Reparations

the case against

Our country owes–OWES–a debt to the descendants of enslaved Black people, not just for slavery, but for what followed, like Black Codes, red lining, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. That’s why I introduced my Reparations NOW resolution. This country has an obligation.

—Rep. Cori Bush tweet

I admire Cori Bush, and I’m glad she’s in Congress. But I oppose the notion of reparations. Allow me to explain why, saying in advance that I am indebted to Professor Adolph Reed and one of his mentors, the historian Judith Stein.

As a kind of autodidactical student of black history in the US, I’ll take this back to Reconstruction, focusing on the epistemological development of “the negro.” Emphasis on the article, the. It’s remarkable how the racial essentialism which endowed this subspecies taxonomy, once battered back into a reactionary cultural corner, has reemerged in altered form on the left.

Reconstruction, for any who may have missed it, was a period following the American Civil War, during which former slaves found some breathing space in the interstices of a nation struggling to simultaneously re-mend the polity and follow through on some of the moral commitments attending the abolition of capitalist slavery. W.E.B. DuBois wrote the canonical Black Reconstruction in America about this period, and historian Eric Foner wrote Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution—1866-1877. During this period, black Americans enjoyed a period of accelerated self-organization, which gave rise to what some black nationalists and BN-adjacent scholars on the left called a unique ethnicity, neither wholly African nor wholly American—but African American. There is no doubt that this period did generate a socio-cultural subset, even if the notions of nationalism from Garvey to the black communists in the South—early twentieth century—came up with inadequate or problematic characterizations of this development. There is also no doubt that Reconstruction’s nascent African America (1) was aspirational and (2) engendered its own socioeconomic hierarchies. The aspiration was to eventually be fully integrated into larger American society; and the hierarchies produced both good-willed and corrupt leadership—a contradictory constant in all human social formations. A high premium was put on education, and this period was also one of vigorous intellectual fermentation. It was out of this milieu that the idea of “THE negro” was conceptualized—a reflection of the same abstract conceit among white scholars.

This Reconstruction notion of black Americans (among some, black people generally) as an undifferentiated mass was never uncontested. In the context of history—divided into the sometimes overlapping periods of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the New Deal, industrial northern migration, urbanization, World War II, the postwar movement against Jim Crow, the watershed civil rights legislation of the nineteen-sixties (1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act), Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the rise of black influence within the Democratic Party, neoliberal de-industrialization, and our present conjuncture—the situation for black people was changing dramatically, and in diverse ways for particular groups of black Americans. For most, the aspiration was still integration into larger American society on a more equal basis. And throughout most of these permutations, there was a debate between intellectuals about the essentialism inherent in the idea of THE African American.

The persistence of this idea can be attributed to at least three factors. First was (and remains in some cases) the obvious fact of residential, familial, employment, and cultural segregations, which can be interpreted either as economic/historical (my choice) or through an essentialist lens. Additionally, this idea among black intellectuals harmonizes with the same idea held by their white interlocutors, as a form of sociological abstraction. Finally, the idea of an undifferentiated black America carries with it certain advantages for “black leaders.”

Dr. Reed and others have pointed out how this notion—held in common by “black leaders” and white power brokers—has a quasi-colonial “who’s the head negro” aspect, in that it creates political fiefdoms, which “black leaders,” as representatives of undifferentiated “black interests” among the undifferentiated “black community,” can then use in political bargaining, e.g., to “deliver (or withhold) THE black vote.” This dynamic is still a huge factor in Democratic Party politics, sustained in part by the very real threat to black people from fractions of the political right. The latter creates a negative solidarity among black people, i.e., defending themselves against very real and potentially violent racists, who are still a crucial fraction within the Republican coalition.

I discussed this at great length in my recent critique of Mary Harrington’s ill-considered remarks about race in America.

The political demand for reparations is predicated on this conceit and its ramifications. So, I’ll address the question of reparations from three standpoints: (1) the politics of “the black community,” (2) a hypothetical consideration of what reparations would look like if they were possible (they aren’t), and (3) the viability of reparations as a political demand.

When Reed discusses the “black community” conceit, he notes that the last time there was “one uniformly shared black condition” was during slavery. Since then, political and economic changes, migration, and a host of other factors, have diversified the circumstances of black Americans. In the nineteen-sixties, we have only to look at the differences between, say, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X to see the contrasts in experience and outlook. King lived in the Jim Crow South, a member of the black clergy elite. Malcolm X, whose father was a Garvey-ite, was raised in Flint, Michigan and migrated to New York City, then Boston, where he fell into a life of petty crime. King argued for an end to racial essentialism (and more thoroughgoing integration), whereas Malcolm X became an advocate of essentialist separatism.

Reed’s take on this is that the new essentialists (which I’ll explain momentarily) emphasize slavery as the singular historical pivot for black Americans precisely because it was the last (almost) “uniformly shared black condition.” Acknowledgement of the diversification of black experience since Reconstruction, including improvements in the conditions for African Americans, especially since the nineteen-sixties, undermines the idea of an undifferentiated “black community.” No one is saying that extralegal, legacy, and shadow-legal (like “redlining”) measures haven’t been taken, aimed at black families, neighborhoods, and organizations. But the overall improvements are still real. Our own racially heterogeneous family is a testament to this, not just in the opportunities enjoyed, but in its very existence. In fact, many of the proponents of reparations are those who have benefited most from those improvements.

But I’m not making an ad hominem argument here. I’m making a political argument, because in fact, according to some polls, 70 percent of black Americans support the idea of reparations. And yet, in Cori Bush’s resolution—the text of which I’ve read—there is a very long and detailed history lesson (accurate, too), serially prefaced by “whereas’s,” and the accompanying non-resolution demand for the sum of $14 trillion, which Bush and others claim would “eliminate the racial wealth gap,” as if a mere money dump would solve historically embedded social problems.

In other words, this scheme has not been worked out in any of its details. Moreover, it totally ignores the state of “black politics” in the US right now, which I’ve covered in detail here. Long story short, the complete merger of the black political class—not in any way to be confused with black Americans generally, and THE “black community”—with the US Democratic Party, has created an actually existing system of quasi-colonial clientelism, with a black bourgeoisie that serves as political manager-mediators for “THE black vote.” But when someone hypothetically starts spreading around $14 trillion, you can bet that a lot more mediators will show up for administrative compensation, and not a few fights will break out over how, when, and where these funds might be distributed.

This is not some white nationalist appeal to the trope of “innate black deviancy” and “black incapacity for self-governance.” (I don’t even want to hear about “self-governance” from people who elected Marjorie Taylor Green, Tom Cotton, Tim Burchett, Lauren Boebert, and Tim Walberg.) It’s saying that all human beings, in today’s American society, especially those who have risen through the amoral ranks of US politics and its civil society cohorts, will respond to that amount of money in the same way that seagulls do to a fish cleaning station. All one has to do is study the campaign contributions to members of the US Congress to see that I’m not engaging in hyperbole . . . or racism.

In Bush’s bill, she says reparations would target both the descendants of slaves and people of African descent. So I immediately think, how will this affect three of our grandkids, whose parents are “half-white/half light-skinned black” and first-generation Mexican? Will we perform DNA tests to determine “blood quantums”? Will there be means-testing? I mean, will Oprah Winfrey get the same check as an eighteen-year-old unemployed kid living in a Jackson, Mississippi slum? How much of that money would be spent on well-compensated studies to figure this stuff out.

Not that any of this really matters, because everyone, including Congresswoman Bush, knows that this is a symbolic gesture with a snowball’s chance in hell of every being turned into law. Not even one in three Americans supports this idea. Which makes it, at best a ham-handed attempt at public education, and, somewhat worse, virtue signaling, and at the very worst, a manipulative electoral tactic.

I was once an outspoken proponent of reparations. That was when I was cadre for a leftist organization, where we routinely made lists of “demands” that had a snowball’s chance in hell of every being implemented. That was one of many reasons that we, and the left more generally, never won a damn thing. We congratulated ourselves on how smart we were, though, which seems ironic in retrospect.

Which brings me to the business of politics and political demands.

I can stand outside the US Capitol and shout out a list of demands until I’m blue in the face. I’ll look like an idiot, even if those demands are “just” and “moral.” Because it’s obvious as a lime-green dog that nothing will come of it.

I’ve repeatedly railed against the idea of politics having some redemptive monopoly, which some misinterpret to mean I’ve checked out of politics. I’m just clear about what politics can and cannot do. To participate in politics, effectively, requires (1) that we recognize reality, including our own limitations, and (2) that we don’t spend our time, effort, and treasure on symbolic bullshit. Practically, that means that before people take a demand into the political arena, they assess whether or not it has a snowball’s chance in hell.

To make a serious political demand requires a concentration of actual power. This requires coalitions. Coalitions require finding points of unity and tabling divisions. Finding points of unity and tabling divisions requires humility, restraint, good will, and selflessness. The enemies of coalitions are self-involvement, self-promotion, and self-righteousness. This is why “the left” is now graveyard dead. This is why identity-politics has repeatedly failed. This is why academics, bohemians, hipsters, and the like should never be allowed in political leadership. As Adolph Reed so pithily put it once, “Politics is an instrumental and not an expressive activity.”

Here’s how it actually works.

In 2016, when Bernie Sanders was running for the Democratic nomination, he was asked at the very first “debate” whether he supported reparations. This was, of course, a trick, much the same as Mark 12 in the New Testament, when Jesus was asked about paying taxes. Pharisees and Herodians—an odd couple indeed who generally disliked one another, but both threatened by this renegade rabbi, they unite and (1) approach Jesus. after a bit of ironic flattery, they put the question: (2) “should we pay taxes to Caesar?” Again, a crowd of people stands near, and they really hate Roman taxes. But the officials are also nearby, and to speak against taxation would be a crime against the state. He’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.

[Sorry, but I have to sidetrack into a quick excursus here, because this is one of the most abused texts in Scripture. In the Greek, the story uses the term agreúsōsin to describe this interrogation, which means to hunt with traps. This term tells Mark’s audience that Jesus is being hunted here. This is not some rhetorical question to set up Jesus as a lawmaker who tells you to be a good citizen and pay your taxes. This is an attempt to get Jesus killed.

“Hand me that coin,” Jesus replies, and when they do, he asks, “Whose image is on that coin?”

It is a denarius, and we know whose image is on it, as well as the inscription: “Tiberius: son of god.” In Mark’s Greek, “inscription” is written as epigraphe. There is only one other place in Mark where this term is used: to describe the mocking conviction writ the Romans posted on Jesus’s cross, “Jesus, King of the Jews.”

So Mark’s Jewish audience hears this Gospel read, and they know the significance. The Pharisees and Herodians reply to Jesus’s question about whose image: “Caesar’s.”

Jesus’s reply does not say “render,” but apodote, or re-pay. “Re-pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to god what is god’s.” Repayment goes to the one to whom you owe your debt. For the Jewish audience there, this is a stark choice presented between loyalty to Caesar and loyalty to God.]

Not saying that Bernie Sanders was Jesus (far from it), but this reparations question—to which they already knew the answer, and which they all knew was a purely symbolic demand—was a trap to wrong-foot him with African Americans among whom the idea of reparations has strong support. And yet, 70 percent of African Americans is around 10.5 percent of the total voting population of whom two-thirds oppose reparations . . . for various reasons. The strategy of the Democratic National Committee and its Wall Street sponsors—supported by the black political class which was wedded to the DNC—was always to separate Sanders from black support.

In one of the twists in the US electoral system, winning the Democratic nomination depends substantially on winning the black vote in Southern states that will overwhelmingly go Republican during the General Elections. Hillary Clinton learned this lesson the hard way in 2008, when the let her alligator mouth outrun her tweetie bird ass with racial dog whistling before the South Carolina Primary.

The fact was, regarding Sanders, his main proposals—Medicare For All, Student Debt Forgiveness, Free College, and Federal Jobs Guarantees—would have disproportionately improved the lot of African Americans, because they are over-represented among the most economically precarious. And yet, as political demands, they were not racially targeted, but theoretically universal. This is what made such demands actually achievable, and something the power elite in the US feared. Even as post-Garveyite a “race man” (as Zora Neale Hurston used to call them), as Irami Osei-Frimpong (a reparations advocate!) saw the truth of this, and threw his support to Sanders.

As a political demand, using Medicare For All as one example, the DNC and its allies wanted to frame it as unachievable. But when Sanders went on Fox News, before an overwhelmingly white Republican live audience, and one of the hosts wanted to embarrass Sanders, that host asked the audience how many would support Sanders’s “socialist” health care proposals. Around 80 percent of the hands went up, and the host’s face went white. What was revealed there—to the chagrin of both Fox News and the DNC—was that there was a dangerous potential political coalition that could gestate around the right candidate.

Neither Fox News nor the DNC et al wanted to abandon the identity politics of race—whether the white nation dog whistles of Fox or the woketivist overthinking racial drivel of the Kendi-Diangelo school; not because MFA and other Sanders proposals were unachievable, but precisely because these power brokers knew goddam well that a coalition—hearkening back to the Southern biracial Populists of the latter nineteenth century—could achieve not only MFA but a more general power shift from the top back toward the bottom.

Political demands are framed as universal are achievable with coalitions. The reason Medicare For All was such a dangerous proposal was that, once implemented, like Social Security (another universal program), and once people began to enjoy and understand its benefits, opposing its continuation would become a form of political suicide. Forming political coalitions requires emphasizing points of unity and tabling tangential disagreements.

Cori Bush’s toothless resolution, and the equally toothless demand for reparations, does just the opposite.

Black people are concerned about the same stuff that other working people are concerned about: economic security, health care, housing, jobs, education. And there’s no way we’re gonna get those just for Black people. And I think the effort to do so may as well be a recruitment campaign for the KKK.

I’ve been asking [“What is the problem with asking the federal government for reparations for slavery, Jim Crow, and ongoing discrimination?”] for more than 20 years now: How do we propose to develop a political coalition that can prevail on a reparations campaign? And nobody’s given me an answer yet, because in a democracy — even a nominal democracy like this one — prevailing would depend on generating, if not an absolute majority coalition, at least a big enough plurality to encourage public officials to follow through on the demands. And there’s no way we can do it. The nature of the demands undercuts the capacity to build a coalition that could pursue them.

—Adolph Reed