INTRODUCTION
The idea of reparations, of having the government of the United
States admit to its crimes against Blacks and agree to restitution, has
a long and honorable history within Black political practice and
thought. Black leaders from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King,
international organizations ranging from Garvey's UNIA to Pan
African Congresses held in the 1990s, ideologies from those of Du Bois
to Malcolm X, the idea of the reparations in real material terms, not
only symbolically, has been a constant within Black discourse.
Each historical period has had its own idea of what would constitute
reparations. Toward the end of the civil war, Blacks throughout the
South, particularly in the Sea Islands, confiscated the plantations of
those they justly saw as traitors and oppressors and proceeded to
distribute the land among themselves (with and without the support of
local Union commanders).1
Eric Foner,
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution,
1863–1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Edward Magdol, A Right to the Land:
Essays on the Freedmen's Community (Westport: Greenwood
Press, 1977); Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal
for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (London: Oxford
University Press, 1976); Julie Saville,
The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South
Carolina, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1994).
After the end of the
war, rumors with partial foundations in the statements of Congressman
Thaddeus Stevens, and in orders issued by General Sherman, led former
slaves to fully expect to be allotted their own land by the Federal
Government.
2 They
expected to receive “40 acres and a mule.” During
Reconstruction, Congress negatively transformed the slave's
expectation of land redistribution into the Freedman's Bureau. Not
only did President Andrew Johnson forbid all forms of confiscation and
land redistribution, but he also denied the Freedman's Bureau the
resources and authority to integrate Blacks into the economy.
The all too brief period of Reconstruction was followed by Redemption
and the return of power in the South to those who were dedicated to
reestablishing both a brutal white supremacy and an extreme economic
exploitation of the Black population. At the turn of the century, this
new regime was solidified at the state level with the passage of Jim
Crow laws that legislated white supremacy across political, economic,
and social spheres. The national state ratified this draconian racial
order with the Supreme Court's infamous 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson
decision. Thus, except for a few years after the Civil War during the
height of Reconstruction, Blacks were subordinated and exploited by
official state codes at all levels of government. This regime was
ruthlessly enforced by both state and private mass violence against
Blacks. Throughout the century of Black subordination that followed the
end of the Civil War, African Americans ceaselessly demanded
reparations both for slavery and for the state sanctioned harms they
suffered under the new Jim Crow regime.
A generation after the end of Jim Crow, a solid majority of Blacks
are still waiting for an official acknowledgement of responsibility,
for America to live up to its promise as a democracy, and for a
material settlement of past wrongs. In his “I Have a Dream”
speech, Dr. King said that America's check to Blacks had
“bounced.” Most Blacks believe that that check remains
bounced. In the early 1990s, 65% of Blacks thought that they would not
achieve racial equality either now or at any point in their lifetimes.
By 2000 this percentage had risen to 76%. Current generations of
African Americans in response are making claims not only on the U.S.
state, but also on private companies said to have profited
substantially from slavery, the slave trade, and the uncompensated
labor and misery of peoples of African descent. Blacks, by and large,
see the question of reparations and an apology as one of justice
delayed.
As we shall see, the great majority of whites have rejected African
Americans perspectives on both reparations and an apology for slavery.
King's metaphor of a bounced check seems bogus to whites. Decades
ago, the majority of Whites believed that Blacks had already achieved
racial equality. Indeed, according to a mid-1990s study, most Whites
believed that Blacks had largely reached parity or had surpassed Whites
on a variety of economic, social, and health indicators.
Many Whites have objected to reparations on a number of grounds.
Representative Hyde, for one, complained that he owned no slaves. He
rejected the ideal of collective guilt for crimes committed “over
200 years ago,” and saw no reason to pay reparations. This type
of sentiment provides the foundation for contemporary opposition to
reparations. In earlier eras, it was constitutional arguments of
property rights, taxpayer relief, and states rights that cloaked white
defense of state-mandated apartheid and opposition to land
redistribution and expanded aid to newly freed slaves. Common to all
periods are arguments that conceding to demands for
reparations—whether land redistribution or funds to help rebuild
devastated inner-city communities—would violate norms of fiscal
prudence and anti big government sentiments. Furthermore, it is argued
that reparations would also seriously undermine national unity, as it
would tend to strengthen racial group identities at the expense of a
national “American” identity. In all periods, often stated
explicitly, is the view that Blacks are undeserving of further
government (and White) largess. This sentiment was expressed in the
period of Reconstruction as land redistribution was blocked and the
Freeman's Bureau was crippled. A century later it was again
expressed when most whites reacted in horror to James Foreman's
demands for reparations from predominantly White churches and
synagogues in the spring of 1969. Whites, by and large, see the quest
for reparations as a manifestation of Black greed.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the debate on
reparations has become more complicated. First, there has been an
American precedent for reparations and an apology. Late in the
twentieth century, Japanese-American activists and their allies
successfully fought for reparations for the survivors of the unjust
government incarceration of Japanese Americans into harsh camps during
World War II (indeed during the San Francisco hearings there were
objections raised to reparations for camp survivors because it would be
opening a “whole can of worms”). On the other hand, a small
but vocal set of Black conservatives have taken up the fight against
reparations, blurring for some the racial lines of the debate. Third,
in this period the call for reparations for slavery and its aftermath
has a decidedly international character as the Organization of African
Unity and other international forums have begun to address the question
of reparations for slavery and colonialism for people of African
descent both in Africa and for those scattered throughout the African
Diaspora.
This paper will attempt to summarize the current debates around
reparations within the United States and show the bases for support and
opposition to reparations. First, we briefly outline some of the
history around claims for reparations within the United States. Next,
we summarize the cases for and against reparations in greater detail.
Finally, we analyze support among Blacks and Whites for remedial
initiatives, addressing both African and Japanese American injustices.
We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of the findings
for racial conflict and American democracy.
THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST REPARATIONS
… [We are] Afraid to go back without proof
that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have
concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for
the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old
scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served
you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At
twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy,
our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty
dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have kept
back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three
doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the
balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the
money by Adam's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton,
Ohio. If you fail to pay for us for faithful labors in the past, we can
have little faith in your promises in the future we trust the good
fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for
generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday
night; but in Tennessee there was never any payday for the Negroes any
more than for the horses and cows. Surely here will be a day of
reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any
safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both
good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and
Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it
comes to that—than have my girls brought to shame by violence and
wickedness of their young masters… .
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the
pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
—Letter from Jordon, former slave to Colonel P. H.
Anderson of the Anderson Plantation in response to the latter's
request to return as a wage laborer to the plantation.3
Qtd. in Robin D. Kelley, Freedom Dreams:
The Black Radical Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002) 111.
Reparations for the descendants of slaves, as well as for those seen
as the victims of the colonization of Africa, have justified their
demands on a number of grounds. Historical, moral, and philosophical
justifications have all been used as sources of justification. To a
significant degree both the moral and the philosophical arguments
themselves are grounded in the historical case. We discuss in more
detail, therefore, the historical case than the other two.
Most, not all, historical arguments are rooted in the effect of
slavery and the slave trade both on African society and the Africans
put into bondage.4
Robert K. Fullinwider,
“The Case for Reparations,” Philosophy and Public
Policy 20 (summer 2000):
1–8.
The basic argument is straightforward: slavery and
the slave trade substantially harmed African society by a) kidnapping
millions of the continent's residents resulting in not only
millions and their descendants being condemned to involuntary
servitude, but also in a tragic and huge toil in deaths before, during,
and after the middle passage, b) distorting the economic and political
life of African societies through the slave trade, c) weakening African
polities to the point where such polities were much less able to resist
European colonialism, which then further oppressed and exploited both
the people and resources of the continent, and d) expropriating
billions of dollars of unpaid labor from the slaves.
5 Robert L. Allen, “Past Due: The African American
Quest for Reparations,” Black Scholar 21, no.2 (1998): 2–17. Allen provides a good summary of
these arguments, including a 40 billion dollar estimate of unpaid
wages.
As the Organization of African Unity and others have
argued, the wealth of Europe and North America was founded the trade
and exploitation of Africans, their descendants, and the resources of
the African continent.
But as Kelley and Fullinwider argue, a very strong case for
reparations can be made without any reference at all to slavery or the
slave trade. Fullinwider for one would prefer that slavery not be
referenced in pro-reparations arguments.6
First, those such as Fullinwider
argue, building the foundation on slavery only complicates the case for
reparations. Slavery and the slave trade in the United States ended
over a century ago, and claims based on slavery are too vulnerable to
claims that a massive blood price was paid during the Civil War. Even
if one would (accurately) argue that both the numbers of lives wrecked
by slavery and the slave trade dwarfed even the bloodiness of the Civil
War, that the Civil war did not provide economic recompense for
centuries of exploited labor, or that German casualties during World
War II did not relieve the post-war German state of its obligations to
the victims of the Holocaust, it is still argued that an even stronger
case for reparations can be based on the century of state-sponsored
apartheid that was put in place
after the guns of the Civil
War were silenced.
First, Blacks at the beginning of Reconstruction felt betrayed after
taking land from their previous masters or receiving land from Federal
authorities when these lands were returned to their defeated former
masters.7
They also felt
betrayed because throughout the South Blacks had heard rumors and
believed that massive land redistribution would take place and
establish them as independent farmers.
8 Foner 1988; Magdol 1977; Rose 1976;
Joel Williamson, After Slavery: The Negro in South Carolina During
Reconstruction, 1861–1877 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1969).
The former slaves were not totally misled, for there was massive land
redistribution to poor families right after the Civil War. Indeed, the
“Southern Homestead Act” of 1866 distributed 46 million
acres of land to whites.
9
By and large Blacks were excluded. In the first version of the
Freedman's Bureau Act, Blacks were to be granted the right to farm
40 acres for a nominal fee for three years, but this bill was vetoed by
President Andrew Jackson.
10 Johnson blocked every measure to try and
economically integrate Blacks as equals, and when it came to the
confiscation of the land of traitors, he had allies among most Northern
Republicans who feared the precedent, given a growing workers
movement.
11 Allen. Richard F. Bensel,
Yankee Leviathan: The Origin of Central State Authority in America,
1859–1877 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991).
Anti-slavery stalwart Sojourner Truth was just one of
many Black activists after the Civil War to demand reparations for
slavery, “America owes to my people some of the dividends. She
can afford to pay and she must pay. I shall make them understand that
there is a debt to the Negro people which they can never repay. At
least, then, they must make amends.”
12 During Redemption, the period after Reconstruction was smashed, there
was a slow worsening of conditions for Blacks in the South culminating
with the massive, state-sponsored disenfranchisement of Black citizens,
the imposition by the state of apartheid in the economic, social, and
political realms, and the entire regime reinforced by the unleashing of
quasi-official terror against the Black population in the form of
lynchings that resulted in thousands of brutal deaths. The fate of
Blacks would be sealed at the state level not only by the violence, but
also by the state constitutional conventions starting with Mississippi
in 1891 and culminating with Georgia in 1906, which stripped Blacks of
basic citizenship rights and instituted Jim Crow. The federal
government was actively complicit on a number of fronts—the most
notorious being the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson decision which found it
was “constitutional” for states to establish separate
facilities for Blacks. This formalized the regime of separate but
“equal.” Justice Harlan in dissent correctly predicted the
future when he stated, “In my opinion, the judgment this day
rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision
made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.”
The resulting Jim Crow system provides a solid foundation, so the
argument goes, for making a contemporary case for reparations to the
government of the United States. Although the great majority of Blacks
lived in the South until recent decades, Southern Blacks were not the
only victims of this system. A similar system of social, residential,
and labor market segregation and discrimination was also in place
throughout the rest of the United States—formalized and enforced
by private institutions such as the restrictive covenants that barred
selling property in White areas to Blacks. In addition, many unions
banned Black workers in entire industries and categories of jobs.13
Eric Arnesen, “'Like
Banquo's Ghost, It Will Not Down': The Race Question &
the American Railroad Brotherhoods, 1880–1920,” American
Historical Review 99 no. 5 (1994):
1601–33.
This system was not legally dismantled until
well into the 1960s and in some places much later.
The turn of the last century saw continued Black activism not only to
protest the imposition of Jim Crow, but to also demand reparations for
the continuing state-sanctioned harm done to African Americans. Callie
House initiated a lawsuit for Black reparations and was supported by
another exemplary anti-slavery movement stalwart—Frederick
Douglass.14
In 1915
Cornelius Jones files suits for 68 million dollars for former slaves
for their unpaid labor.
15 Randall
Robinson, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks? (New York:
Dutton, 2000).
These efforts and
others, of course, all failed. Indeed, Kelley reports that some
estimates of the level of economic exploitation of Blacks in the South
were so severe that through the tax system Blacks subsidized as much as
40 percent of White “public” services such as
education.
16 Virtually every radical Black activist organization from the
Garvey's UNIA in the 1920s through the Black Panther Party,
Republic of New Africa, and Nation of Islam in the latter third of the
20th century demanded reparations.17
The Nation of Islam had a demand
for land as restitution in its organizational platform, while the Black
Panthers demanded that the nation pay its long overdue debt to Blacks
in the United States in their party platform.
18 The sentiment that led nationalist and Black power organizations to
demand reparations was long recognized by Black Americans, including
the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. The Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr. at the March of Washington discussed the unpaid debt owed to
Black America in one of the less-used sound bites from the “I
Have a Dream Speech” in August of 1963:
So we've come here to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a
check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words
of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence they were
signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was the promise that all men, yes, Black men as well as white
men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has
defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color
are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has
given the Negro people a bad check; a check that has come back marked
“insufficient funds.” We refuse to believe that there are
insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us
upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.19
Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a
Dream Speech” King, Jr., in A Testament of Hope: The
Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., James
M. Washington (editor), (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986 [1963], p.
217–20.
Sentiments for reparations were sufficiently widespread among African
Americans to have penetrated Black popular culture. The popular
activist singer/songwriter Oscar Brown Jr., was singing about the
need for Blacks to collect on “Forty Acres and a Mule” at
the height of the Civil Rights Movement in 1964.20
The pleas for reparations voiced during the Civil Rights
Movements were transformed into demands at the height of the
Black Power Movement. Reparations were an integral demand within the
Ten Point Program of the Black Panther Party. Point number 3 states:
We want an end to the robbery by the white man of our
Black Community. We believe that this racist government has robbed
us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two
mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as
restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will
accept the payment as currency which will be distributed to our many
communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the
genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews.
The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over twenty
million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand
that we make.21
The Pacifica Radio/UC
Berkeley Social Activism Sound Recording Project: Black Panther Party
for Self-Defense 10 Point Program and Platform,
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/panthers10pt.html, last
visited 12/17/03.
Like many other Black nationalist and Black socialist organizations
which spread like wildfire at the height of the Black Power Movement,
the Panthers linked the demand for reparations to self-determination
for Blacks in the United States.
The demand for reparations during this era was put forward most
forcefully, however, by James Forman and his compatriots. In the spring
of 1969 Forman marched into the Riverside Church in New York and issued
the Black Manifesto. The Manifesto called for:
… [a payment of] $500 million as “a
beginning of the reparations due us as people who have been exploited and
degraded, brutalized, killed and persecuted.”22
The Manifesto also explicitly tied reparations back to the
“land” question. In addition to the funds devoted to
building up a multitude of institutions within Black communities,
increasing the human capital store among African Americans, and
generally building the capacities of Black communities, 200 million
dollars was targeted toward building a “Southern Land Bank”
for Black farmers.23
The
Manifesto targeted churches, synagogues, and other places of worship as
they were seen to have been active participants in the subordination
and oppression of African Americans.
The organizational base for this reparations movement was the Black
Economic Development Conference (BEDC). Coming out of Detroit, its core
leadership was centered on Forman and members of the League of
Revolutionary Black Workers. The League was by far the most important
Black organization in Detroit at the time, and on par with the UAW in
terms of political influence in the city, if not the region. While the
campaign only garnered a few hundred-thousand dollars as this
organizational initiative floundered under the weight of the conflicts,
chaos, and eventual implosion which inflicted the Black progressive
movement of the late 1960s and early-mid 1970s, it represented a
serious attempt to try and put into practice sentiments that had deep
roots in the Black community. This would be one thread that would not
be broken with the end of organized Black militancy. Support for
reparations would survive even Reagan's regime and remain strong
at the turn of the millennium.24
Michael
C. Dawson, Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary
African-American Political Ideologies (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2001). Chapter 5 in Dawson
2001, provides more information on the League
of Revolutionary Black Workers, their program, and ideology, see. For
more on the Black Manifesto, see Kelley.
Today, reparations activists come from many different strands of
Black mobilization. Some activists belong to activist organizations.
For example, N'COBRA has roots in the Black-power-era nationalists
associated with the Republic of New Africa. Others such as John
Conyers, a member of Congress from Detroit, are Black elected
officials. Others are liberal activists like Randall Robinson, author
of The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks (2000), who was previously best known for founding
and leading the extremely successful anti-apartheid organization
Trans-Africa. Black academics such as the historian Robin Kelley have
also embraced the issue.
Philosophical, moral, and international aspects to modern claims
about reparations also exist. The philosophical claims are designed to
both provide a rational foundation for reparation claims as well as to
address the arguments of opponents. A fundamental philosophical
grounding for reparations is the assertion that unlike how opponents
characterize the demand for reparations, the demand is grounded in
corporate, not personal responsibility.25
The oppression of peoples of African
descent in the United States has its origins in the authority granted
by first the English Crown and the Constitution of the United
States.
26 Joseph J. Ellis, Founding
Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York: Alfred Knopf,
2001); Joe R. Feagin, Racist America:
Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations (New York:
Routledge, 2000); Paul Finkelman, Slavery
and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of the Jefferson,
2nd ed. (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, Inc, 2001); Fullinwider.
The 1857 Dred Scott
Decision of the United States Supreme Court reinforced the state
sponsorship of Black oppression. The 1896 Supreme Court Decision,
Plessy v. Ferguson, would legitimize the state apartheid and
disenfranchisement being established by the Southern states at the turn
of the last century, and would extend Federal culpability and
responsibility for Black subordination until the last third of the
20
th century.
27 From this perspective, citizens—White, Black, Brown, Red,
or Yellow—are not considered the victimizers of
African Americans. The responsibility for Black oppression is
corporate and lies with the state—the government of the United
States. As Fullinwider argues, the usual framing of responsibility for
reparations is not correct. It is wrong to construct the responsibility
as that of one group to another, or more specifically as Whites (and
perhaps Others) to Blacks. This framing is fraught with problems. Some
Blacks owned slaves, many Whites are the descendants of immigrants who
arrived in the United States after the end of slavery (even if very few
arrived after the end of the system of state apartheid known as Jim
Crow), many Whites today, and some in the past, found the system of
both slavery and Jim Crow immoral. This incorrect relationship is
captured in Figure 1 by the arrow leading
from “W”(hites) to “B”(lacks). The correct way
to view the relationship, according to Fullinwider is to note that
citizens have an obligation to the state, and the state which
authorized and enforced Black subordination well into the 1960s has an
obligation to Blacks. Thus all of us, regardless of race or ethnicity,
as citizens of the state have an obligation to the corporate entity,
the government which in turn has an obligation to Blacks. This
relationship is captured in Figure 1 by the
arrow running from “C”(itizens) to
“G”(overnment), and the arrow running from
“G”(overnment) to “B”(lacks).
Models of liability for slavery.
It is critical to recognize that proponents of reparations argue that
the moral liability lies with the government of the United States. Only
by formally acknowledging that a great wrong has occurred and needs to
be redressed can the moral stain on the nation be put to rest.
According to this line of argumentation, both an apology on behalf of
the government of the United States as well as material reparations are
warranted. These proponents often go on to argue that the whole nation
stands to benefit because a complete democracy can be achieved only
when these steps are taken.28
A reparations movement, according to
Kelley, can be used to help fulfill Grace Lee Boggs' humanist
vision of a new, more egalitarian nation. Randall Robinson concurs, as
he argues in his book
The Debt:
If … African Americans will not be compensated for
the massive wrongs and social injuries inflicted upon them by their
government, during and after slavery, then there is no chance
that America can solve its racial problems—if solving these
problems means, as I believe it must, closing the yawning economic gap
between Blacks and whites in this country. The gap was opened by the
246-year practice of slavery. It has been resolutely nurtured since in
law and public behavior. It has now ossified. It is structural. Its
framing beams are disguised only the counterfeit manners of a
hypocritical governing class.29
There is concern that the reparations movement be democratic and
inclusive. The lack of attention to gender issue has been singled out
in particular as one area of concern.30
Queen Mother Moore captured the
sentiments of many activists when she wanted to build a reparations
movement that was part of a democratic process—a process which
would rebuild Black communities and
not turn into another
poverty program.
31 Third, modern reparations activists, such as those involved in the
N'COBRA (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America)
organization, emphasize the international character of support and need
for reparations.32
Indeed, activists from the United States have linked with other
activists around the world. In 1993, an international reparations
conference sponsored by the Organization for African Unity (OAU) called
for restitution by the Western powers. The claim was based in part on
the following statement “the damage sustained by the African
peoples is not a theory of the past but is painfully manifested from
Harare to Harlem and in the damaged economies of Africa and the Black
world from Guinea to Guyana, from Somalia to Surinam.”
33 In 2001, many
activists and organizations from around the world attempted to raise
the issue of reparations at the World Conference Against Racism in
Durban, South Africa. Debate on the topic was curbed only when the
United States and other western powers threatened the conference with
boycotts.
For all of the above reasons, historical, philosophical, moral and
international, reparations activists believe that they have established
a strong case for restitution and redress. Just as strongly, opponents
of reparations have fiercely argued that even the idea of reparations
is unjustified, dangerous, and immoral.
THE CASE AGAINST REPARATIONS
Conservative commentators such as political scientist Carol Swain,
social commentator Dnesh D'Souza, and anti-reparations activist
David Horowitz offer several arguments against the demand for
reparations. First and fundamentally, Blacks are not owed anything by
the government or people of the United States. D'Souza's view
is fairly typical:
What do Americans today owe Blacks because of slavery? The
answer is: probably nothing. If there is a social debt, it is to the
slaves, and the slaves are dead. It makes little sense to say that the
United States has an obligation to place African Americans in the
economic and social position they would occupy “but for
slavery”, since “but for” slavery they would probably
be worse off in Africa.34
Dinesh
D'Souza, The End of Racism (New York: The Free Press,
1995) 113.
Several points should be noted. First, D'Souza only talks about
slavery. He is silent about what obligations are owed, if any, because
of the century of apartheid that followed the ending of slavery.
Second, consistent with the views of many conservative commentators,
Blacks are better off being brought here as slaves, rather than being
left in Africa. He goes on to argue that reparations are not warranted
since some Blacks owned slaves, many slaves were sold into slavery by
their fellow Africans, and the blood price was paid by Whites, who
freed the slaves by fighting during the Civil War.
Carol Swain in a more recent work agrees with D'Souza that
Blacks are better off in the United States. Unlike D'Souza,
however, she grounds her belief in biblical faith:
Given the conditions in most African countries, the sale and
transport of Black slaves to America has all the hallmarks of what and
older interpretive tradition called providence (Swain 448).35
Carol M. Swain, The New White
Nationalism in America: It's Challenge to Integration
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
338–449.
Drawing a parallel to the biblical tale of the Egyptian bondage,
Swain continues that [there is] “an underlying divine
plan.” By our ancestors being transported to this country we can
now “help their African brethren.”36
Swain, however, extends the argument against reparations. The central
theme of her book is that there is a rise in White nationalism that is
dangerous to the republic. Seven specific factors contribute to the
rise of White nationalism. These factors include the rise in non-White
immigration, which “threatens” to reduce Whites to a
minority in many parts of the country. Second, is the process of the
economic globalization, which forces poor Whites into competition with
immigrants for low-end jobs. Third, also stimulating white resentment
are race-based programs of “questionable
constitutionality.” Fourth, is the “high
Black-on-White” crime rates. Swain's fifth cause for the
rise in White racism—or, as she puts it, “White
nationalism”—is the phenomenon of multiculturalism which
she sees as promoting “ethnic group pride and identity.”
The sixth factor is the rising expectations of People of Color (they
don't know their place). The seventh, and final, cause on
Swain's list of horrors is the growth of the Internet and the ease
with which it facilitates political mobilization and networking.37
In sum, Swain argues that
racial conflict fuels White nationalism.
Due to her worries about these issues, Swain devotes enormous energy
and space to attacking not only the activists who support reparations,
but also the entire reparations discourse itself. She boldly states:
Talk about reparations at the present time is ill-advised
and can be positively harmful in terms of improving race relations and
garnering support for policies to help the truly distressed. Current
reparations talk inflames the white electorate, undermines the
bridge-building process across racial lines, fuels white nationalist
sentiments, and is insufficiently targeted in its aims to help those
members of minority groups who are most in need. Sowell here is
undoubtedly correct when he says that the whole matter should be
dropped.38
Thomas Sowell is correct, Swain states, when he argues that there are
more fruitful areas for reform than the quest for reparations. The
problem with the reparations debate, according to both, is that it is
being promoted by venal Black politicians who are selfishly pursing a
“sham” agenda for their own political and electoral
interests.
Swain asserts that all Whites cannot be held accountable for
America's history of slavery. Her full argument contains the
following points: there is no single group responsible for the crime of
slavery and no single group benefited from its fruits; only a tiny
minority of White Americans ever owned slaves and many others gave
their lives to free the slaves; finally, most Americans today have
neither a direct nor an indirect tie to slavery. Correspondingly, Swain
argues that it is false to believe that all Black descendants of slaves
have suffered economic harm due to slavery and discrimination. Claims
for reparations simply serve to damage African Americans by consigning
them all to the status of victim. Furthermore, if reparations are
indeed owed to Blacks, they are already paid to them in the form of
welfare and affirmative action. Swain suggests that instead one should
inquire about the debt that Blacks owe America. Finally, she sees the
demand for reparations as a separatist demand. Advocated by Black
nationalists and the left, it hurts all Americans, particularly Blacks
because it sets Blacks “against the nation that gave them
freedom.”39
Therefore, what should we do at this stage of the reparations debate?
Swain is unequivocal:
End all discussions and all demands for racial reparations
for Black slavery, since the continued presentation of this issue
alienates potential allies of African Americans and contributes to a
worsening racial climate, given white America's long expressed
anger at racial preference programs.40
Arguably the most visible and one of the most vociferous of the
anti-reparations commentators is David Horowitz who launched a campaign
in 2001 to place a strongly worded
anti-reparations ad in seventy college newspapers. Besides listing
“The Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks? is a Bad Idea for
Blacks—and Racist Too,” this ad triggered a firestorm of
protest across many college campuses and in the media. Many of the ten
“reasons” were similar to those already advanced by other
conservative opponents such as Swain and D'Souza. Two of
Horowitz's claims, however, deserve more attention. One is that
Blacks are in debt to America. Distinguishing between the period that
the English Crown ruled the slave territories and the period of
“78 years” during which the U.S. sanctioned slavery,
Horowitz argues that the U.S. did not start slavery, but in fact ended
it for American Blacks. He asserts that the U.S. created a nation where
Blacks thrive as nowhere else. (Not included in his calculations of
when Blacks suffered harm is the period of Jim Crow.) Horowitz
concludes by asking, “Where is the gratitude of Black America and
its leaders for those gifts?”41
David Horowitz, “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for
Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks—and Racist, Too,”
http://www.adversity.net/reparations/anti_reparations_ad.htm,
(posted 3 October 2001).
His
argument is weakened however, if one links reparations to the
phenomenon of Jim Crow era discrimination seriously. State-sponsored
discrimination would last another century past the end of slavery, and
the costs of that system to African Americans today are well documented
by a number of sociologists, historians, and other social
scientists.
42 William H. Chafe, ed.,
Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About life in the
Segregated South (New York: The New Press, 2001); Dalton Conley, Being Black, Living in
the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America (Berkeley: The
University of California Press, 1999); Joe R.
Feagin, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future
Reparation (New York: Routledge, 2000);
Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro Black Wealth/White
Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality (New York:
Routledge, 1995).
Most controversial, perhaps, is the claim that African American
support for reparations is evidence in and of itself of hostility
toward Whites, and of anti-Americanism as well. The reparations
movement “is one more assault on America, conducted by racial
separatists and the political left.”43
He
elaborates on this point in a later article when he argues that linking
contemporary disadvantage with the history of racism in the United
States “qualif(ies) as hostility,” and “indicates
instead an animus against all the non-Black inhabitants of this
continent.”
44 David Horowitz,
“Uncivil Wars: Alan Dershowitz's Capitulation to the Racial
Left,” http://www.FrontPageMagazine.com (posted 7 June
2002) 5.
For Horowitz, support for
reparations is
prima facie evidence of disloyalty to the
nation and Black racism.
Conservatives are not alone in making arguments such as those of
D'Souza, Swain, and Horowitz. The predominantly White wing of the
Left also has grave misgivings about the appropriateness of and
potential harm from a movement for reparations. Many commentators from
this sector of the Left such as Todd Gitlin see race as a generally
troublesome issue that divides the progressive movement. Reparations,
then, is viewed as particularly dangerous.
How well have the supporters and opponents of reparations fared in
the marketplace of contemporary public opinion? In the next section we
will use survey data to build a more nuanced portrait of contemporary
support for and opposition to reparations.
BLACK AND WHITE SUPPORT FOR REPARATIONS
Data
The data are from the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard and the
Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University
of Chicago National African American Election Study. The Pre-election
survey was composed of 831 Blacks and was conducted in October of 2000,
the Post-election survey was conducted December 1 through 15, and
includes 605 Black adults and 724 White adults. The data for Blacks are
drawn from the pre-election panel, those for Whites from the
post-election study. The principle investigators were Lawrence Bobo of
Harvard University and Michael Dawson of the University of Chicago.45
See the Appendix for more information on
the study design.
Note that no missing data will be reported.
We used Gary King's Amelia program to impute the missing values
using multiple imputations, and Bayesian sampling methods to generate
missing values.
46 Both the program and
documentation, as well as that for the Clarify program discussed later,
can be downloaded from King's website:
http://gking.harvard.edu/stats.shtml.
The
marginals vary by one to two percentage points, when using an imputed,
versus reduced sample.
Results
Let us begin with an examination of the marginals. Four sets of
responses are considered. First, a distinction was made in the survey
instrumentation between reparations and apologies for African Americans
and reparations and apologies for Japanese Americans due to their
internment in camps during World War II. Second, as implied above,
questions were asked about whether the federal government should
apologize to either group (for slavery or internment respectively), as
well as about whether either group should have been granted monetary
reparations. Figures 2, 3,
4, and 5 display the
responses of Blacks and Whites to these questions.
Support for apology for Japanese Americans.
Support for reparations for Japanese Americans.
Support for apology for African Americans.
Support for reparations for African Americans.
One general comment is warranted before more detailed analyses are
attempted, namely, that the size of the gaps in responses between
Blacks and Whites is about as large as one is likely to see in American
public opinion surveys. A very large majority of Blacks support a
government apology to Japanese Americans while only a minority of
Whites support an apology. A reduced, though still sizeable, majority
of Blacks support monetary reparations for Second World War internment
while only a small minority of Whites do. When we shift to considering
Blacks, the overall picture remains the same, but the gaps grow to
truly enormous proportions. A very large majority of Blacks,
approximately four out of five, support an apology from the state to
African Americans. Only a small minority of Whites, considerably fewer
than those who supported an apology to Japanese Americans, believes
that an apology should be forthcoming to Blacks. While this gap is very
large, approximately 40 percentage points, it is overwhelmed by the gap
when we consider reparations for Blacks. While a reasonably
substantial two-thirds of Blacks support reparations for Blacks, a
miniscule 4 percent of Whites do for a gap of 63 percent! This is
an enormous difference in how Blacks and Whites perceive the politics
of race at the beginning of the 21st century.
This gap is reflected, however, in the difference that Blacks and
Whites perceive in whether Blacks have either achieved, or will soon
achieve, racial equality. Black and White perceptions of the likelihood
of racial equality for Blacks are displayed in Figure 6. A majority of Whites—60
percent—believe Blacks have either achieved, or will soon
achieve, racial equality. An even stronger majority, over
three-quarters of Blacks, believe the opposite—that Blacks will
either not achieve racial equality during their lifetimes, or not at
all within the United States. The disparities in perceptions about the
state of racial equality in the United States begin to give us some
understanding of the even larger differences in Black and White support
for reparations.
Perceptions of African-American racial equality.
Models of Support for Reparations
What are the factors leading to such large differences between Blacks
and Whites on their views on the desirability of racial apologies and
reparations? Some trends are fairly clear in the following results.47
The estimates in the following
tables are from probit regressions. We estimate the effect of
the independent variables on support for apologies and monetary
reparations after controlling for other variables. The raw (and
generally uninterpretable) probit coefficients are translated into
probabilities using Gary King's program Clarify program. See above
for a reference for both documentation and a link to the
software.
First, we should note that in general, many tables
show few significant predictors of attitudes toward reparations. This
lack of significant predictors is due in large part, as we saw earlier,
to little variation between Blacks and Whites for many of the items
measuring support for reparations. Second, for both Blacks and Whites,
models based on political factors fare better than those based on
social location.
Black Support
We start by reporting the results of Black attitudes toward
reparations and a government apology. Table 1
displays the results from a simple model based on the social locations
of the Black respondents. In general, this set of predictors provides
little leverage for predicting Black attitudes on reparations and an
apology. Nevertheless, men and the affluent are less likely to support
monetary reparations for Blacks, and the affluent less so for Japanese
American victims of the internment camps. Neither Age nor Education had
predictive power.
Social structure models for African Americans
The second model is based on components of African American social
embededness and identity. The following variables are used in the Black
identity model: Linked Fate: do you believe that your own fate
is tied to that of the race? This variable is highly predictive of a
broad range of Black political attitudes and ideological
orientations.48
Michael C. Dawson,
Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). Dawson 2001.
Second,
Black Economic
Subordination: are Blacks doing better than whites economically?
Social-psychological categorization theories suggest that in/out
group comparisons are more important than simple evaluations of
one's own group's status.
49 Dawson 1994; J. C. Turner,
Rediscovery of the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory
(London: Basil Blackwell, 1987).
Again this variable has been
shown to be a powerful attitudinal predictor in Dawson's earlier
work. Third, as powerful as in/out groups comparisons is
Exposure to Black Information Sources. Through radio, talk
shows, newspapers, magazines, etc., many Blacks are exposed to
alternative, Black-based viewpoints and information than found in the
mainstream media. All of Dawson's previous work shows that
exposure to these sources, which Dawson collectively have labeled the
Black information network, is a very powerful radicalizing influence in
Black politics.
50 For a fuller discussion
of these variables see Dawson 1994, 2001.
The results are displayed in
Table 2.
We see that perceptions that one's fate is linked to race
moderately increases the probability of support for Black and Japanese
apologies and reparations. Perceptions of White economic dominance
change only the level of support for an apology to Japanese Americans.
Exposure to Black Information networks is a pervasive effect in
increasing support. Overall, this model performs somewhat better than
the social location model.
Next, we consider whether African American attitudes toward
reparations are shaped by perceptions of the two major political
parties. The key variables in addition to the standard ideology and
party identification variables are two variables which assess the
degree to which Democrats and Republicans work hard on issues of
importance to African Americans. The results are displayed in Table 3. Generally, the party politics variables
weakly affect Black attitudes toward reparations. The most noticeable
exception is that Black Republicans are much more likely to oppose
apologies and reparations for Blacks than Black Democrats.
Party politics models for African Americans
While political parties do not strongly shape Black attitudes toward
reparations, what about Black attitudes toward major national political
leaders? Black affective feelings toward a range of Black and White
political leaders are used to predict support for reparations. We
measure support for public figures on a scale of 1–100
with “1” designating coldness toward a leader,
“50” neutral, and “100”, very warm feelings.
Table 4 displays the results.
Secretary of State Powell's supporters are less likely to
support monetary reparations for Blacks.51
We originally included Al Sharpton in this model, however
the high correlation between support for Sharpton and Minister
Farrakhan distorted the results. When run separately, the results for
the two leaders were extremely similar.
Former Vice President
Gore's supporters are also less likely to support monetary
reparations for Blacks, but also are not supportive of reparations for
Japanese Americans. The few Black supporters of President Bush opposed
everything having to do with Blacks—both apology and reparations.
They were more sympathetic with Japanese Americans, however, expressing
a slight willingness to compensate monetarily those who were interned.
Black leaders from outside the mainstream of American party politics
shaped Black views in the opposite direction of the mainstream leaders.
Supporters of Jackson, Farrakhan, and Sharpton were all more likely to
be supportive of apologies and reparations—with some weakening in
support for Japanese Americans.
What is critical to understand is
that the divide is not one between Democrats and Republicans, but
between Black “outsiders” and everyone else. Race, combined
with ideology, trumps simple political party differences.
Our intuition would also lead us to predict that Blacks'
perceptions of race, inequality, and the fairness of life in America
would directly shape support for reparations (see Table 5). The fairness items have no effect on any
of the apology or reparations items. Included as control variables,
one's perceived attachment to the race and embeddedness within
Black information networks reveal themselves as key predictors. Most
impressively, support for community control of the economy strengthens
support for all of the items. Support for an independent Black
political party very strongly increases support for monetary
reparations for Blacks, but does not have an effect on the other items.
Within this model, the strongest predictor of support for Black and
Japanese Americans receiving apologies and reparations is support for
institutionalized Black autonomy.
Perceptions of inequality among African Americans
When these models are combined, what factors best predict Black
support for reparations? The results are displayed in Tables
6, 7, 8, and 9. The most
consistent, and often the most powerful variable is belief
in community control of the economy of Black communities. This
predictor shapes Blacks' views of reparations and apologies across
all cases. The candidate support items have sporadic effect on views
toward reparations. Where significant, the signs run in the same
direction as before. Support for mainstream party politicians lowers
support for reparations, while support for Blacks outside the
mainstream strengthens support. This set of variables overwhelms
political party evaluations, status indicators, and the Black identity
variables. Rotating the order of whether the Japanese American or
African American questions first has inconsistent and sporadic effects
on support for reparations among African Americans. Overall, these
results suggest that for Blacks, support for institutionalized Black
political and economic control is the best predictor of support for
reparations.
Increase in probability that an African American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Increase in probability that an African American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Increase in probability that an African-American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Increase in probability that an African-American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
A reasonable question to ask is: Does the support for Black community
control of the economy cause greater support for reparations, or does
support for reparations lead to the view that Blacks need to control
their communities' economies. We estimated a bivariate probit
model to determine the possibility of reciprocal causation between
views on reparations and an apology for slavery on one hand, and Black
community control on the other. The results are displayed in Tables 10, 11, 12, and 13.52
William H. Greene, Econometric Analysis,
4th Edition (Upper Saddle River:
Prentice-Hall, 2000) 19. Greene, chapter
19, offers a good review on the bivariate probit model as well as the
procedures used to calculate the direct and indirect effects.
Support for Black community control leads to greater support for an
apology for slavery, but the reverse is not true. This relationship
is maintained across each measure of support for racial apologies and
reparations. Support for Black community control of the economy is a
strong and unwavering predictor of support for both apologies and
reparations.
Marginal effects on African American opinion—slavery apology
model*
Marginal effects on African American opinion—slave reparations
model
Marginal effects on African American opinion—Japanese
internment apology model
Marginal effects on African American opinion—internment
compensation model
There is further information that can be gained from the two-equation
models factoring in community control. We see the modest re-emergence
of status and identity variables in these models through indirect
effects. Since believing that one's fate is linked to the race
leads directly to greater support for Black community control, this
belief indirectly leads to greater support for apologies and
reparations as well. Largely insignificant in earlier models, education
emerges as a weak but persistent indirect determinant. Higher levels of
education lead to diminished support for community control. Indirectly,
education continues as a negative predictor of support for both
reparations and apologies. Still, the single most important determinant
(at least within these four models) of Black support for the proposed
initiatives is clearly whether one supports Black economic control. The
overall story remains the same: Black support for reparations and
apologies is built primarily on support for institutionalized Black
political power. Next, we turn to white opposition to reparations and
apologies.
White Opposition
Among Whites, we should find few predictors of support for Black
monetary reparations; moreover, the extraordinary lack of variation
actually makes the probit and most other statistical model
problematic—and good alternatives are lacking. We start as with
Blacks with the social structure model; the results of which are
displayed in Table 14. Social location has
virtually no impact on White opposition to apologies and reparations
although White women are slightly more supportive of an apology to
Japanese Americans for WWII interment than White men. Affluence and
education on at least this racial issue do not lead to more
“liberal” views.
Social structure models for White Americans
A racialized politics model, displayed in Table
15, shows that views about the politics of race do indeed shape
Whites' attitudes toward reparations and slavery. The White
equivalents of the Black identity variables have little impact in
shaping White attitudes on reparations, although the economic
comparison has some impact on views on an apology to Japanese Americans
(which is also the item with the most variation among the models). The
real payoff, however, comes with Whites' views of the 2000
election. If you thought that the accounts of voter disenfranchisement
in 2000 were a Democratic lie, you were even more likely to oppose
everything. The same holds for Whites who did not want to give money to
voting rights organizations even if Blacks had been denied the vote.
The same pattern is also seen for those who believed that Blacks had
been denied the vote, but who didn't think that the party
responsible for the denial should be thrown out. This effect, however,
is only related to the apology items. Political hostility to the
claims of Black disenfranchisement is critical for predicting White
resistance to both reparations and apologies to
Blacks and Japanese Americans alike.
Racialized politics models for Whites
Table 16 displays the results regarding how
White attitudes about various political leaders shape their views of
reparations and apologies. What we find is a pattern remarkably similar
to that for Blacks. Support for Jackson increases support for all items
across the board. Gore and Powell have no significant effects. Support
for Clinton and Bush increases opposition to both apologies and
Japanese American reparations. Clinton supporters, if anything, are
more hostile than even Bush supporters. The real dividing line,
however, is along support for Jackson. The politics of racial ideology
trumps all other considerations.
Candidate support models for Whites
What happens in a combined model of opposition to reparations and
apologies? The results are displayed in Tables 17,
18, 19, and 20. The results are revealing for all but the Black
monetary reparations model (where the extreme lack of variance takes its
toll). Very similar to the models for African American respondents, the
racialized politics variables (albeit a different set for Whites than Blacks)
and the candidate support items are consistent predictors of White opposition
to apologies and reparations. Further, unlike with Blacks, asking the
question about Blacks first consistently lowers the probability for
Whites supporting either reparations or an apology for Japanese
Americans.
Increase in probability that a White American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Increase in probability that a White American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Increase in probability that a White American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Increase in probability that a White American will support federal
initiatives to address past wrongs*
Different factors influence Black support and White opposition to
reparations and apologies. The overall pattern, however, remains
remarkably similar: Americans' views of politics are highly
racialized. Not only do these racialized views of politics powerfully
shape support for reparations, it also trumps social background,
political ideology, and partisanship as causal factors.
