Reparations can overcome entrenched power structures

Woolford and Ratner, Professors of Sociology at the University of Manitoba and the University of British
Columbia

(Andrew and R.S., “Informal Reckonings: Conflict Resolution in Mediation, Restorative Justice and Reparations,”
Online: https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/CJS/article/viewArticle/4355)

Reparations involve truth commissions, compensation, restitution, symbolic politics (regrets, apologies), and
communicative history acts (commemorations). While belonging to the informal-formal justice continuum they
nonetheless remain open to disruptions by transformative informal justice. Woolford and Ratner apparently
believe that unlike mediation and restoration, reparations are practices established only after the Second
World War — which is moot (Thucydides, Arrian, Caesar and others describe practices akin to formal and
informal reparations of our time). Broader systems of power, juridification, instrumentalization, and inequities
within the reparations processes lock it within the informal- formal justice continuum, and thereby reinforce
the status quo. This is more so with affirmative than transformative reparations, as the former rather openly
support the social order, while the latter seek to transform it away from conditions conducive to actions
requiring reparations. Such limitations do not render reparations futile, as their potential can be released
through transformative informal justice. Woolford and Ratner offer four types of transformative informal
justice. First, it could be situated beyond the informal-formal justice complex (communes or communities
beyond the social mainstream) — with risks of self-isolation and impotence. Second, it may remain within the
informal-formal justice complex while aiming to transform it — which remains elusive. Third, spaces for
informal justice may be carved within the informal-formal complex — which raises the question of their
expansion without co-optation. Fourth, “informal justice counterpublics” may be created as spaces from which
disruptions and transformation of the informal-formal justice complex are staged — our authors’ preferred
option. While acknowledging that informal justice counterpublics are ideals, Woolford and Ratner maintain
that they are attainable to degrees ad- equate to their transformative goals. They fulfill Foucault’s demand to
disrupt the ubiquity of governance and domination, and Habermas’s quest for dialogical space whence critical
engagements could spread out into policy deliberations. True to their critical orientation, the authors recognize
only Zapatista public-oriented guerrilla tactics as approximating the ideal, and they close this illuminating and
commendable work with an invitation to multiply and broaden such disruptive actions with the aim of
encouraging public debates directed at deeper changes in institutional social order. My single critical remark of
consequence may best be put as a question: Is the plain old repression of radical opposition absent from their
analysis because it is assumed that it does not occur in the presumed — and never evidenced — “liberal
democracy”?

Reparations as a form of education has empirically benefitted students

Greg Wiggan and Charles B. Hutchison, September 2009, Greg Wiggan is an Associate Professor of Urban
Education, Adjunct Associate Professor of Sociology, and Affiliate Faculty Member of Africana Studies at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Charles B. Hutchison is an associate professor of education at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “Global Issues in Education: Pedagogy, Policy, Practice, and the
Minority Experience,” Rowman and Littlefield Education

Prior to reading these articles, I had no idea that [reparations] were being discussed in other forms than a
check to African-Americans. Although the Atlantic Slave Trade has briefly been mentioned to me in my
education, the discussion of reparations never has. I cannot believe how completely ignorant I was of an issue
that continues to go on today. In fact, as much as I hate to say it now that I have taken this class and read the
HR-40, I probably would have disagreed with the idea of reparations because I did not realize how many
different forms they could come in. Now, however, I am a strong advocate for reparations through education
and am thankful for this class for curing my ignorance. In another conclusion of the class project, Darby wrote:
Almost everyone in the class agreed that some sort of reparations were in order, but the form that they should
take could not really be agreed upon. Some believed that the wording of HR-40 should be revised to take out
the words, “compensated for efforts.” The feeling was that the phrase was too close to sounding like writing a
check. Others thought that a more appropriate form of reparations would be to construct a memorial or use
funding for educational programs. I suggested that the money be used to fund forums or discussions dealing
with “race” relations. [The student concluded], clearly the effects of slavery have damaged this country in
many ways. One of the most destructive things that slavery has done to America comes in the form of racism. I
think that racism is our country’s greatest weakness. Many of us are so blinded by biased thoughts against
others of another “race” simply on the basis of skin color. This is a lasting ugly legacy of slavery, which is why I
believe it so important to begin immediately with race relations [improvement programs] of some sort. The
more that we learned about each other’s “race” and culture, the less we have to fear. We should celebrate our
differences and quit being afraid of those differences. In summary, the class project on reparations convinced
most students that unless treated, the open wounds of slavery and its legacy would continue to fester and pass
racism from generation to generation like a genetic defect. Newly aware with familial ties and responsibilities
in place, students could now envision themselves in the audience listening to the words of Brown University’s
Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. In 2006 that committee wrote: If this nation is ever to have a
serious dialogue about slavery, Jim Crow, and the bitter legacies they have bequeathed to us, then universities
must provide the leadership. Universities possess unique concentrations of knowledge and skills. They are
grounded in values of truth seeking and the unfettered exchange of ideas. They are at least relatively insulated
from political pressure. Perhaps most important, they are institutions that value historical continuity, that
recognize and cherish the bonds that link the present to the past and the future. Brown University and other
educational institutions are extending invitations to the family table to discuss issues surrounding racial and
ethnic relations. Furthermore, white advocates for reparations have formed an organization called Caucasians
United for Reparations and Emancipation, CURE. In the organization’s book The Debtors: Whites Respond to
the Call for Black Reparations (2005), Ida Hakim addresses the need for white activism. Hakim and other whites
underscore the social responsibility of those who benefit from privilege they earn from their whiteness, and at
the expense of others. Based on the findings of the project, it appeared that the students benefited from
reparations pedagogy, and it helped improve their understanding of race relations. The struggles of addressing
this sensitive topic came out in the students’ journal reflections. In the case of Randall, the human losses of
both blacks and whites during the Civil War might have just paid off the old debt, canceling everything out.
Although he struggles with the issue, he comes closer to a resolve that the topic needs to be explored and
discussed further in order to bring about some healing. At least this presents some prospects of continuing the
dialogue on reparations. While there has been a silence in the literature regarding how to teach about
reparations, the homocentric approach provides some new directions and meanings for a very sensitive
subject.

States should ordain and establish reparations as educational funding for the
disenfranchisement of black people, sets a precedent for other racialized policy reparations
Jamelle Bouie, 5-22-2014, (Chief Political Correspondent. "How America Should Pay Reparations," Slate
Magazine,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/05/reparations_should_be_paid_to_black_am
ericans_here_is_how_america_should.html) CAA

With “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic sets slavery aside to focus on the long
plunder of the 20th century, in which whites used coercion, violence, and government to exclude blacks from
the bounty of American prosperity. The civil rights revolution of the 1960s was vital, but it wasn’t a panacea,
and the problems of today—from the racial wealth gap to the crumbling ghettos of the Midwest—stem from
the racist policies of our recent past. Or, as Coates puts it, “White supremacy is … a force so fundamental to
America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.” This is more than rhetoric. Black families paid
taxes and black soldiers fought for democracy in Europe and the Pacific, but—from low-interest home loans to
money for education—they were barred from the benefits of the G.I. Bill. Indeed, the same federal dollars that
built the suburbs were used to keep blacks out of them. It was the federal government that “pioneered the
practice of redlining,” writes Coates, “selectively granting loans and insisting that any property it insured be
covered by a restrictive covenant—a clause in the deed forbidding the sale of the property to anyone other
than whites. Millions of dollars flowed from tax coffers into segregated white neighborhoods.” At the same
time, “legislatures, mayors, civic associations, banks, and citizens all colluded to pin black people into ghettos,
where they were overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated.” The case for reparations, in short, is
straightforward. As a matter of public policy, America stole wealth from black people, denied them a shot at
prosperity, and deprived them of equal citizenship. And that’s just the 20th century. If you go beyond that—to
include all stolen income from the revolution to secession—the balance falls deep into the red. In 1860,
translated to today’s terms, slaves represented a staggering $10 trillion in wealth, an incredible sum. If you
include compound interest—to represent the compounding plunder of the next century—you are left with an
implausibly large amount of money. Wisely, Coates doesn’t try to build a proposal for reparations. At most, he
endorses a bill—HR 40—that would authorize a government study of reparations. Instead, his goal is to
demonstrate the recent origins of racial inequality, the role of the federal government, the role of private
actors, and the extent to which the nation—as a whole—is implicated. Even if your Irish immigrant
grandparents never owned slaves, or even lived around black people, they still reaped the fruits of state-
sanctioned—and state-directed—theft, through cheap loans, cheap education, and an unequal playing field.
If anything, what Coates wants is truth and reconciliation for white supremacy—a national reckoning with our
history. As he writes, “More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of
reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom
worthy of its founders.” Still, even if “no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in
America,” there’s still value in imagining a concrete scheme for reparations, if only to have a sense of the bills
we owe. And so, how would we accomplish the task? Would you attempt a massive transfer of wealth? Or
would you try to compensate black communities with targeted policies? As a matter of public policy, America
stole wealth from black people, denied them prosperity, and deprived them of equal citizenship. The “wealth
option,” accomplished by cash payments, is what we tend to think when we hear “reparations.” In this
scenario, the federal government would mail checks to individuals, either in a lump sum or spread out over
time. There are a few, immediate concerns with this notion. First, who is eligible? Given the pervasiveness of
anti-black prejudice, should it go to all black Americans—who, regardless of origin, deal with the burden of
white supremacy—or should it go to the descendants of slaves, who share a unique disadvantage? And how do
we determine lineage? Through self-reporting? Through a comprehensive census of black Americans?
Genealogical records for slaves are so scarce that any method of selection will come with the risk of fraud,
since for most, we can’t confirm with absolute certainty that a given person is a descendant of slaves. And even
if we could agree on recipients, how much should individuals receive? A uniform sum or an amount based on
your heritage, i.e., the more enslaved ancestors you have, the bigger your payment? Even with all of those
questions, however, there’s a lot to recommend when it comes to cash benefits. For starters, it empowers
individuals, families, and communities. They know what they need, and we should trust them to figure out
their own interests over the long term. Yes, a cash scheme could never be fully fair, but that’s not the point;
what we want is to heal injury and balance accounts, and on that score, it could work. On the other end is the
policy approach. Instead of cash, the federal government would implement an agenda to tackle racial
inequality at its roots. This agenda would focus on major areas of concern: housing, criminal justice, education,
and income inequality. As for the policies themselves, they don’t require a ton of imagination. To break the
ghettos and reduce the hyper-segregation of black life, the federal government would aggressively enforce the
Fair Housing Act, with attacks on housing and lending discrimination, and punishment for communities that
exclude low-income residents with exclusionary zoning. What’s more, it would provide vouchers for those who
want to move, subsidized mortgages for those who want to own, and huge investments in transportation
infrastructure, to break urban and rural isolation and connect low-income blacks to jobs in wealthier, whiter
areas. On the education front, state governments could end education budgets based on local property
taxes—which disadvantage poor communities and disproportionately hurt blacks—and the federal
government could invest in school reconstruction, modernization, and vouchers—for parents who want their
children in private schools—in addition to higher education subsidies for black Americans. These “in-kind”
benefits have the virtue of freeing up disposable income, thus acting as de facto cash payments. It almost
goes without saying that this move for policy reparations would include an end to the war on drugs, an end
to mass incarceration, and a national re-evaluation of police procedures to reduce racial profiling.

School Lunches

The States are the ones who regulate state lunches- Texas proves

Richards 11 (Edward P. Richards (July 31, 2011), Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, “Legal Strategies to
Manage Obesity and Increase Physical Activity” Louisiana State University Program in Law, Science, and Public
Health Working Paper No. 100, (2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1899357 or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1899357) CAA

Schools have also been under pressure to increase the academic content of their curriculums, but economic
and social constraints do not allow the lengthening of the school day. This puts pressure on schools to limit
recess and physical education times. Budgetary pressures also limit the staff available to supervise students at
recess and run physical education programs in some Legal Strategies to Manage Obesity and Increase Physical
Activity 28 schools. Liability concerns have caused some schools to remove traditional playground equipment
and limit access to playgrounds after school hours.56 Regulatory Authority The federal government directly
regulates schools through laws such as the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, both of
which deal with treatment of disabled students. The federal government also regulates schools by attaching
conditions to funds for programs such as federally subsidized school lunches. States regulate schools directly
through laws passed by the legislature and indirectly through state agencies with regulatory authority over
schools. For example, the Texas Department of Agriculture has authority over school nutrition programs in that
state. The Department was able to establish administrative orders controlling many aspects of food service in
public schools without requiring additional legislation. Since administrative orders, as opposed to regulations,
do not usually require public notice and comment, they are much quicker to implement and may be easily
modified as more is learned about the best approach to the problem being regulated. Private schools are also
regulated by the state and federal governments, but generally face fewer regulations than public schools.
Home schools are only minimally regulated in many states. As the states and the federal government develop
obesity and physical activity regulations and guidelines for schools, they will need to determine if these will
apply to all schools uniformly. Universities Universities have much less control over their students’ lives, but
many do run dormitories and either provide food service on campus or regulate it through contracts with
private food service providers. Universities can also require physical education courses for graduation, with
some universities having significant fitness requirements. While K-12 schools have been the focus of inquiry for
childhood nutrition, universities play an important role in the transition to independent living. Most
universities collect health data on entering students, which could include reportable information about
nutrition status. Additional information could be collected as part of physical education courses. Universities
are very dependent on federal education funding, which could be a vehicle for regulating on-campus nutrition,
requiring data collection, and encouraging physical education requirements.

Summer food programs occurring now in the squo, expanding these programs solves the entirety of the AFF

FRAC 14 (Food Research and Action Center (July, 2014), “Facts: The Summer Food Service Program”
http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/sfsp_fact_sheet.pdf) CAA

#SFSP=Summer Food Service Program

Summer Meals Benefit Low-Income Children and Families • SFSP contributes to the healthy growth and
development of low-income children by providing them with nutritious snacks and meals, often alongside
recreational activities, to help address growing evidence of the risk of children gaining weight over the summer
months. Reimbursable summer meals must meet federal nutrition standards and can provide an opportunity
for children to access fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to support a healthy diet. • Many SFSP sites
also provide educational and enrichment activities in addition to meals, which enables children to learn and
stay safe when school is out, mitigating the harmful effects of summer learning loss and ensuring that
children are better able to learn when they return to school. • The meals served through SFSP draw children
to the activities offered at sites and maintain their participation in a structured summer learning program. •
Summer meals help parents stretch their food dollars at home during the summer months. Food budgets often
increase due to the lack of access to school meals, but summer meal programs can also help mitigate child care
costs due to the programming offered. It Pays to Serve Summer Meals • The SFSP reimbursements provide
essential financial support to programs that serve low-income children when school is not in session. • For
summer 2016, SFSP sponsors received $2.09 for each breakfast served, $3.69 per lunch or supper, and $0.87
per www.FRAC.org snack. Sponsors located in rural areas or those that prepare their own meals on-site receive
a higher reimbursement — $2.13 per breakfast, $3.15 per lunch or supper, and $0.89 per snack. Lunch and
supper cannot be reimbursed for the same day by the same site, except for camp and migrant sites. • Summer
nutrition funding can add up. For example, a summer program serving breakfast and lunch up to 50 children for
eight weeks (or a 40-day program) would receive approximately $11,560 in federal funding through SFSP or
$11,760 if located in a rural area or self-prep site. By decreasing the costs per meal as the number of meals
being served increases, a sponsor can maximize the total amount they can receive in federal funding to help
support their overall program. • Programs that have been providing meals and snacks, but have not received
federal funding through SFSP, can be reimbursed and use the money previously spent on food to serve
additional children, offer more activities or hire additional staff. Lunch and supper cannot be reimbursed for
the same day by the same site, except for camp and migrant sites. • School Food Authorities already
participating in the School Breakfast Program, or the National School Lunch Program, and sponsors of the
CACFP Afterschool Meal Program, can use the federal reimbursement funding from any other child nutrition
program to support their operation of summer meals and vice versa. USDA Guidance Makes the Program Easier
to Operate • States can create a simplified SFSP application and training process for afterschool programs
that already participate in the CACFP Afterschool Meal Program, and for School Food Authorities that
already participate in the School Breakfast Program or the National School Lunch Program. • Sponsors sign a
permanent agreement with the state SFSP agency or an addendum to their existing agreement if they are
already sponsoring the CACFP Afterschool Meal Program. • Private nonprofit sponsors can operate under the
same rules as all other sponsors — there is no longer a cap on the number of sites or children served and sites
do not have to be otherwise affiliated with the sponsor. • Sponsors can now use eligibility for reduced-price
and free meals data from any month of the previous school year to qualify sites, in addition to annually
updated census data — the American Community Survey. • Sponsors are no longer required to keep records
and accounts separate from administrative and operating costs. Instead, sponsors simply follow a “meals times
rates” formula that allows them to claim the maximum reimbursement. This change in accounting procedures
dramatically reduces the paperwork involved in operating SFSP

Reparations good for the economy

Reuters, 6-4-2014, Reuters is the news and media division of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters is the world's
largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news,
technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual
funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. "Why
reparations for slavery could help boost the economy," Reuters, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-
debate/2014/06/04/why-reparations-for-slavery-could-help-boost-the-economy/

In the May 21 issue of The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates re-opened the question of whether the United States
government should pay reparations to African-Americans for the crimes of two and a half centuries of slavery,
60 years of Jim Crow-style segregation and decades more of racist housing policies, zoning and community
development. His conclusion — that a great accounting of wrongs must take place, as well as a decision about
how to make amends for them– has inevitably sparked disagreement. But set that aside. Imagine we have
decided yes, as a society we must pay a price for these injustices, and it must be large. Those payments could
well constitute the stimulus that the U.S. economy needs to take it into the next century. To the economy,
stimulus is stimulus, as long as it’s done right. Whether it is paid to a group of people based on where they live,
their ethnicity or their religion might matter to politics, but to the economy, it doesn’t matter — as long as the
money is put to work through either consumption or investment. The reparations-as-stimulus idea gets a short
mention from Coates, who writes that: “In the 20th century, the cause of reparations was taken up by a diverse
cast that included the Confederate veteran Walter R. Vaughan, who believed that reparations would be a
stimulus for the South.” Vaughan, a former confederate soldier turned Idaho politician, recognized that
“pensions would financially benefit former slaves and would indeed be a semblance of justice for their years of
forced labor,” according to an article in the summer 2010 issue of Prologue magazine, a publication of the
National Archives. But the outcome Vaughan looked for involved “ex-slaves spending their pensions in the
South in order to give the devastated southern economy a financial boost.” Vaughan’s vision is too simplistic to
apply to modern times. Today reparations would affect 44.5 million Americans, most of whom are in a position,
or could eventually be in a position, to do far more than spend. The stimulus would lead to both
entrepreneurship and investment and potential direct poverty alleviation for 3.2 percent of the total
population, assuming that cash-based reparations payments would be large enough to lift even the poorest
recipient above the poverty line. This would affect the roughly 27 percent of African-Americans who were
below the poverty line in 2012. Put those elements together and there is a prime case for stimulus that would
both alleviate poverty directly, and provide payments to people who can either grow their investments or start
or expand businesses. Any reasonable program would start with direct cash payments of sufficient largess that
it should be able to eliminate any reasonable consumer debts and allow the recipient access to retail banking
services (the poor are notoriously under served by financial institutions). This assistance could immediately
affect more than 30 percent of the participants in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program,
boosting them in such a way that they no longer need to receive benefits, according to figures from the Urban
Institute. The payments would be a huge boon for the states who administer the block grants behind these
programs. Imagine similar reductions in the number of users of food stamps and medical programs. The
drawback is that one-time payments are temporary and we do not want to find ourselves, one or two years
down the line, back where we started. Coates spends a good part of his essay talking about the development of
major cities and how African-American communities developed within them. This is where reparations can
have a more lasting effect. All of these historically blighted neighborhoods need to be modernized. Universal
broadband and Wi-Fi Internet access is a great start, and should be combined with transferable tax credits to
encourage new business formation, particularly if new businesses start with local ownership. By making the tax
credits transferable, with some limitations, these programs would encourage outside investment so that these
new businesses can expand and more easily access capital markets. Coates has given us a lot to think about.
The temptation is to argue about what is ethically “right.” But in doing so, we shouldn’t ignore the also
interesting possibility that we could be looking at a pilot program for a new America.

Reparations does not abandon memory but translates it into action

Thompson, Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Melbourne University, 2005

(Janna, “Memory and Ethics of Reparation,” Online: http://www.yale.edu/glc/justice/thompson.pdf)

Robinson makes this remark in the context of a visit to the monuments of Washington D.C. where the historical
achievements of white Americans some of them slave owners, are celebrated, but the story of slavery and its
legacy, of the generations of African Americans who were uprooted, enslaved, who labored, died, struggled
against oppression, and in some cases achieved great things, is not present. He thinks that this national
amnesia, shared by blacks as well as whites, is at the root of the disabilities that blacks continue to suffer in
American society, and he thinks that the debt America owes to¶ blacks includes remembering and
acknowledging past in justices as well as programs to end black disadvantage. In this paper, I will provide a
defense of reparations for slavery and its legacy that stresses the importance of memory and historical identity
in a nation whose citizens are embedded in a history and have intergenerational obligations. I will argue that
such an account can overcome the difficulties, which, according to many philosophers, make claims for
reparations for historical in justices morally problematic.

The call for reparations is made against the capitalist system—an overthrow of capitalism
would make the payment of reparations impossible and would continue the narrative of
whites denying just claims. AND No root cause—slavery laid the foundation for capitalism
Roy L. Brooks, Published June 1999, Roy L. Brooks is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of
San Diego, “When Sorry Isn't Enough The Controversy Over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice”, pg
423

Black reparations is a claim on the western capitalist socioeconomic system. It is not a claim on socialism,
communism, or any other noncapitalist "mode of production” or society. Our unpaid forced labor laid the
foundations of the western capitalist order, and no other. Our enslavement alone enabled European civilization
to snare the Western hemisphere, appropriate its resources, and anchor white wealth and might in the
Americas. It is western capitalism that owes us the debt. Hence, despite some of the rhetoric we use at times,
the lobbyists for Black reparations are not social revolutionaries in the traditional western, left-wing Marxist
sense. We can't afford to be. I will explain why. In as much as we insist upon reparations, that aim cannot
logically encompass the overthrow of the socioeconomic order, since the claim for compensation and
indemnification is made specifically against western capitalism-the beneficiary of our ancestors' unpaid labor
and the perpetrator of racist atrocities against us. Reparations is addressed precisely to those debts and
crimes. So although many Blacks have no use for capitalism-with good reason-the campaign for reparations,
both for Africa and the diaspora, requires western capitalism for the claim to register. Anti-Black racism is
deeply rooted among ordinary whites. Ostensibly lower-class whites would provide the main backing for any
noncapitalist order-and would be its main beneficiaries. We suspect that under any postcapitalist setup, as
under capitalism, the vast majority of whites would continue to look for excuses to deny our just claims. We
lay charges against the existing social order. Western capitalism's disappearance before the debt is paid is
not in the interest of Black people.

We solve the aff – demanding reparations OPENS UP our relationship to history – it

challenges progressivist notions of time
Henry, Professor of African American Studies at Berkeley, 2007

[Charles P., Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations, pp.6-7]

Following the Civil War and Emancipation—and in the absence of truth and reconciliation commissions—
Americans have had to sort out the relationship between healing and justice. White Americans in the North
chose to heal the wounds with White Americans in the South. This politics of reconciliation, which took several
decades and still exists in some forms today, forged a number of unifying myths to make it safe to remember
the Civil War. This reconciliation between North and South did not, however, include Black Americans. Even at
the fiftieth reunion of battle of Gettysburg in 1913, Black Civil War veterans were literally and figuratively left
out of sight and mind. Fifty years later, Lincoln's "rebirth of freedom" had become Woodrow Wilson's forward-
looking "righteous peace."'' The Emancipation Proclamation and the Twelfth through Fifteenth Amendments to
the Constitution, also known as the Civil War Amendments, granted Blacks citizenship in the "civic" nation but
denied them membership in the "ethnic" nation. That is, the Civil War ended slavery but did not create
equality. In short, to satisfy Whites in both the North and the South, Blacks were given citizenship but denied
equality. Whites, Blacks, and others assume the responsibility of historical obligations when they become
citizens, whenever and however that occurs. A nation is an intergenerational community, and the existence of
historical obligations is predicated on our moral relations to our successors. Our government's ability to make
treaties, for example, is dependent on the belief that the agreements we make will be honored by our
successors. But we are entitled to interpret the agreements of our predecessors according to our own ideas of
justice.18 We may know, for example, that our "founding fathers" did not include African Americans as citizens
in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If our political community is to continue to evolve, we
must remedy that. Many other countries, as well, are having difficulty dealing with the past because the past is
still with them.'" Memory of historical injustice is not a trivial matter to be swept under the rug in the name of
progress. Memory or, more precisely, remembering is an important part of the identity of individuals and
communities. The moral identity of a nation may be defined as the remembrance of those events that
comprise its obligations and entitlements. Practices that require the living to keep the promises and contracts
of the dead are inseparable from the value we assign to the self-realization of individuals and their ability to
fulfill their responsibility to others.20 The call for racial reparations challenges the official histories that
ignore, explain away, or trivialize mass cruelties. Reparations thus are a way of democratizing history and
hearing those voices that were silenced in the past.

The demand for Reparations challenges American exceptionalism and revitalizes Black
politics
Henry, Professor of African American Studies at Berkeley, 2007

[Charles P., Long Overdue: The Politics of Racial Reparations, pp.31-32]

The discourse on reparations is a reminder of our history, which was not benevolent. It also is a reminder of
who bears the burden of empire and who benefits from it. It creates an opposing public space to confront the
proponents of American empire and to promote an alternative vision of the future. With this in mind, I try to
answer two central questions here: After at least two decades of relative obscurity, why have racial reparations
become a primary issue in the African American community? And why is the larger political community—in an
"age of apology"—so opposed to even discussing racial reparations? Reparations is a divisive issue precisely
because it is impossible to avoid directly talking about race and race privilege. Slavery has become a focal point
in this discussion because there were no White slaves in the United States. Finally, even though there are no
surviving slaves now, there are many survivors of the legalized apartheid that existed nationally until 1954 and
in some state constitutions through 2000. The removal of legal apartheid or the formal barriers of racial
segregation led to a transitional period of what the political scientist and Nobel laureate Ralph Bunche called
the social construction of race." Both Black and White opponents of reparations argue that we currently live in
a color-blind society in which race is irrelevant and the past is past. From another perspective, those people
with a mixed racial heritage contend that all their ancestral roots should be acknowledged and celebrated.
Racial reparations therefore both challenge and complicate issues of racial identification. Most leaders of the
reparations movement in the United States reflect an earlier tradition that saw the "one drop" rule or custom"
as imposing an external unity. The politics of reparations thus has forced an internal racial discussion among
Blacks over issues of racial identity. One of the great political accomplishments of the Reagan revolution was to
succeed in labeling civil rights interests as special interests. The fact that so many White Americans accepted
this designation and supported Reagan's racial policies is indicative of the failure of American society to see the
civil rights movement as a positive development for all Americans. This illiberal tradition in American politics68
recently reached new extremes after September 11 with attacks on civil liberties and civil rights. As an issue,
reparations permit Blacks to assume the higher moral ground that was lost in the post–civil rights movement
period. Unlike affirmative action, welfare, and other social programs, reparations discourse avoids
counterarguments of merit or behavior. Reparations demands also tend to be redistributive rather than
individual and incremental. Finally, reparations attempt to reclaim the sense of identity created during the civil
rights and Black power movements. From Phyllis Wheatly to Gunnar Myrdal's exaggerated American to today's
color blindness, Blacks could become modern political subjects only by giving up their Black identity. To
become modern political subjects, that is, citizens, they would have to be remade and, in the remaking, would
no longer be Black. Building on the ideas of the activists and scholars of the 1960s, reparations demand both
citizenship and Black identity.
State and local governments can fund reparations
Joe Feagin, May 28, 2014, Joe Feagin is Ella C. McFadden Professor in sociology at Texas A & M University, “A
Legal and Moral Basis for Reparations”, Time, http://time.com/132034/a-legal-and-moral-basis-for-
reparations/

Contemporary reparations might take several forms. One would be the gradual transfer of compensating
wealth from unjustly enriched white communities to unjustly impoverished black communities, a government
transfer linked to explicit restorative goals. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America has
sought $400 million for both individual compensation and asset-generating programs enabling impoverished
black communities to prosper. Substantial reparations would include providing well-funded government
programs, over generations, at local and state levels for upgrading education, job training, housing and
incomes for African Americans – as individuals, families and communities.

The call for reparations invests hope in the system to remedy its injustices.
Craven ‘16

We Absolutely Could Give Reparations To Black People. Here’s How.

By Julia Craven 02/22/2016

Only 6 percent of white Americans support cash payments to the descendants of enslaved Africans,
according to that HuffPost/YouGov poll. Only 19 percent favor reparations in the form of education and jobs
programs, while 50 percent of whites don’t even believe that slavery is one of the reasons why black
Americans have lower levels of wealth. They’re wrong. “The connection between slavery and the pillars of
American society are tight. There are no pillars of American society without slavery,” Miller said. “You might
think about that even literally. The columns of the White House and the Congress were built by slave labor.”
To deflect discussing why reparations are needed, some people request a developed strategy for reparations
or a detailed legislative proposal before they’ll contemplate the issue. The suggestion, in itself, fits into a
tired line of thinking that victims of injustice must explain themselves fully — and convincingly — to the
system that harmed them before any recognition is provided. “These demands always struck me as akin to
demanding a payment plan for something one has neither decided one needs nor is willing to purchase,”
Coates wrote. As he has tirelessly reiterated, we must start with a robust discussion on why reparations are
owed to black Americans. If anything, the expansive U.S. history of anti-black racism is the deterrent — but
letting that deter us today is itself anti-black. This returns us to the criticism of Sanders. The symbolism of
specifically calling for reparations matters. A white presidential candidate who vows only to fight police
violence and other modern ills affecting black Americans is essentially urging that we put a bandage on past
injustices without true reconciliation. If we don’t look back and reckon with what has been done, there is no
moving forward.

We have a moral duty to provide reparations for prior wrongful acts.

Ross, 1930, The Right and the Good, accessed July 18, 2017,
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/readings/ross.pdf, pages 20-21, Sir William David Ross had an MA in the
classics and was a fellow at Oriel College.

There is nothing arbitrary about these prima facie duties. Each rests on a definite circumstance which cannot
seriously be held to be without moral significance. Of prima facie duties I suggest, without claiming
completeness or finality for it, the following division,1 (i) Some duties rest on previous acts of my own. These
duties seem to include two kinds, (a) those resting on a promise or what may fairly be called an implicit
promise, such as the implicit undertaking not to tell lies which seems to be implied in the act of entering into
conversation (at any rate by civilized men), or of writing books that purport to be history and not fiction. These
may be called the duties of fidelity, (A) Those resting on a previous wrongful act. These may be called the
duties of reparation. (2) Some rest on previous acts of other men, ie, services done by them to me. These may
be loosely described as the duties of gratitude. (3) Some rest on the fact or possibility of a distribution of
pleasure or happiness (or of the means thereto) which is not in accordance with the merit of the persons
concerned; in such cases there arises a duty to upset or prevent such a distribution. These are the duties of
justice. (4) Some rest on the mere fact that there are other beings in the world whose condition we can make
better in respect of virtue, or of intelligence, or of pleasure. These are the duties of beneficence, (y) Some rest
on the fact that we can improve our own condition in respect of virtue or of intelligence.

Educational reparations allow for adequate funding to improve black lives—works to undo
centuries of discrimination
Melanye Price, December 14, 2016, Melanye is an assistant professor of Africana studies and political science
at Rutgers University., “Reparations Can and Should Be Done in a Powerful Way”, The New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/06/08/are-reparations-due-to-african-americans/reparations-
can-and-should-be-done-in-a-powerful-way?register=google

People are often opposed to reparations because they imagine a scenario like the one depicted on Dave
Chappelle’s show. They see blacks getting checks akin to welfare and spending it frivolously. Though the point
of reparations is solely about recompense, Americans tend to focus on the choices victims make, not the injury.
Continuing residential and educational segregation along with discriminatory economic policy means that we
can still identify neighborhoods, schools, and other community institutions that, with the provision of
resources, can improve many African-Americans lives. Reparative policies can be implemented quickly and to
great effect. Education and health are particularly important because of the depth of the problems and the fact
that preventive intervention can essentially eradicate these disparities. According to the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, African Americans have the highest death rates from heart disease and the
highest HIV infection rates. The average black high school graduate is four years behind their white
counterpart. Many schools in African-American communities fail to meet basic academic standards because
their schools lack the technology and physical facilities necessary to prepare students for success. Equalizing
funding in these schools and bringing urban education infrastructure into the new millennium would be an
immediate boon to the lives of black children and families and ultimately the nation. Historically black colleges
and universities were developed as a direct result of racial discrimination. Today, those same colleges continue
to be the top producers of African-American graduates with degrees in science and technology fields and of
public school teachers. These schools do this work with a fraction of the funding of other publicly funded
colleges; remedying these disparities, like K-12 schools, would immediately improve black prospects and
work to undo centuries of discrimination. Implementing health initiatives in black communities would
diminish well-documented health inequities. Problems like hypertension, heart disease asthma and obesity,
which adversely impacts blacks at higher rates, could be effectively treated and prevented with greater health
care access. My research on black attitudes on diversity suggests that blacks are firmly committed to personal
responsibility, but they are also keenly aware of how institutionalized racism constricts their life choices. These
are steps towards reparative justice for past laws, policies and customs that created current disparities. There
is no doubt it can be done. All that’s missing is the will to do it.
Those who have suffered from violations of human rights have a moral right to reparations.
Correa 16 [Christian, ICTJ Senior Associate, Reparative Justice Program. “Helping Victims Overcome Human
Rights Violations Through Education” https://www.ictj.org/news/education-human-rights-reparations]

Legally, victims of serious human rights violations have a right to reparations from the state and from
perpetrators for the harms they suffered. The right to reparation is distinct from social and economic rights,
which includes, for instance, access to health care and education. But just as economic and social rights can be
fulfilled through ‘progressive realization,’ fulfilling the right to reparation must take into account the capacity
and resources of a state. Thus, providing reparations need not always have to compete with fulfilling social and
economic rights; governments, especially in developing countries, and victims’ groups can agree on designing
reparations programs that can collectively or individually meet the needs of victims while contributing to the
fulfill of their social and economic rights. These types of measures address the different consequences that
most victims, in general categories, still suffer, which often include persistent psychosocial, physical, and/or
socioeconomic effects — which can even be passed down to the next generations. Most reparations policies
involve educational programs in some form. But providing education as a form of reparation raises important
questions. If free education is already provided to all people in a country, what is the difference between
education as reparations and education as a social service? What is the specific reparatory component of
education if everybody is equally entitled to it? The main difference is that education as a form of reparation
involves an acknowledgment of wrongdoing and responsibility on the part of the state for past violations,
crimes, and failures to protect victims. In this context, educational programs as reparations can be a response
to the past, targeted at the specific needs and aspirations of the victims themselves. The children of victims
usually have had their studies cut short; and they are more likely to be affected by poverty and other
consequences of the violations suffered by their parents. For some survivors the inability to provide for their
children’s education — which includes being able to pay fees and purchase school books and uniforms — is
what causes them the most pain. Measures could include advance study programs that can help youth receive
degrees equivalent to the primary, secondary, or other levels they could not complete due to violations. (A
good example is Sierra Leone’s Complementary Rapid Education for Primary Schools.) Another is adult literacy
programs or technical or professional training for people who are no longer of schooling age, which is being
done in Peru. Changes in the school curricula as well as the teaching of history, especially of marginalized
people or of periods or events denied by previous regimes, are also relevant to discussions of education as a
form of reparation. At the same time, reparations policies that focus on education should not be limited to the
most marginal among youth, especially where groups targeted for abuses did not come from the poorest
sectors. For example, programs offering university scholarships to victims, or their children, should be made
available to all victims with the academic capacity to attend university, and not just a few, as in Peru and
Colombia, where victims must compete for scholarships. The need for educational measures as reparations
should be addressed as an urgent matter. Children grow up and the opportunity to significantly improve their
lives through education can be missed. But that does not mean such measures should be part of a single,
short-term effort. The need for education for affected individuals continues over time. Even if this is achieved,
for many countries the challenge of guaranteeing a quality and accessible education for all will persist. That
might not be part of a transitional justice agenda, but it is certainly an important priority for anchoring peace
and democracy in the long term.
Changing this system has been impossible since there has not been a collective unified
movement for reparations
Muhammad Reginald S., (20’11) "The movement to secure reparations for blacks in America: an analysis of
fragmented models and methodologies". ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 274.

The current efforts of select organizations and black leaders to secure reparations from the U. S.
Government and targeted multinational corporations are perhaps ineffective. The current reparations
movement lacks a functional model and methodology that would address its long and short-term objectives,
personnel, equipment, funding, and the logistics needed to secure reparations for blacks in America. Within
this context, the reparations movement does not command serious consideration or attention by those
agencies being charged with various human rights crimes against the masses of black people in America.
Moreover, one could make the argument that the current movement is stagnated or dying, based on a lack of
visible movement from reparations organizations, leaders, very little media coverage, and the obvious
missing student/youth participation Reparations, as defined by Webster c Dictionaiy, is “anything paid or
done to make up for something else; compensation; specifically, usually plural, compensation by a defeated
nation for damage done to civilians and their property in war, payable in money, labor and goods, etc. 2 By
most accounts, the term reparations is often used in a political context, and it is generally understood that it
will be a political process or struggle, made up of political players, institutions and scientists who will provide
the model and methodology to secure reparations. This analysis is based on the premise that the entire
reparations movement remains fragmented, with the lack of a common model or methodology. Depending
on who is questioned or surveyed about the approach, process, model, or method for securing reparations,
one generally receives a broad range of responses, which may be comprehensive, sound, reactionary, or
incomplete. Furthermore, the organizations that comprise the movement seem to have individual plans and
approaches that are vastly different from one to the other. Some proponents are demanding an apology and
monetary payment. Others are asking for a release of political prisoners, repatriations, support of black
institutions, and finally a set aside of states or territories for blacks. Law Professor Alfred L. Brophy offers his
critique of the reparations dilemma: Part of the problem with evaluating reparations is that not only are the
costs colossal but also we do not know what they would look like. One surprising element is that even one of
the most major books on this topic, Ray A. Winbush’s “Should America Pay?” has hundreds of pages of
discussion on whether the U. S. government and corporations should pay reparations but [there is] very little
discussion on what the [government] would pay, if they were going to do so, or of the form reparations
would take

Reparations are more than a “handout”—it is the start to the reimagination of a new
country that leads to a spiritual renewal of past injustices
TA-NEHISI COATES, June 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes
about culture, politics, and social issues., “The Case for Reparations”, The Atlantic,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective
biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic
may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie.
Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible
humans. Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a
number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill-gotten and selective in its
distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a
healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. What I’m talking about is more than
recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m
talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of
scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the
end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the
American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.

Simple policy reform can’t solve reparations—only our protests and movements can solve.
JONATHAN BACHMAN, 8/1/16, Writer for Reuters, “BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT CALLS FOR SLAVERY
REPARATIONS”, Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/black-lives-matter-slavery-reparations-criminal-
justice-reform-policy-hillary-486198

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A coalition affiliated with the anti-racism Black Lives Matter movement called for criminal
justice reforms and reparations for slavery in the United States among other demands in its first policy
platform released on Monday. The six demands and roughly 40 policy recommendations touch on topics
ranging from reducing U.S. military spending to safe drinking water. The groups aim to halt the "increasingly
visible violence against Black communities," the Movement for Black Lives said in a statement. The agenda
was released days before the second anniversary of the slaying of unarmed blackteen Michael Brown by a
white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's death, along with other fatal police shootings of unarmed
black men over the past two years, fueled a national debate about racial discrimination in the U.S. criminal
justice system. Issues related to race and violence took center stage at the Democratic National Convention last
week, though the coalition did not endorse the party's platform or White House candidate, Hillary Clinton. "We
seek radical transformation, not reactionary reform," Michaela Brown, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Bloc,
one of the organizations that worked on the platform, said in a statement. "As the 2016 election continues, this
platform provides us with a way to intervene with an agenda that resists state and corporate power, an
opportunity to implement policies that truly value the safety and humanity of black lives, and an overall means
to hold elected leaders accountable," Brown said. Baltimore Bloc is among more than 50 organizations that
developed the platform over the past year, including Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Black Youth
Project 100 and the BlackLeadership Organizing Collaborative. This is the first time these black-led
organizations linked to the decentralized Black Lives Matter movement have banded together to write a
comprehensive foundational policy platform. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, was not listed among them. The agenda calls for an end
to the death penalty, decriminalization of drug-related offenses and prostitution, and the "demilitarization" of
police departments. It seeks reparations for lasting harms caused to African-Americans of slavery and
investment in education and jobs. The Movement for Black Lives said in a statement that "neither mainstream
political party has our interests at heart." "By every metric – from the hue of its prison population to its
investment choices – the U.S. is a country that does not support, protect or preserve Black life," the
statement said.