Is Reparations the Answer?

Is Reparation The Answer?

As a people, African-Americans have endured hundreds of years of both physical and mental pains and injustice. "Through keloids of suffering, through coarse veils of damaged self-belief, lost direction, misplaced compass, shit-faced resignation, racial transmutation, black people worked long, hard, killing days, years, centuries-and they were never paid "(Robinson 207). Many will argue that for these reasons stated above, some sort of reparation should be applied. What exactly is meant by reparation? Webster's Dictionary defines it as the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury.

The issue of reparations for African-Americans has its fair share of advocates, adversaries, strengths and weaknesses as well as its time in the United States, but its true value of recognition lies deeper than just which argument is stronger or weaker. African-American reparation is a stepping-stone to solving the American problem of denial and inability to talk about the true racial issues and divides of this country, that so firmly holds to the American dream (land of equal opportunity and justice).

The issue of to African-American reparations for slavery brings about both good and bad notions. Advocates such as Randall Robinson, Richard America and many others fight for reparation because they feel that it is owed to Blacks for all the wrongs and injustices of slavery and the issues that have spawned from it, like racial profiling, psychological damage and many others. Reparation advocates feel that such payments are a key to settling gaps between blacks and whites, which is rooted in the past. It could have an ameliorating effect upon race relations in our nation and others (Parker 2).

From the prospective of a pro-reparation activist, it is only morally right to have reparations. "For wasn't the practice of slavery at least as serious as a system of human-rights wrongs as the Nazi holocaust? Did not the holocaust of slavery last longer-indeed, 234 years longer? Did it not claim at least twice as many lives, in the Middle Passage alone? Did it not savagely eviscerate the emotional core of a whole race of people on three continents" (Robinson 52)? Slaves were not only not paid for their labor, but their descendants were also deprived from their rightful inheritances. Instead these inheritances were passed on through the slave-masters, when in fact the goods of the slaves labor belongs to their descendants.

There is also this issue of justice. It is only just that African-American's receive reparations due to the fact that they were denied their forty acres and a mule. Through this ignorance, apathy and denial, the prevention of reparations has been brought forth and will be a major obstacle in the near and present future (Williams 5). It is also just, since many other groups have been rewarded for the injustices bestowed upon them, and therefore justice should rightly be bestowed upon African-American descendants. It is not a case of whether or not the parties involved are deceased, but a matter of how the distribution and fairness was spanned out over the courses of the years. As Richard America states, " It's not about guilt. It's not about blame. It's not about a lot of emotional stuff. This is a problem of accounting" (Westley 5).

Reparation will bring people out of denial and bring the true issues of the matter to the table. The whole country, especially the government is in denial. As Attorney Alexander Pires says, "Our own government has failed to enforce the Constitution equally for black people and that makes them liable" (Williams 2). African-Americans have every right to receive reparation, for not just the enslavement of their people, but for the many years that they have been wronged by the injustices of the United States government.

The main "issue here is not whether or not we can, or will, win reparations," concludes Robinson. "The issue, rather is whether we will fight for reparations because we have decided for ourselves that they are our due" (Westley). After many years of waiting for the government to realize its wrongs, it is time for African-Americans to step forward and reach for what is rightfully theirs. What other good reason is there to fight for reparations, than to achieve moral justice for ones ancestors and descendants.

Adversaries of reparation would believe otherwise. They stick strongly to the argument that slavery was something of the far past and that the people who have done the wrong and were wronged are dead and generations removed. It is felt that reparations should only be paid to those who are living, by those who did the wrong directly.

Many adversaries like David Horowitz and Henry Hyde (R - Ill.) believe that "The notion of collective guilt for what people did [200 - plus] years ago, that this generation should pay a debt for that generation, is an idea whose time has gone." According to Henry Hyde, "I never owned a slave. I never oppressed anybody. I don't know that I should have to pay for someone else who did [own slaves] generations before I was born" (Westley 2). Words like this of Past Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, bring about a strong case against reparation because the decisions to give reparation is in the hands of those who share the same views as Hyde and Horowitz.

Not only do Horowitz, Hyde, and other white adversaries feel as if reparation is not deserved, but there are also a few African Americans that take sides with those adversaries. They, too, feel that reparation will just devalue the accomplishments that African-Americans have already achieved and by advocating reparations one is portraying African-Americans as victims. These are the words of African-American adversaries of reparation like that of Walter Williams. Another disagreement to reparation is the idea that the reparations argument is based "on the unfounded claim that all African-American descendants of slaves suffer from the economic consequences of slavery and discrimination" (Horowitz 2). Many reparation adversaries feel this way because there are African-Americans like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jackson in society that have succeeded in mainstream American society. The argument for reparation in this manner seems to show no evidence of harm or victimization of African-Americans by the injustices of their people during and after slavery.

Adversaries of reparations also believe that this act will only bring about separatism and set African-Americans against the nation. It is felt that this will bring about resentment from those Americans who do not receive or benefit from its fruits as