“The Case for Reparations”
“Ross and the Contract Buyers League were no longer appealing to the government simply for equality. They were no longer fleeing in hopes of a better deal elsewhere. They were charging society with a crime against their community. They wanted the crime publicly ruled as such. They wanted the crime’s executors declared to be offensive to society. And they wanted restitution for the great injury brought upon them by said offenders. In 1968, Clyde Ross and the Contract Buyers League were no longer simply seeking the protection of the law. They were seeking reparations.”
It was really hard to choose something to quote from this — the piece and the response to it from lots of different outlets and the variety of people who have been reading and responding to it all make it seem really seminal. I sometimes write things here in order to encourage people to read what I have posted, but it seems like this should be read because of this cultural moment we are having right now around race and not because of any reaction I might have had to it.
Butttttt I still have one or two things to say about it, among the many ways I am still processing-
This provided a lot of answers about why America is the way it is by presenting a very different narrative about American history from the one I am usually exposed to, and why race and class are so deeply related in this country (and why it was so easy for my post-racial upbringing to make poverty a scapegoat for racism) and really what the differences are between being African-American and an Afro-immigrant. The history is just so huge.
Also, I want this content and these histories to be on the AP US history test, because if they were then I would have learned them in context, and at every step in my education, instead of alone on the roof of my office building while my lunch gets cold.
