to shake my head and apply for a job at the bookstore.
So when a friend told me some of the things she's heard people say against reparations, one of the responses she got was that Jewish people have recovered from the Holocaust in such a short period of time, why haven't African Americans?
um...
That's fucking genius! Well not that idiot's comment, but the comparison that it sets up. In my mind I always plan to connect the Transatlantic Slave Trade to the Holocaust to help students contextualize the loss of life (condoned for a time by much of the world's community), racist violence etc etc. I hope that this more contemporary example will help them understand the tragedy. I don't know if it will though, but it's a plan. And as of right now, when I imagine teaching reparations I'm going to continue with this theme.
Should African Americans get reparations? I don't know, but the Jews got Israel so...
Side note:
All I ask is that if, by some (never gonna happen/probably shouldn't happen 'cause it'll be a racist clusterfuck) turn of events, Black folk get their own country, could we not rip the land from a settled people, go to war against them, their religion and the entire region, continue to steal more of their land, further impoverish them, treat them like second class citizens and then hide behind our own tragedy as justification for oppressing others... That would be nice.
*sigh*
1 comment:
In this past decade alone, we have seen survivors of Rosewood receive reparations. I know some historians who didn't think that would happen, and others who believe that that is just the beginning.
The primary obstacle is the statute of limitations. Now those radical historicans argue that because the oppression of blacks has been such a long process which extends far beyond slavery though modern civil rights (from 1954-1965) and beyond (inner cities, prison industrial, etc), so the statute of limitations shouldn't apply. They do recognize that when a case is on the books, the appeal process tries to outlast the lifespan of those wronged (see: Tuskegee Syphilis study).
The real question for me is not when we'll get reparations. It's how. Cash alone isn't going to solve issues like "the culture of poverty," which, to the dismay of some of my sociological colleagues, I believe exists. Even if you were to fix the schools, would the kids see a value in education? Etc.
Nevertheless, that comment is so stupid, I don't even know where to begin. It just makes you want to slap some folks. Or is it just me?
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