The Washington Post - 19.09.2019

A24 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19 , 2019

PowerPost

INTELLIGENCE FOR LEADERS  WASHINGTONPOST.COM/POWERPOST

BY WESLEY LOWERY

durham, n.c. — He’s been one
of academia’s leading authorities
on American racial inequity for
years, in high demand by Demo-
cratic presidential candidates
who hope he’ll endorse their
proposals to close the “racial
wealth gap” — a term that his
research helped popularize.
But as William “Sandy” Darity
shuffles through papers in his
second-floor office at Duke Uni-
versity, the gray-haired econo-
mist explained that he was hard
at work on his own proposal, one
that could be the most sweeping
of his career — a concrete plan
for paying monetary reparations
to the descendants of slaves.
Darity has enlisted a dozen
black academics and activists,
the self-titled Planning Commit-
tee for Reparations, to craft a
report that will lay out not only a
rationale for why descendants of
slaves should be paid reparations
but also suggestions for how to
implement such a program.
The effort aims to seize on a
national conversation around
reparations, one that has for
decades been relegated to the
fringes of black activist circles
but has gained significant main-
stream attention in the past five
years and been propelled by the
Democratic presidential primary
contest.
“There’s a climate in which
there is a wing of the Democratic
Party, in particular, where folks
are really talking about transfor-
mative policies,” Darity said in a
recent interview. “This is the
most extensive national conver-
sation about reparations since
Reconstruction.”
While polls show a majority of
Americans oppose paying mon-
etary reparations to the descen-
dants of slaves, support for such
measures has doubled since the
early 2000s. A 2002 Gallup poll
found just 14 percent of Ameri-
cans support cash reparations for
slavery. When Gallup polled
again earlier this year, support
had jumped to 29 percent.
Even with an increasing num-
ber of people open to the concept
of reparations, a crucial question
looms over the debate: Who
would be eligible to receive the
payouts?
Darity has long advocated that
reparations should be given to
people who prove they descend-
ed from a person enslaved in the
United States — increasingly pos-
sible, he notes, because of online
ancestry databases — and show
that they have identified as black
in public documents for at least
10 years. A program with such
parameters would exclude a
number of black Americans
whose ancestors were enslaved
elsewhere, such as Jamaica, Haiti
or the Bahamas.
Darity’s core argument is that
black slaves were subject to a
form of sustained, race-based
discrimination unique in Ameri-
can history, robbing them of
individual agency, voting rights
and the ability to accumulate
wealth and education.
The lingering result, Darity
argues, is a stunning wealth gap
— a recent study that he co-au-
thored found median wealth in
greater Los Angeles was

$355,000 for white households

and just $4,000 for African

Americans — that drives other

racial disparities in areas such as

crime, education and health out-

comes.

Darity’s cohort includes histo-

rians and economists from Duke,

North Carolina Central Univer-

sity, Florida State University and

the University of Connecticut, as

well as Mary Frances Berry, a

former chairwoman on the U.S.

Commission on Civil Rights.

They plan to deliver their report

in early 2020 so if Congress

establishes a commission to

study reparations, the proposal

can provide a vital road map.

The ADOS movement

A key challenge, Darity and his

partners concede, will be con-

vincing the public that repara-

tions are achievable.

“We need to overcome this

perception that reparations is

sort of a pie-in-the-sky concept,”

said Trevon Logan, an economic

historian at Ohio State Univer-

sity who is working with Darity.

“This is not a new item on the

agenda. African Americans, from

immediately after emancipation,

were seeking to find ways to close

the racial wealth inequality,” Lo-

gan said. “Early black politicians

were interested in using tax pol-

icy to try to redistribute wealth

and to increase landownership

among former slaves.”

When he was in the House,

John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) pro-

posed a congressional study into

the feasibility of reparations —

H.R. 40 — during e very session of

Congress from 1 989 through

2017. That push was modeled
      largely on the successful efforts
      that, in 1988, secured an official
      apology and monetary repara-
      tions for Japanese Americans
      held in internment camps during
      World War II.
      “The descendants of slaves
      certainly deserve the same con-
      siderations,” said JoAnn Watson,
      a former Conyers aide who later
      spent a decade as a Detroit city
      councilwoman. “The time for
      reparations has come.”
      Darity’s efforts will probably
      be both furthered and complicat-
      ed by his public association with
      a small but outspoken online
      movement called American De-
      scendants of Slavery, or ADOS,
      which draws a stark distinction
      between the lineage of slave
      descendants and that of Ameri-
      can-born descendants of black
      immigrants.
      The group, like Darity, advo-
      cates that reparations be strictly
      reserved for those who can trace
      their lineage to enslaved people
      held in the United States, exclud-
      ing the children of more-recent
      African and Caribbean immi-
      grants who have also been sub-
      ject to race-based discrimina-
      tion. More divisively, the group
      and its leaders also have aggres-

sively argued that current immi-

gration levels present a threat to

the livelihood of black Ameri-

cans.

That framing has rankled

many black activists — some of

whom have documented being

harassed online by ADOS sup-

porters — who have long a dopted

a more Pan-African ideology and

see any effort to delineate among

various groups of black Ameri-

cans as having the potential to

fuel xenophobia. In interviews,

half a dozen activists and aca-

demics praised Darity’s work but

found themselves perplexed by

his willingness to associate with

ADOS.

“It’s extremely difficult to sep-

arate classes of black people,”

said Nkechi Ta ifa, a D.C.-based

activist who has advocated for

reparations for more than three

decades. “The idea that unless

you can actually trace your fam-

ily directly to a slave that you

haven’t b een subject to the legacy

of slavery is a bunch of hogwash.”

Still, Ta ifa said she is encour-

aged by how mainstream the

discussion of slavery’s lasting

effects has become.

“When we were doing this

work decades ago, we knew we

were planting seeds,” she said. “I

never imagined I’d be able to sit

under the shade of the trees from

the seeds that I was planting.”

Darity, who has in the past

defended ADOS from charges of

nativism, says he does not agree

with some of its most vitriolic

messaging, but he credits ADOS

with helping raise the profile of

the push for reparations.

In defending his rationale for

limited eligibility for repara-

tions, Darity notes that the ma-

jority of black immigrants came

after the civil rights period in the

1960s. While it is clear that more

recently arrived black Americans

have faced discrimination — and

in many cases have ancestors

who were enslaved — Darity said

he finds it hard to argue that

those who immigrated voluntari-

ly deserve the same reparations

as the descendants of those

brought to the United States in

chains.

“If you told me that the only

way that I could have a repara-

tions program is that if I gave it to

more people, then I’d say okay,”

Darity said with a laugh. “But I’m

trying to think about how we

craft a case that is specific to the

United States government as the

perpetrator, and I think it be-

comes very difficult to argue that

the United States government

should pay reparations to people

who have chosen to come here.”

Past e fforts to advocate repara-

tions have similarly centered on

the experience of descendants of

American slaves, said Ashley D.

Farmer, a history professor at the

University of Te xas at Austin who

has studied black-nationalist

groups.

“I’m not sure that the folks

that I’ve studied were particular-

ly well versed in slavery outside

of the American context,” said

Farmer, who is not affiliated with

Darity's efforts. “It’s an interest-

ing blind spot.”

A shift on the left

The current iteration of the

reparations debate was kick-

started nationally in 2014 when

the Atlantic magazine published

Ta -Nehisi Coates’s “The Case for

Reparations.”

As w ith most issues of race and

justice, public opinion is divided

along racial and partisan lines. A

significant majority of black

Americans polled (73 percent)

and a plurality of Democrats

(49 percent) told Gallup pollsters

earlier this year that they support

cash reparations. The same poll

found that the vast majority of

white Americans (81 percent)

and Republicans (92 percent)

oppose cash reparations.

Former president Barack

Obama, the nation’s first black

president but not a descendant of

slaves, has long declined to di-

rectly answer whether he would

support a reparations program,

instead focusing on its lack of

political feasibility.

“You can make a theoretical,

abstract argument in favor of

something like reparations. And

maybe I’m just not being suffi-

ciently optimistic or imaginative

enough,” Obama told Coates in

an interview in 2016, “... but I’m

not so optimistic as to think that

you would ever be able to garner

a majority of an American Con-

gress that would make those

kinds of investments.”

Some prominent Democrats,

including House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexan-

dria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), pub-

licly support the resolution to

launch a formal study of how

reparations could work. And at

least four Democratic presiden-

tial primary candidates — Sen.

Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen.

Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), for-

mer housing and urban develop-

ment secretary Julián Castro and

Marianne Williamson — have

expressed support for the con-

cept of paying reparations to the

descendants of slaves.

Republican officials, mean-

while, have largely dismissed the

concept. In June, on the same day

the House Judiciary Committee

was set to hold a hearing on the

topic, Senate Majority Leader

Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) an-

nounced his opposition.

“I don’t think reparations for

something that happened 150

years ago, for which none of us

living are responsible, is a good

idea,” s aid McConnell, whose an-

cestors owned slaves.

Darity and other reparations

supporters say that the current

political moment should encour-

age politicians to pursue policies

once considered impossible —

after all, a reality-television star

is president.

“Trump has made it clear that

positions that we have typically

considered to be extreme or out

of the boundaries no longer are,

on the right,” Darity said. “So why

not reconsider things on the

left?”

[email protected]

Which black Americans should get reparations?

A group of experts led by economist William ‘Sandy’ Darity is trying to define who is a ‘descendant of slavery’

JUSTIN COOK

William A. “Sandy” Darity, a professor of economics at Duke University, in June on the campus in Durham, N.C.

“This is the most extensive national

conversation about reparations

since Reconstruction.”

William “Sandy” Darity of the self-titled

Planning Committee for Reparations

FREE Consultation | FREE Design | FREE Estimates

Complete Kitchen Remodeling

Quality

You Can

Afford

Superior Service | Years of Experience

202-897-3095 DC | 7 03 -382-8411 VA | 301-892-6015 MD

MHIC #1254 50 | DC # 6700 4413 | VA # 2705 10883 5A | WVA #03 6832

Financing

As Low As

$

1

(^49)
Per Month
Free $^5
0
Gift Card
*When You Complet
An In-home Design e
Appointment
limited time offers
other restrictions may apply
Buy Now
and
Save
$ 2000
MHIC #1254 50 • VA # 2705 108835
20 2- 86 9- 1044 DC
70 3- 46 8- 4418 VA
301-841-830 8 MD
Lifetime Warranty Locally Owned & Operated
SunSuites Sunroom
Summer Special
$
2,500 OFF
With this coupon. Not valid with other off ers or prior sales.
Coupon good upon initial presentation only.
Limited time off er. Price includes expert installation.
SunSuites Sunrooms
Summer
Screen Room
Special
BUY NOW AND
SAVE
$
1,250
Some restrictions apply
Paym
ents
as low as
$199
Enjoy the Outdoors All Year!
UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws