Reparations Daily (ish) Vol. 47

$88 Million to Charleston Massacre Victims Families and a Crucial Decision in Detroit

Nov 01, 2021

Happy Monday! A lot of reparations-related news over the past few days. I don’t give a Hot Take on it but there are two pieces of news that I am paying close attention to.

The first is the news out of South Carolina as the Justice Department settled with families and survivors of the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015. As you all likely remember, the shooter, an avowed white supremacist sat and prayed with nine members of the Church before killing nine people. In the wake of the murders, a lawsuit was filed alleging that the FBI’s background check system failed to discover in a timely manner that Roof should have been prohibited from possessing a firearm.

The $88 million settlement will be divided up among families of those who passed away and survivors. The New York Times article includes a quote from Rev. Anthony Thompson, whose wife passed away that day, where he says “the healing process is taking place every day, and it is due not to the settlement.” It is due to the courageous and committed acts of the people in the community, people in our church, in our state, people in this nation.” What I hope that people understand is that monetary reparations for slavery and all of the injustices since then will not solve racism or even completely heal past wounds. We have to think and act deeply to build a new society where healing can take place every day.

The other story that I’m paying attention to is one out of Detroit and a proposal that residents will be voting on called Proposal R. Detroit residents will be asked simply if the city should create a reparations task force. The exact language reads “should the Detroit City Council establish a reparations task force to make recommendations for housing and economic development programs that address historical discrimination against the Black community in Detroit?” I’m very curious what exact “housing and economic development,” programs may come out of this taskforce if residents do indeed vote to enact it. You can read more bout it in this WXYZ article.

Some other interesting articles you might want to check out include:

This New York Magazine piece on climate reparations.
This Yahoo News! piece about a tweet from former NBA star Jalen Rose about cultural appropriation. It sparked a discussion about cultural reparations — one that I think is deeply needed.
This New York Times piece about the importance of language and whether we should be using BIPOC or POC. You all know how deeply I think words matter, so I think this is a really great piece that analyzes the current landscape of “social justice” language.
This piece in the Yale News on how the university is dealing with its ties to slavery.