There are a lot of things I could talk about regarding Black History. I could talk about the current state of the country and how the president is inciting violence with his rallies. I could discuss Colin Kaepernick’s efforts to bring attention to the current injustices in the world. There are plenty of things about Black History that I could write an opinion piece on. But there’s one thing that I feel goes unspoken a lot that is worth a mention: and that is the idea of reparations.
Now the most common arguments against reparations are “Well, I’ve never had slaves, so I’m not going to pay for that,” or “Slavery was so long ago, get over it.” Understandable sentiments, but reparations are about so much more than just paying each individual descendant of slavery. I personally don’t think that would be the answer to this issue. Reparations should be more about repairing the damage done to the black community.
I understand that you’ve never owned a slave, and to all of my black people, you’ve never been a slave, but that doesn’t mean that black people aren’t oppressed. For starters, in proportion to the demographics of the country, black people are more frequently imprisoned. “That’s because black people commit more crimes.” Let’s pause for a second right here. Alright, black folks hang on to your seats because we’re going to play along for a moment with this statement. We will assume this statement is true, simply for the sake of the argument. Why would that be true?
Take a step back and look at neighborhoods with a majority black population. Since I’m from Detroit, we will use that city as our example. I assume that “the Hood” is the first thing you thought of upon reading that word, because it’s what you’re conditioned to think of. Detroit is often thought of as a bad area, purely because of redlining and White Flight. Redlining is the systematic act of banks denying loans to people who live in areas that are deemed to be a financial risk. In the 1930s, places of financial risk meant areas where black people lived. The more black people that lived in that area, the more “at risk” that area was. This led to white people moving rapidly toward suburban housing. Because the banks wouldn’t loan money to black people, they were almost confined to urban areas. Jobs also fled to suburban areas and rarely hired black people. With that knowledge, I ask you this, how do you feed your children when you hardly have enough money to cover the rent? Crime is related positively to poverty. Black-dominated areas have been diminished and devalued while black people couldn’t work jobs that paid well, leaving them with no other option than to turn to crime to feed their families. This wasn’t 300 years when slavery began. This is an issue that my grandparents lived through. Slavery may have been outlawed in 1863 via the Emancipation Proclamation, but discrimination has carried on.
As a start, reparations should be about revamping the urban areas that redlining destroyed and funding the schools in those districts. The communities that black people live in have been robbed of a chance to thrive and continue to lack the funding required to fix them. Before I exceed my word limit, let me ask you all a final question: If the United Nations agrees that African-American people deserve reparations after the “racial terrorism” that has occurred in United States history, what real excuse does the country have to continue ignoring us?
Alyssa Smith, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at ASmith21@wooster.edu.