Academic

The Future of the Reparations Movement?

By propertyprof

I haven't written about reparations in a while, in part because other news has been consuming everyone's attention this spring.  There have been some developments: the University of Maryland's starting a course this fall to investigate its connections to slavery.  Ira Berlin, one of country's most distinguished historians, is convening the course.  And I hear rumors that William and Mary is discussing its connections to slavery as well.  (I did write about Harvard's non-investigation recently and a little about a potential lawsuit by Sally Hemings' issue to get access to Thomas Jefferson's grave and here a few weeks ago.)

But perhaps--and I'm really tentative about this--the reparations movement is shifting dramatically.  Look; it's no secret that the movement is challenged politically--(only a small percentage of white people are in favor of "reparations" for slavery--by which they mean huge cash payments to individuals, regardless of need.  No one that I know who is a serious scholar of reparations is thinking in those terms.   I think that's just a way anti-reparations writers have of making the movement look foolish.  That's a discussion best left for another time.

There is one place, though, where the movement has had an effect.  I think talk of reparations has shifted discussion of race.  President Bush's moving speech at Goree Island in 2003, where he acknowledged that we have a long way to go to incorporate everyone in the bounties that our country has to offer, is one example of rhetoric that has been shaped by the movement.

Despite the movement's impact on discussion, I think we're seeing another shift in politics, outside of the  reparations movement.  That shift, led most recently by Senator Obama, is away from affirmative action.  (The shift has, obviously, been underway a long, long time.  But this is where Senator Obama's critical--he's signaling a shift away from race-based affirmative action.  In the Pennsylvania debate, for instance, he said his daughters do not need affirmative action, but acknowledged that some poor white children do.) 

So what happens now?  Reparations talk has, for the better part of a decade (and at other times through our post-Civil War history), reminded us of the many ways in which some Americans have been grossly mistreated--and how that legacy is having an effect today.  But that knowledge mixes in other ways with politics and morality--and perhaps, perhaps will lead to renewed calls for social-welfare programs for all people in need.

I predicted in Reparations Pro and Con that the reparations movement would be the entry point for renewed calls for social welfare programs, but that the movement might end up in non-race based programs.  (I think that's right for a series of reasons--in part political, in part moral.)  And that, indeed, seems to be where this is headed.  Though, as I say, I'm really tentative about this.  We'll see....

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on May 01, 2008 (boomark / email).