We Patched Up Some Leaks, but Not the Root Causes and Effects
By Pierrce Holmes
Discussions around reparations for Black Americans boil down to two key questions: (1) Is the government responsible when its laws cause damage to specific communities? (2) Even after abolishing the harmful law, does the government also need to mitigate the lasting effects? History suggests that the government is responsible and obligated to help the afflicted community recover. Racism’s impact on Black wealth building is comparable to an environmental disaster that ripped through Love Canal, a middle-class community in Niagara Falls, New York. Examining this disaster and its long-lasting effects reveals what is needed to combat the wealth gap. Actively removing the harm and mitigating the lingering effects helped right the wrongs of Love Canal. Similarly, while the de jure segregation and overt legal discrimination of old are no more (though de facto segregation and color-blind laws with discriminatory impact persist across the country), appropriate reparations would directly address the sustained effects of centuries of discrimination.
The story of Love Canal began in 1942. In 1942, the Hooker Chemical Company got government permission to dispose of chemical waste in the abandoned canal, which they did until 1953. Twenty-one thousand tons of toxic chemicals were dumped into the canal before being capped with clay. None of this seemed of concern at the time: indeed, the Niagara Falls school board built a school nearby. In 1976, after three rain-heavy years raised groundwater levels, chemicals began to leak into residents’ basements, yards, and even the school playground. The chemicals leaked into the Niagara River and the air. Grass-roots health surveys and news reports documented an alarming number of illnesses like epilepsy, asthma, and migraines, along with high rates of congenital disabilities and miscarriage.
Despite initial dismissal by New York state officials, The federal Environmental Protection Agency began investigating in 1977, and the following year, President Jimmy Carter declared a state of emergency. The federal government paid to relocate 239 families that year and another 700 families after another state of emergency in 1981. The relocation cost the government $17 million. Additionally, Congress passed the “Superfund” Act. Although Superfund did not directly compensate families in the same way as the relocation program, it offered a pathway for victims to be duly compensated. While none of this erases some effects the chemicals had on residents, they were able to fix the issue, provide them with housing, and facilitate compensation with Superfund.
Interestingly, there were even racial tensions in the aid process at Love Canal. Stemming from the long-standing divide between the (predominantly Black) renters at the Griffon Manor Projects and the Homeowners Association of Love Canal, the latter actively excluded the former from their proposals to secure aid for locals based on racial stereotypes and thinly veiled classism. While lead organizer Lois Gibbs supposedly regretted this exclusion immediately, and the tensions subsided as the groups acknowledged that success was more likely with collaboration than division, the situation is indicative of challenges that Black people often face when fighting for just and necessary relief. We ensure that the victims of environmental disasters are compensated when harmed due to government actions, so why is it such a struggle to admit the same is deserved for Black people who have dealt with generations of harm? The need for reparations is evident given the harms Black people have endured across history and presently.
The U.S government’s track record is filled with debts owed and promises unfulfilled to Black Americans. We can point to over 200 years of chattel slavery (by far the most significant asset and wealth generator at the time), the land theft and terrorism in the Jim Crow South, denial to arguably the most significant wealth accrual mechanism in our history in the GI Bill, the government’s intentional segregation of housing which limited mobility and wealth building, and more. The racial wealth gap has, in fact, worsened since the 1980s. Studies show that the median wealth of Black families is $3,600 now, and is on pace to hit zero in 50 years, while white wealth will continue to expand. Reconstruction and Civil Rights Acts marked the “end” of legal discrimination and the start of equal protection at different points, but equal protection does not equate to equal status. Our history illustrates centuries of slavery, discrimination, and exclusion from the most significant wealth-building opportunities, but less than 60 years of legal equality, not even considering the ongoing discrimination Black people face on multiple levels. Just as cleaning up the waste did not solve the Love Canal problem, a few acts signaling “equality” do not address the harms caused by ongoing and historical discrimination. Even some actions that many posit as reparations like the Rosewood Massacre Scholarship Program are not true recompense. No financial sum alone is enough to atone for the broad domination of Black people in America, but certainly, one state’s scholarship (that only came because initial payouts to victims and descendants were minuscule) could not offer the healing, financial or otherwise, that people need. These sorts of programs and actions (payments, scholarships, museums, etc.) together start to form a reparations project that might come close to adequate redress. However, a substantial, wide-reaching reparations project is still taboo in society.
While support for reparations has grown in recent years, there is still significant opposition. Many opponents argue that affirmative action has already acted as a type of reparations by helping admit more Black students into colleges and workers into jobs. However, whatever benefit affirmative action has for Black people, studies have shown that white women benefit most from the policy, mainly due to the repeated battles over allowing race to be a factor in hiring or admissions that often result in race not taking center stage. According to a 1995 report, the first two decades of affirmative action in the private sector yielded huge increases in White women’s managerial positions compared to racial minorities. Additionally, while this data includes all races, findings from the American Association of University Women suggest that women were receiving the majority of post-secondary degrees, proving that the benefit went well beyond its initial intent of addressing race despite race being the most often maligned component. How can we argue that wrongs have been corrected when we have not explicitly addressed those wrongs?
Similarly, others stress the consequences of giving money to only one racial group rather than enacting policies that benefit all low-income folks and reduce inequality. We certainly need policies to facilitate wealth accrual for all low and middle-income people to address inequality. Baby bonds programs and other options should be explored to meet this end. This should not come at the expense of atoning for the centuries of oppression Black people experienced. Why should a policy meant to right a wrong done to a specific group by the government be contingent upon righting other government wrongs? Such options are comparable to the government securing housing for Love Canal victims, as they aid the afflicted group but do not tackle less immediate impacts.
The government did not let other communities impacted by chemical dumping or those unimpacted change its response to the Love Canal situation because there was a specific wrong to address. Similarly, any discussion of reparations must be allowed to focus on mitigating effects that the pollutant of racism has on Black people, and it cannot be concerned with fixing the toxic inequality created by other government actions. The government has not righted its wrongs against the Black community since it has only “cleaned up” the site. We still need a way to address some of the lingering effects, and just as Superfund helped to compensate Love Canal victims adequately, federal reparations could finally address the lasting effects of racism and our troubled history.
