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Reparations FAQ’s
“While no amount of gold could provide adequate compensation for the exploitation of the Negro American down through the centuries, a price could be placed on unpaid wages.”
— Dr. Martin L. King, Why We Can’t Wait
“On my watch, we will watch this bill pass and be signed by the president of the United States of America.”
— Sheila Jackson Lee, on HR40
What is HR40?
On January 3, 2017, at the opening of the 115th Congress of the United States, the late Cong. John Conyers introduced a revised HR40 bill. The previous version was first introduced in 1989 and was historically referred to as the “Reparations Study Bill.” The new HR40 is now being referred to as the “Reparations Remedy Bill”. Today there are 139 co-sponsors for the Senate companion bill, SB1083.
“To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”
What are Reparations?
Reparations are a process to remember, repair, restore, rejoin, replenish, set right, make amends and reconcile. Always, true reparations is a matter of justice. Reparations can never be singularly reducible to monetary terms. To do so makes a mockery of the real significance of reparations as an end in a process of distributive justice, human atonement and redemption. Of its own soul and vital force, the Church is called to raise up and repair the breach – to be a restorer of justice.
What is today’s evidence of transgenerational harm?
Black household wealth ($17,150) is only one tenth of the average net worth of a white family ($171,000) in the United States; worsened by the COVID 19 pandemic in which African Americans represent at least 22% of the cases, yet 13% of the population and have died at almost three times the rate of whites from the disease.
What is the basis for Reparations in the Sacred Text and in Law?
The Lord said, what have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.
(Genesis 4: 10 KJV)
8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
(Luke 19: 8-10 NRSV)
When they do anything that is shameful, they say: “We found our fathers doing so and (Allah) commanded us to do th[is]”: Say: “No, Allah never comands what is shameful: do [you] say of Allah what you know not?” Say: “My Lord . . . commands justice. . . Such as Allah created you in the beginning, so shall you return.
(Qur’an, al-ʾAʿrāf 7: 28-29)
How can one initiate the process of Reparations? What are the steps?
In Christian terms, confession, contrition, restoration, and reconciliation are the stages to reparatory justice, forgiveness, ultimate atonement, and peace with God. Healing begins with remembering; the spirit of true reconciliation and human justice begins with truth. The first step in the process of reparations is confession. The last step is reconciliation.
A legal principle for reparations is “Unjust Enrichment:”
If one party becomes enriched as a result of a wrong done to another, the law compels the beneficiaries to make adjustments to harmed parties. Steps towards remedy are: Acknowledgement of injustice, apology, restitution in monetary and non-monetary ways, and commitment of non-repetition.
What are Crimes Against Humanity?
International law defines crimes against humanity as “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, ill treatment or deportation to slave labor.” Further, genocide is defined as “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent.” In the official outcome document of the World Conference Against Racism – the Governmental delegates declared that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery, apartheid and colonialism were crimes against humanity. With these crimes being based in economic disadvantages, there is an obligation on the part of those nations that were enriched by these crimes to engage in redress for the inequities that exist and injuries caused. (Via NCOBRA Online)
Has the United States administered reparations in the past?
There are precedents for U.S reparations, along with other nation states. The United States has paid reparations for the Japanese Internment, Native American Land Loss, to Native Hawiians and Aleut Alaskans and for the U.S. Department of Public Health Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The U.S. even waived its claim for reparations from Germany post WWII.
What is the National African American Reparations Committee (NAARC)?
Established in April, 2015, the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) is a group of distinguished professionals from across the country with outstanding accomplishments in the fields of law, medicine, journalism, academia, history, civil rights and social justice advocacy. (Via IBW21.org)
What is the NAARC’s Ten Point Plan?
The Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice and Reparations of the National African American Reparations Commission are:
- Formal Apology and Establishment of a MAAFA/African Holocaust Institute
- The Right of Repatriation and Creation of an African Knowledge Program
- The Right to Land for Social and Economic Development
- Funds for Cooperative Enterprises and Socially Responsible Entrepreneurial
- Resources for the Health, Wellness and Healing of Black Families and Communities
- Education for Community Development and Empowerment
- Affordable Housing for Healthy Black Communities and Wealth Generation
- Strengthening Black America’s Information and Communications Infrastructure
- Preserving Black Sacred Sites and Monuments
- Repairing the Damages of the “Criminal Injustice System”
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