The following are extracts and comments on "The Case for Reparations", Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2014:
II. "A Difference of Kind, Not Degree"
"In 2012, the Manhattan Institute...noted that...African Americans still remained—by far—the most segregated ethnic group in the country.
"[T]he [neighborhood] concentration of poverty has been paired with a [neighborhood] concentration of melanin....
"One thread of thinking in the African American community holds that these depressing numbers [regarding concentrations] partially stem from cultural pathologies that can be altered through individual grit and...good behavior....The thread is...wrong. The...racism to which black people have...been subjected can never be defeated by making its victims more respectable. The essence of American racism is disrespect. And in the...numbers, we see the...inheritance."
I think we know that:
Racism, in the sense of discrimination, has been illegal in many activities since the mid-1960s;
A person can be respectable, even though disrespected by some others; and
This simply assumes, without arguing for the idea, that racism is the entire cause of today's:
Black segregation; and
Black poverty.
On the other hand, I don't think we know:
That racism, in the sense of disrespect, is significantly present today;
If African Americans are the most segregated ethnic group in the country, that this is entirely because of racism today;
If neighborhood poverty is statistically correlated with melanin, that this is entirely because of racism today;
That the numbers for today's segregation and black poverty are entirely an inheritance of and caused by past racism; or
That the mentioned thread of thinking (about cultural pathologies and respectability today) is completely wrong.
III. "We Inherit Our Ample Patrimony"
"Now we have half-stepped away from our long centuries of despoilment, promising, 'Never again.' But still we are haunted. [W]e have run up a [debt. T]he balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us."
I think we know that:
Past racism lessened the inherited estate wealth of black Americans today;
Rather than half-stepping, we utterly abolished legal racism against blacks;
Past racism did not despoil black America completely;
This simply assumes, without arguing for the idea, that abuse in the past creates a debt; and
This is an argument by analogy; thus, it is fallacious.
On the other hand, regarding racism, I don't think we know:
That in the sense of discrimination, it is operating today with significant effect;
That the past effects of its existence entirely determine anything today;
That non-black Americans are haunted today;
That America has run up a debt in the past; or
That America has a debt balance today.
"[T]he conditions in North Lawndale and black America are not inexplicable but are instead precisely what you'd expect of a community that for centuries has lived in America's crosshairs[.]"
I think we know that:
America's "crosshairs"—in the sense of racial discrimination in many activities (and worse)—have been illegal since the mid-1960s;
Black America is not in America's crosshairs (in that sense) today;
This is a straw-man argument (and thus fallacious); and
This is an argument by analogy; thus, it is fallacious.
On the other hand, I don't think we know that the conditions in North Lawndale and black America today are:
Inexplicable; or
All that we can expect today of a community that, in earlier centuries, lived in America's crosshairs (in that sense).
"The high point of the lynching era has passed. But the memories of those robbed of their lives still live on in the lingering effects....We believe white dominance to be a fact of the inert past, a delinquent debt that can be made to disappear if only we don't look."
I think we know that:
White supremacy is not present in any significant number today;
The lynching era was entirely in the past;
Dominance in general is the same as leadership;
White (statistical) dominance is not the same as white supremacy;
This simply assumes, without arguing for the idea, that abuse in the past creates a debt; and
This contains two arguments by analogy; thus, it is fallacious.
On the other hand, I don't think we know:
That the effects in the past from the existence of white supremacy entirely determine anything today;
That the lynching era entirely determines anything today;
That any aspect of white statistical dominance today is entirely harmful; or
That it is morally correct to consider past white supremacy (or even white statistical dominance) to be a debt (delinquent or not).
IV. "The Ills That Slavery Frees Us From"
"Nearly one-fourth of all white Southerners owned slaves, and upon their backs the economic basis of America—and much of the Atlantic world—was erected. In the seven cotton states, one-third of all white income was derived from slavery. By 1840, cotton produced by slave labor constituted 59 percent of the country's exports. The web of this slave society extended north to the looms of New England, and across the Atlantic to Great Britain, where it powered a great economic transformation and altered the trajectory of world history. 'Whoever says Industrial Revolution,' wrote the historian Eric J. Hobsbawm, 'says cotton.' "
I think we know that:
The process of producing export cotton partially involved non-slave labor;
The inventions during the Industrial Revolution, including the cotton gin, were as important as labor;
It happens that Hobsbawm is a famous, influential Marxist; and
What is being presented here is the discredited labor theory of value.
VIII. "Negro Poverty is not White Poverty"
"From the White House on down, the myth holds that fatherhood is the great antidote to all that ails black people. But Billy Brooks Jr. had a father. Trayvon Martin had a father. Jordan Davis had a father. Adhering to middle-class norms has never shielded black people from plunder. Adhering to middle-class norms is what made Ethel Weatherspoon a lucrative target for rapacious speculators."
I think we know that:
Adhering to middle-class norms is good for black people, because it is good for everyone;
Ethel Weatherspoon's and other black people's adhering to middle-class norms is not the entire cause of their being abused by real-estate speculators;
Families are not immune from being affected by other families living in the same area; and
This depiction of an opposing argument as referring to all that ails black people, as well as individual fathers, is a straw-man argument (and thus fallacious).
"America was built on the preferential treatment of white people—395 years of it."
395 years spans from 1619 to 2014 (the year of the article).
I think we know that America was not built entirely:
By black people; or
On the preferential treatment of white people.
And I think we know that this number is too high, because:
America (arguably) began with the Constitution in 1789; and
Preferential treatment by race, in many activities, has been illegal since the mid-1960s.
And I don't think we know that any significant preferential treatment of white people still occurs today.
"The Voting Rights Act has been gutted [by] the Supreme Court."
I think we know that the Act's provision for U.S. Justice Department pre-approval of changes to State voting laws, temporarily and previously allowed by the Supreme Court, is unnecessary today.
"To ignore the fact that one of the oldest republics in the world was erected on a foundation of white supremacy, to pretend that the problems of a dual society are the same as the problems of unregulated capitalism, is to cover the sin of national plunder with the sin of national lying. The lie ignores the fact that reducing American poverty and ending white supremacy are not the same. The lie ignores the fact that closing the 'achievement gap' will do nothing to close the 'injury gap,' in which black college graduates still suffer higher unemployment rates than white college graduates, and black job applicants without criminal records enjoy roughly the same chance of getting hired as white applicants with criminal records."
I think we know that:
Racial discrimination in hiring today is illegal;
White supremacy is not present in any significant number today;
America's development was not entirely due to white supremacy;
This simply assumes, without arguing for the idea, that if a racial achievement gap exists today, then past injury is the entire cause of it; and
This is an argument by analogy; thus, it is fallacious.
On the other hand, I don't think we know:
That a racial injury gap exists today;
That American blacks are an oppressed group today;
That America committed a sin of national plunder;
That America is committing a sin of national lying today;
That all Americans consider America to be a dual society today;
That America actually is a dual society today;
That black job applicants without criminal records experience similar hiring rates as white applicants with criminal records; or
That black college graduates experience higher unemployment rates than white college graduates.
IX. Toward A New Country
"The laments about 'black pathology,' the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America's relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer."
I think we know that:
America did not completely destroy the black family in the past;
America's existence was never predicated on the abuse of black people; and
This is an argument by analogy; thus, it is fallacious.
On the other hand, I don't think we know that the mentioned criticism (of black family structures today) is entirely wrong.
"Perhaps no statistic better illustrates the enduring legacy of our country's shameful history of treating black people as sub-citizens, sub-Americans, and sub-humans than the wealth gap. Reparations would seek to close this chasm....
"Discriminatory laws joined the equal burden of citizenship to unequal distribution of its bounty. These laws reached their apex in the mid-20th century, when the federal government—through housing policies—engineered the wealth gap, which remains with us to this day. When we think of white supremacy, we picture COLORED ONLY signs, but we should picture pirate flags....
" 'Negro poverty is not white poverty,' President Johnson said in his historic civil-rights speech.
"Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice."
I think we know that the nature of the black individual, the black family, and the black community today are not entirely determined by:
Past abuse;
Present prejudice; or
Poverty today.
On the other hand, regarding America's past history of treating black people as slaves, I don't think we know:
That it is the entire cause of:
The racial wealth gap; or
The condition (in any sense) of blacks today; or
That it is morally correct for Americans to feel shame about it today; or
That such a feeling of shame would be brought to a close by reparations.
Regarding today's racial wealth gap, I don't think we know:
That past federal government housing policies are the entire cause of it; or
That reparations would close it.
"To celebrate freedom and democracy while forgetting [about] slavery...is patriotism à la carte."
I think we know that:
Patriotism includes being grateful for and celebrating the precious aspects of one's country;
For blacks, America was the source not only of their abuse but also of their liberation;
America is improvable; and
This is an argument by analogy; thus, it is fallacious.
"[A]s surely as the creation of the wealth gap required the cooperation of every aspect of the society, bridging it will require the same....
"The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America's heritage, history, and standing in the world....
"We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past—at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge—that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.
"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....Reparations beckons us to reject...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 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...waving a Confederate flag."
I think we know that:
White supremacy is not a force fundamental to America today;
American prosperity was not entirely ill-gotten; and
Part of black history actually flatters American democracy.
On the other hand, I don't think we know:
That it is difficult to imagine America without white supremacy;
That we need to imagine a new country;
That the racial wealth gap today is entirely because American prosperity was selectively distributed in the past;
That the creation of the wealth gap required the cooperation of every aspect of the society;
That bridging the racial wealth gap today requires the cooperation of every aspect of society;
That Americans in general deny the facts of our racial history;
That America is still inheriting its past racial abuse even today;
That America today has hubris about race;
That the Americans who wave Confederate flags are all doing so, solely to signal support for white supremacy;
That it is morally correct, regarding Black history, for today's Americans to feel chastened or contrite;
That a national reckoning on race would lead to spiritual renewal;
That the American psyche needs to be healed;
That America needs to banish white guilt;
That reparations for black people would banish white guilt;
That reparations is the price Americans must pay to see ourselves squarely;
That the mocking of reparations is always fear masquerading as laughter;
That reparations won't tend to divide us;
That it is morally correct to make recompense now for past injustices to black people, other than individually by lawsuit; or
That the idea of reparations threatens America's:
Heritage;
History; or
Standing in the world.
"Reparations would mean the end of yelling 'patriotism'[.] 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."
I think we know that:
Our self-image as the great democratizer is already reconciled with the facts of our history; and
These ideas seem somewhat Marxist.
On the other hand, I don't think we know that reparations would mean:
The end of American patriotism; or
A revolution of the American consciousness.
X. "There Will Be No 'Reparations' From Germany"
"An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future....
"In 2010, Jacob S. Rugh, then a doctoral candidate at Princeton, and the sociologist Douglas S. Massey published a study of the recent foreclosure crisis. Among its drivers, they found an old foe: segregation. Black home buyers—even after controlling for factors like creditworthiness—were still more likely than white home buyers to be steered toward subprime loans. Decades of racist housing policies by the American government, along with decades of racist housing practices by American businesses, had conspired to concentrate African Americans in the same neighborhoods. As in North Lawndale half a century earlier, these neighborhoods were filled with people who had been cut off from mainstream financial institutions. When subprime lenders went looking for prey, they found black people waiting like ducks in a pen.
" 'High levels of segregation create a natural market for subprime lending,' Rugh and Massey write, 'and cause riskier mortgages, and thus foreclosures, to accumulate disproportionately in racially segregated cities' minority neighborhoods.'...
"In 2010, the Justice Department filed a discrimination suit against Wells Fargo alleging that the bank had shunted blacks into predatory loans regardless of their creditworthiness. This was not magic or coincidence or misfortune. It was racism reifying itself....
"In 2011, Bank of America agreed to pay $355 million to settle charges of discrimination against its Countrywide unit. The following year, Wells Fargo settled its discrimination suit for more than $175 million. But the damage had been done. In 2009, half the properties in Baltimore whose owners had been granted loans by Wells Fargo between 2005 and 2008 were vacant; 71 percent of these properties were in predominantly black neighborhoods."
I think we know that:
Black people are not being abused today;
When America looks away from its past abuse of black people it still remembers it;
In home-mortgage lending, racial discrimination is illegal; and
The Justice Department filed settlements for these cases in 2012.
On the other hand, I don't think we know:
That black people will be abused in the future;
If highly-segregated black neighborhoods were natural markets for subprime lending, that this was caused entirely by racism;
If black buyers were more likely than white buyers to be steered toward subprime home loans, that this was caused entirely by racism; or
Of the Baltimore properties which were granted Wells Fargo loans between 2005 and 2008:
If half were vacant in 2009, that this was caused entirely by racism; or
If 71 percent of those vacant in 2009 were in predominantly black neighborhoods, that this was caused entirely by racism.
Copyright (c) 2023 Mark D. Blackwell.
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