OPINION | Reparations May Be a Pipe Dream but Justice by Geography Could Work

America will likely never pay remunerations for slavery. But it could enact policies that just happened to help Black Americans at the local level.

by Marcus Harrison Green

(This op-ed has been copublished with The Seattle Times.)

Black History Month is as good a time as any to contemplate a Black future. Of course that requires an unflinching reflection on the past.

But with one presidential candidate unable to identity slavery as causal to the Civil War, another claiming it was a nuisance that could have been negotiated around, and books depicting the horror of the "peculiar institution" bound for bans in certain school districts, how can a mass appeal to examine painful American history not be anything but futile?

I've come to believe that we will never have a serious conversation about reparations in this country. At least we'll never have one resulting in meaningful remuneration for the descendants of enslaved people — people who helped generate the wealth of a burgeoning nation.

Fewer than 20% of white people support any type of reparations for descendants of enslaved Black Americans. White Americans are far from alone. Other than the Black community, there is no racial category where a majority supports reparations, according to a Pew Research Report.

A grand irony is that somehow most Americans actually believe systemic racism exists, according to a survey by U.S. News & World Report and The Harris Poll.

All in all it does seem an apt example of the pulsing contradiction that is America at times. We can acknowledge wrongdoing, just none that we're responsible for.

It has been 159 years since the 13th Amendment was ratified, ending chattel slavery. Today, Black people die earlier, have less wealth, fewer ladders for social mobility, and higher infant mortality than white people. The same would have been true regardless of if I had written this 10, 20, 30, 40, or 100 years ago.

Nationally we have yet to even pass a bill that has floated around since the George H.W. Bush Administration that would simply form a commission to study reparations. So what chance does anything of significance have in passing through Congress, including a new bill that would bestow $14 trillion on the 41.1 million Americans identifying as Black.

Imagine by some miracle that it did pass. Well, you'd also need to imagine the intensified grievance of those currently provoked by alienation, loneliness, and radicalization towards a hatred of the Black community. How much more violence would be marshaled against the Black community "for taking hard-earned money from hardworking white people"?

Locally, we have seen efforts such as the passage of a bill last year creating downpayment assistance for Black families that suffered from racial discrimination. While needed, it is a far cry from adequately addressing the social vestiges of slavery.

That's not to mention the backlash that would surely follow any reparations perceived as preferential prioritization of Black people. Even in the private sector.

The Fearless Fund, a Black-led foundation that makes grants to Black women entrepreneurs, was halted from doing so due to litigation claiming the measures actively discriminated against white people.

The warning is as loud as it is clear: Better to leave social inequities entrenched in society, no matter how those inequities came about. Social order must be retained, after all.

We've yet to socially metabolize the reality of slavery. At this late stage, I doubt we ever will.

So then what?

We address poverty. And we do it by focusing squarely on poor communities by replicating neighborhood-level versions of Sovereign Wealth Funds.

Like the name suggests, Sovereign Wealth Funds are investment instruments owned by countries with the explicit purpose of preserving and growing intergenerational wealth. They are currently used by Norway, China, and Singapore for such objectives.

Why not bring them down to the scale of communities? We can easily identify poor and destitute communities by zip code. And if it's an exaggeration, that zip code is destiny. It is a truism that it is either an anchor or a grappling hook for achieving upward social mobility.

Poor communities should not be synonymous with Black communities; however 1 in 4 Black Americans are stuck in high poverty neighborhoods.

For contrast, 1 in 6 Latinos and 1 in 13 white Americans are stuck in such communities. What this means is that these funds would disproportionately help Black people. But Black people would not be the only ones who were helped.

And that's the key.

Take the community of Rainier Beach where I live, one of the most diverse in the city but also one with a low household median income relative to the rest of the city. What if there was a fund that was dedicated to a shared economic prosperity for the community — along with being directed by the community? It could be used to build communal wealth. Wealth that can be used to make business loans to community members and build community infrastructure such as housing, commercial real estate, and community centers, without the need for constant taxation. It would also help mitigate impacts to the community from budget shortfalls, and political deprioritization.

Where would the money from the endowment come from?

Business and philanthropy. Not because I believe either is preferable to government action, but because they move faster, and those sectors vomited proclamation after proclamation about how much Black life mattered.

Why not actually fund a community's self-determination with no strings attached?

If we can not have reparations, then we can at least have justice by geography.

That doesn't seem too much to ask after 159 years and counting.

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📸 Featured Image: Protestors during the We Want to Live Rally and March in 2020. (Photo: Alex Garland)