Reparations Daily (ish) Vol. 2
Happy Friday, and welcome to Vol 2. of Reparations Daily (ish).
Compiling this volume took a few hours because there was just so much news this week. It’s really astonishing to see all of the actions taking place across the country and the attention they are being given in both national and local press. I hope you have a chance to dig into some of them.
We hit double digits between Wednesday and today, so please continue to forward this to friends, families, and colleagues. The more folks reading about reparations and the racial wealth gap, the better!
National News
Politico: Biden privately tells lawmakers not to expect much on reparations legislation
Philanthropy News Digest: LISC raises $400 million for 'Project 10X' racial equity initiative
Washington Post: Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?
USA Today: Is Black homeownership in America better than 100 years ago? Well, it's complicated.
The Atlantic: The Neighborhood Fighting Not to Be Forgotten
Quartz: The Jesuits’ plan to compensate their slaves’ descendants gets reparation wrong
NPR: A Black Nonprofit Got A 6-Figure Payment From Someone Whose Family Enslaved People (Also reported on in ABC News)
PBS: What would reparations for Black Americans look like? An expert does the math
CNN: US Black-White inequality in 4 charts
CNBC: Why it may be hard to close the racial wealth gap without forgiving student debt
Marketplace: Biden’s strategy to narrow the racial wealth gap
Stanford Social Innovation Review: The Racism of the ‘Hard-to-Find’ Qualified Black Candidate Trope
Christian Science Monitor: Looking at slavery without looking away. The challenge of ‘Underground Railroad.’
NPR (audio): Reckoning With The History Of Slavery
MSNBC:'How the Word Is Passed' with Clint Smith: podcast and transcript
Teen Vogue: The U.S. Needs a New Constitution to Address the Fundamental Wrong of Slavery
Harvard Magazine: Universities Pushed to Reckon with Slavery
New York Times: Was the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms Designed to Protect Slavery?
Regional News
Los Angeles Times: California’s slavery reparations task force is convening. Here’s what happens next
New York Times California Today:Explaining the Reparations Effort
ABC News: California task force launches study of slave reparations
NBC News: The country's first municipal reparations program is off to a rocky start
Chicago Tribune: Bill that would make Juneteenth a paid state holiday passes House, heads to Gov. J.B. Pritzker
USA Today: Oregon State Senate votes to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday
NC Policy Watch: UNC mega-donor objected to Hannah-Jones essay on reparations for slavery
The Root: Virginia Seminary Built on Free Black Labor to Pay Reparations to Descendants of Workers
SF Gate: 'It's just the weirdest place': The wealth gap in this Tahoe town is extreme
NPR: Slavery Wasn't 'Long Ago': A Writer Exposes The Disconnect In How We Tell History
Hot Takes
There are so many good articles to read in today’s volume, and I’m going to lift up a couple and give some of my takes on them.
This Stanford Social Innovation Review piece titled ‘The Racism of the Hard-to-Find Qualified Black Candidate Trope was not specifically about reparations or the racial wealth gap but was too good not to include. The most important part of the article to me are the four fallacies that the author, Autumn McDonald, points out as the foundation of harmful organizational practices. Of the four, the idea fallacy that our hiring practices are built on a meritocracy. McDonald points out that “subjective criteria associated with likability,” often are couched in language such as “culture fit,” or “someone who would be a good fit for our team.” Hiring managers, please ask yourselves how you can glean someone would be a “good fit,” from a series of interviews where the person is presumably giving you the answers you want to hear. What does it mean for a Black person to be a “good fit,” on a mostly white team? Does it mean that they are the type of Black person that won’t rock the boat, speak out of turn, cause disruptions or exist outside of any of the other negative stereotypes associated with Black people? I’m honestly not sure.
In the first volume of Reparations Daily (ish), we lifted up the story of an anonymous white donor whose descendants owned Black people and gave what they called “reparations,” to an organization called Change Today, Change Tomorrow. I explained why this was simply a donation and should not be considered reparations and suggested that a local organization correct this narrative. Unfortunately, the national press has run with the story and it has gotten coverage in NPR and ABC. While it’s heartening to see local and national press cover issues related to racial repair, it’s important that they are framed correctly. It’s also clear that journalists don’t receive the necessary historical lessons needed to be thoughtful and nuanced when covering topics related to race and racial inequality. I recommend an expert on the issue of reparations write a piece in a national outlet to correct the record around this story.
As the Chicago Tribune reports, the state assembly in Illinois passed a bill that would make Juneteenth a school holiday and a paid day off for all government employees. It's heading to the Governor’s desk where if signed would go into effect in 2022. When “symbolic,” measures like these are passed, there are a number of folks who push back and say “we didn’t ask for this.” While I understand the sentiment, I find this an unreasonable reaction. People have asked for symbols such as Confederate statues to be removed and replaced with historical Black figures, people have asked for Juneteenth to be recognized as an official holiday, and people have official apologies from state and federal governments which could also be interpreted as symbolic. These actions are important in furthering a conversation around reparations and racial equity, though they can not be the only actions taken.
Lastly, The Root uplifted a story out of Virginia which was originally reported by the New York Times about a Virginia seminary that has begun giving cash to the descendants of Black Americans who were forced to work there between 1823-1951. This, unlike the story out of Kentucky, is a much closer effort to reparations, and it brought a smile to my face and I hope it puts one on yours as you enter the weekend.
And with that, we’ve completed our first week of Reparations Daily (ish)! I’ve decided that I’ll start signing these off with the following salutation:
With Radical Love,
Trevor