What Now?

In May of 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic Monthly magazine. I have been rereading it recently, and I posted last week that I would try to write about it. I find myself unable to say much other than, read this article, just read it.

It has been controversial, and I wonder how many potential readers were turned off by the word reparations. It is difficult to imagine how reparations could work. But Coates believes something else is more difficult to imagine. If this country were to discuss reparations, we would have to look at things we don't want to look at. “For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for 'appropriate remedies'” (Coats). That bill has never made it to the house floor.

Maybe, if it were only about slavery, Coates might not have written this article. It is, however, as the subtitle states, more than slavery: “Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy.” It is a grim history difficult to coexist with our prized stories of freedom and equality. He continues.

Perhaps after a serious discussion and debate—the kind that HR 40 [Conyers' bill] proposes—we may find that the country can never fully repay African Americans. But we stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion—and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America's heritage, history, and standing in the world.

I hope that those who disagree with the idea of reparations will first read Coates' entire article.