Reparations for slavery is currently attracting some amount of attention in the context of the 2020 Presidential campaign, as illustrated by this APNews story from Errin Haines Whack, 2020 Democratic hopefuls embrace new meaning of reparations 02/26/2019. Bernie Sanders got a question on it during his CNN town hall event this past Monday.
This is an issue that has been seriously discussed in American politics for at least a couple of decades. The AP story cites some comments by Barack Obama on the issue.
The "new meaning" referred to in the headline is the interpretation of reparations for slavery as being general efforts to oppose discrimination against African-Americans and to provide them more adequate access to public services and expanded opportunities.
The story also suggests that Republicans would like to use the issue in a racially polarizing way. It quotes Whit Ayers, who identifies himself on Twitter as a "Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research," quoting him as saying, “There is no doubt that issues of race have been and remain critically important in American society. But the idea that you resolve those issues by taking money from white people and giving it to black people will make race relations worse, not better. Republicans would love to have that debate.” (my emphasis)
The AP article mainly illustrates how this issue can be used for throwaway lines in political campaigns.
But the concept is neither trivial nor easy. There is serious scholarly work on the concept, e.g.: Thomas Craemer, International Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade Journal of Black Studies 49:7 (2018; DOI: 10.1177/0021934718779168); Rhoda Howard-Hassmann and Anthony Lombardo, Framing Reparations Claims African Studies Review 50:1 (2017; DOI: 10.1353/arw.2005.0107).
Ta-Nehisi Coates also attracted quite a bit of attention to the topic in his article The Case for Reparations The Atlantic June 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment