This is not post-racial America. I believe such a thing to be unattainable, in our current understanding of the world, and wholly undesirable. (Rather, I aspire to a world in which our differences are celebrated - without arbitrary comparative value judgment - even as our similarities unify us.)
Reparations for American Slavery shouldn't be on the table right now. Now is not the time to look back, and certainly not with the purpose of assigning culpability for the Atlantic Slave Trade. Those responsible are long dead. It is the fallout from American Slavery that must be addressed. Black Americans are not being systemically persecuted by the descendants of the Africans who sold their ancestors to Europeans; this is an issue endemic to Americans. That fallout still settles around us, and now more than ever we must shine a light through the murk. We must use the ongoing teachable moment of the Obama Presidency to confront our inner prejudices. Now, while long-festering anger and fear surfaces, publicly, in those who feel disenfranchised (at least in part) by the presence of a man of color in the Oval Office. (A man who is, far much more than I am, African-American. How many generations does it take before I get to drop the hyphen?)
Yes, the lessons of our past must always inform us. But what care have I for the culpability of those who sold my ancestors into slavery? Really, what care have I for that of the buyers? If I wanted to discuss reparations, Professor Gates, then yes - the question of where I should send this bill becomes paramount. But I don't. I don't want to turn and confront the continent generations behind me; so many others and I, we struggle to find purchase on - ownership in - the country beneath our feet. It is today that concerns me: not the sweeping crimes of the past, but the little hatreds of the present.
I do not believe, as others do*, that Professor Gates truly seeks to exculpate White Americans responsible for perpetuating the Atlantic Slave Trade and for continuing American Slavery half a century beyond its end. But raising this point needlessly confuses an already complicated issue. As Barbara Ransby noted, the ramifications of American Slavery still haunt Black Americans today, in their daily struggles, personal and social and economic, medical and legal. The millions of acts of discrimination - often unknowing! - that follow from perspectives tainted by old prejudices are what concern me.
I don't want to be repaid for crimes against my ancestors; I want the crimes being committed today to stop. If I still live when institutionalized racism has been stamped out at every level, then we can talk about causes and conditions, and about reparations. Until then, why should I want any kind of apology from the US Government? It'd be like accepting an apology from someone who is not only unrepentant, but committing a similarly offending act while he apologizes.
Who would send the invoice, while the bill continues to accrue, will not receive the full sum of what is owed.
*Ms. Ransby's article is indicative of a serious problem in Black American intra-racial dialogue in America. She begins quite reasonably, disputing the frame of his opinion, but by her conclusion, has all but labeled Professor Gates an Uncle Tom, and has equated him with the very African slavers he condemns. However, I share in her question: why has Professor Gates chosen this moment, to present this argument? As they both note, African complicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade is well-known among any who even lightly concern themselves with the topic.
