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THREAD-"If Americans are now willing to entertain the notion of restorative justice for the legacy of institutional racism, slavery alone is the wrong place to focus." medium.com/thewashingtonp… #reparations
"The damage to African Americans goes far beyond abolition in 1865. Efforts to subordinate and economically exploit black people continued through peonage, convict leasing, sharecropping, Jim Crow, redlined black ghettos and mass incarceration.
"The ideology of white supremacy, used to justify slavery, persists. Why should subsequent racist practices get a pass while we zoom in on outright bondage? Anti-black segregation lives on, and the current damage to slavery’s descendants is direct and measurable.
"In other words, reparations should repair what white supremacy still breaks. Atoning for the legacy of chattel slavery is simply not enough. marketwatch.com/story/black-mi…
"In 2016, the average black male worker earned only 70 percent of the hourly wage of the average white male, down from 80 percent in 1979. Education does not change these widening black-white wage gaps; they exist at all education and wage levels.
"Only 41 percent of black families were homeowners in 2014, compared with 71 percent of white families. For every dollar of wealth held by a median white family, a median black family holds 8 cents in wealth.
"Black students perennially lag whites in 'achievement,' not to mention high school and college completion. Blacks and whites use drugs at similar rates, but African Americans are 6.5 times as likely as whites to be imprisoned by states for drug charges.
"Where did these unequal conditions come from? They aren’t just the aftereffects of slavery. Generations of intentionally racist policies play a role." epi.org/blog/stark-bla…
"Countries with high-performing education systems put their most talented teachers and extra resources in disadvantaged schools, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The vast majority of American states do the exact opposite."
"Unofficial redlining and mortgage discrimination against African Americans continue in the 21st century. Predatory lenders targeted black neighborhoods for their most usurious subprime mortgages before the 2008 housing crisis, according to a study by two Princeton sociologists.
"Then foreclosures reduced the black homeownership rate to the level it was in 1968, at the start of the civil rights revolution in housing." inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/…
"Reparations should be designed to repair what is broken in this country — to disrupt the practices of American caste that harm slavery’s descendants and hoard opportunity in affluent areas.
"They should create a new infrastructure of opportunity and inclusion in poor black neighborhoods: richly resourced schools and community centers, public transit, opportunity fellowships, housing choice vouchers, and mandatory inclusive housing elsewhere.
"A formal apology for slavery would be welcome, but even better would be a commitment at all levels of government to stop causing, and to reverse, the harm."
