Why I am not for Reparation

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

July 04, 2014

I have just finished reading a piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of Slavery Made America, on his blog at The Atlantic journal web site, supporting Reparation.

And, I have come to the conclusion that Reparation is not for me.

For some, Reparation is the financial settlement for wrongs done to blacks because of slavery. These folks tend to miss the other forms of Reparation already done; policies supposedly crafted to amend the social and political short-standing of blacks in society.

As benevolent as the thought behind these policies sounded, the black man got far less than was promised because the opportunities presented by these policies were quickly plundered by others soon as they were made.

The first attempt was “40 Acres and a Mule, “issued after the Civil War by the victorious Union General Sherman in his “Special Field Order #15, which was signed into law by President Lincoln.

"Special Field Order #15" was to give 40 acres of land to freed black slaves. The order lasted less than a year after Lincoln's assassination. But the way it ended was to become the template for other Reparation payments to come.

Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Jackson, quickly reversed the order and returned the land given the freed slaves back to the Southern slaveholders.

In its wake, the freed slaves felt deeply disappointed.  The assurance of the 40 Acres compensation did not match the futility and the political helplessness the reversal left.

Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, was the same president who had appointed Chief Justice Taney, also a Democrat, to the Supreme Court. Taney was the architect of the infamous “Dred Scot” decision that justified slavery; that blacks were less than human.

The act to reverse the 40 acres reparation was deliberate and was done in the political arena.

Next to follow were the Civil Rights Acts gains of 1957 and 64.

As much as these gains were justified and fought for by mostly black experiences, it didn’t take long for the same rights to be granted to all minorities.

Then came “Affirmative Action,” crafted from the same reasoning as the Civil Rights. The pie that was carved out under this policy for blacks to enjoy soon became food for all minorities, once it became a reality. Minority groups like white women and Hispanics soon had equal share. And we are not done yet with the classifications in the forever-expanding affirmative action beneficiary list.

However, there is a smug satisfaction in the wake, in spite of the plunder. Something has been done for blacks!  Blacks, through lack of political deftness, never protested nor questioned the plunder.

But if you didn’t notice what happened under Affirmative Action, the Civil Rights Acts and 40 Acres and a Mule, you would not likely be apprehensive about the new demand for Reparation and the many minority claimants on the program to pop out!

Ta-Nehisi, in his article, argues to limit the proceeds from Reparation to  “injury” and not “ancestry”.

Interestingly by this, he has opened the door for all minority, disadvantaged and therefore injured claimants. Any wonder if the food fight for Reparation would end as it did under Affirmative Action?

The supreme irony is that the core rationale for asking will be raised on black grievance;  treating the black man like a chattel, as has been done historically..

Slavery is the worse genocide or pogrom ever done to man. But this side of ethical consideration will be suppressed in favor of a colorblind reparation program. Was that colorblindness ever present in American slavery?

What did blacks gain from past reparations and in exchange for what; acceptance to Ivy League universities while historically black universities went to seed ; for erstwhile thriving public schools to deteriorate in black neighborhoods as pupils graduate for prisons far away?

The inherent idea in monetary reparation is also a betrayal. The memory of all those who died in the Middle Passage will be sold at a price, the proceeds of which we would never get to enjoy completely.

And not to forget, the exact amount for reparation has not been stated but we can sense the rancor to come among even blacks. With Ta-Nehisi’s exclusion of “ancestry” from reparation, that’s trouble already.

How much is enough for reparation, $17 trillion? At the current U. S. budget deficit of some $17 trillion, to push the demand remotely closer to or beyond this amount will be absurd. Even so, it will still not be enough.

Ta- Nehisi says “Giving money to people solely because they are black or have direct African ancestry” is not it. In this statement there is enough to raise doubts about the wisdom and practicality of a reparation payment to be fought for on the back of black grievance.

He says, “If you understand racism as the headwaters of the problem, as injury, as plunder you can reorient and focus not on the ancestry but on the injury.”

So under this scenario, The Middle Passage didn’t happen. The rape of a continent of some of its most competent people never took place. No injury was done there in history.

Instead, the injury only happened in racist America; therefore hedge the payments for those in America - the disadvantaged and therefore the injured by racist, white, homophobic male America.

Many in black America will support Ta-Nehesi’s approach for separation from ancestry. He doesn’t need to reject his African ancestry outright as Keith Richburg did in “Out of America”; that Africans sold the black American ancestors into slavery. But that thought will dominate the claim.

However, no matter how the argument for Reparation is postulated, the “set-aside” monetary payment will be there for others in America to dip in.  In Ghana, the craft is called "create and loot"!

It was black humanity that was undercut and abused under slavery. It is not enough to have been traded like logs but now we have to wipe clean the quilt of others with another offer of purchase and still share the proceed with them. Is this not adding insult to injury?

Ta-Nehisi Coates wants to move past the "but they're all long-dead" argument while claiming “enslavement as central—not ancillary—to American history, you can then easily intuit that it would have some serious effects on policy 100 years later. “

He says, “it seems inconceivable that 20th-century domestic policy would not be awash in white supremacy”. But does he really want to sever “ancestry” from “injury”?

The “injury” part is what political power in America wrought, he seems to claim.  But racism is the whole deal, the injury to blacks both on the continent and in the Americas, and the reason behind slavery, as succinctly but stupidly stated in Justice Tarney’s “Dred Scott” decision.

If Reparation must be paid, there must not be any reason to sever ancestry from the payment.

It is no use for Ta-Nehesi to quote from the book, titled “The Warmth of Other Suns,” that “the policy of the American government has not been to encourage a black middle class, but to discourage it and open it for plunder,” and then not expect plunder under Reparation because any monetary payment under this  program would end up like what happened under “Affirmative Action.”

The disappointment and the bitterness that will be feft after Reparation will not be any different from those experienced in the wake of “40 Acres and a Mule.”   We just elected and re-elected a historically first black American president but what have we gotten out of it so far?

Reparation is not worth it in the form envisaged today. This is not asking to give up.  Rather, to ask what you get out of Reparation as a black man.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, publisher, www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, July 04, 2014
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