The Bernoulli Effect

Why is Rep. Conyer's proposed investigation a bad thing? I've heard some compelling arguments that the legacy of slavery continues to exact tolls on African-Americans today. Certainly, many Black people think so. Presumably, many people would argue that the legacy of Black slavery is a minor or non-existent factor in contemporary affairs. How do we know who is right? Well, that's what an investigation is for.

The fact that there is such a harsh racial split on whether reparation are justified/advisable seems to warrant further consideration. Al Brophy has poll data of Alabamans views on the matter:

Should There Be:
Apology for slavery: Yes = 73% [Blacks] / 24% [Whites]

Corporations that benefitted apologize: Yes = 76% [B] / 31% [W]

Corporations that benefitted from slavery
establish scholarship funds for descendants of slaves: Yes = 87% [B] / 34% [W]

Corporations that benefitted from slavery
pay descendants of slaves: Yes = 69% [B] / 15% [W]

Reparations payments from the government: yes = 67% [B] / 5% [W]

Alfred L. Brophy, The Cultural War Over Reparations, 53 Depaul L. Rev. 1181, 1183 (2004).

I don't think those numbers can be chalked up to naked provincialism. If the Black community seriously feels this is an issue, do we not owe it to them to at least take a serious look at it? That seems like basic respect.

Ideas don't stand or fall on the basis of their popularity. As I've said before (I think in this blog), Rosa Parks did not waste her time searching for allies on that bus; on the other hand lots of black men were lynched by consensus.

Does requiring succeeding generations to assume responsibility for the actions of their ancestors really sound logical? Should Americans of Irish descent file suit over prejudice against their great-grandparents in New York City a hundred years ago? A difference of degree, perhaps, but not of principle.

if I were to entertain any consideration of the problem whatsoever, it would be concerning the treatment of blacks after the Civil War. To me, any debts for the evils of slavery itself were fully paid by the 300,000 or so Union soldiers who gave up their lives--along with their families and descendents.

Those are lovely sentiments, but I think it is slightly arrogant to say we should fiat them into law without investigation. Remember, you have a very high burden here: not just that you think the idea is wrong, but SO wrong its not even worth considering. I don't think you come even close to meeting that standard. And while I agree that the justness of law doesn't rise or fall on the amount of people who support it, I think that it is far more rational to take numbers into account for the purposes of CONSIDERING a program in a democratic polity. As it stands now, you have an idea that commands considerable support in the Black community, and the largely White congress isn't just rejecting it, they're effectively calling it too stupid to even debate. That's plain disrespectful.

If slavery today continues to exert material impacts on Black lives, then I don't think we can just laugh the idea of some form of reparations off as absurd. If I recall Conyers correctly, he isn't asking for reparations simply for being enslaved, he's investigating if the legacy of slavery still hurts Black people today and basing the reparations off of CURRENT harm. If the harm is ongoing, then his case strengthens considerably (again, a claim that can buttressed or weakened by an investigation). All Conyers wants to do is see if the idea makes sense.

And there is no way that those 300,000 deaths, brave as there were, constitute reparations. All those men did through their actions was free the slaves--that isn't reparative, it's merely partially restorative. It's like making the punishment for robbery returning the stolen items--it's a start, not a finish. Reparations imply some sort of allocation beyond what the status quo would have been prior to the harm (at the very least to make up for the lost time, but also I think to deter future violations).

Also, while I think it is kind of morbid to imply that the payment for slavery was properly counted in blood, if you're really going to make the argument, you're quite short: the deaths from slavery fall somewhere in the 8 figures--300,000 is just a drop in that bloody bucket. I think that we often forget the sheer violence of the slave system, and this is a healthy reminder: 300,000 brave men paying with their lives can pay off a lot of debts, but for a sin this great, it barely scratches the surface.

It is also slightly arrogant to claim that one of the most partisan members of Congress holds the right to determine the correctness of the reparations issue. Who is John Conyers anyway? I expect you have more education than he does.

You say, "If slavery today continues to exert material impacts on Black lives..." But with respect, I must question your assertion. David Horowitz claims that "the GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous 'nation' in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped." Slavery was abolished 140 years ago, and Jim Crow was a shameful abomination, but there can be no doubt that African-Americans enjoy a standard of living that dwarfs much of the rest of the world.

Not to be glib, but I don't think this boils down to Block A (the US government) vs Block B (African-Americans). It's the basic group-vs-individual question again.

Not only was slavery illegal in a lot of northern states long before the Civil War, as Horowitz points out only a fraction of Amercicans ever owned slaves, even among those living in the south. And there are millions of Americans who are descendants of the waves of immigrants who arrived after slavery was abolished.

I wouldn't trust Horowitz (you're calling Conyers partisan?) as far as I could throw him (remember when he counted more Democrats on the U Chicago law faculty than there were total professors?)--all the data I've seen has the African-American standard of living ranked somewhere in the high 20s. Which, admittedly, is probably better than Congo--but "better than Congo" is hardly a ringing endorsement. And it goes without saying that the Black standard of living lags considerably behind Whites in America--140 years after slavery has been abolished. Shouldn't that be raising some concern? Conyers may be a partisan, but this isn't a partisan issue--when's the last time Democrats have sought to rile up the base via the famous and always popular red-meat issue of reparations?

You keep questioning my assertions, but we're never going to resolve this unless we actually do the research. This isn't giving Conyers fiat authority to determine that reparations are or are not necessary. It WOULD be arrogant to give him and him alone the power to decide this issue--but that isn't what his bill does. His bill calls for a study. Not masked gunmen raiding your bank account. Not new scholarships for traditionally black colleges. Not even one drop of money for any new program to help end those stubbornly persistent 140-years old inequities. Just a study. There is no need for the riot act. And if you're so confident that reparations are wholly unwarranted--that there are no benefits accruing currently to White people via the slave legacy(and I'm not sure I buy that--see David Roediger, "The Wages of Whiteness"), then the studies should prove it. Paranoia is not very becoming.

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John Conyers: B.A., Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich., 1957; LL.B., Wayne State Law School, Detroit, Mich., 1958; lawyer, private practice; National Guard, 1948-1950; United States Army, 1950-1954; United States Army Reserves, 1954-1957; staff, United States Representative John D. Dingell, Jr., of Michigan, 1958-1961; general counsel for three labor locals in Detroit, 1959-1964; executive board member, Detroit, Mich., American Civil Liberties Union, 1964 to present; executive board member, Detroit, Mich., NAACP.