There are many desirable steps to improve racial equity that can be undertaken at the local level: e.g. stopping anti black police violence, ending discrimination in the allocation of city contracts, or producing fair access to housing. But these are not reparations.
These local actions will help, using Malcolm X’s metaphor, pull the knife out, but they won’t heal the wound caused by the blow. Healing the wound demands compensation for the damage caused by the blow. That’s reparations.
Mislabeling local steps taken to reverse unjust practices as reparations gives the false impression that the wound is being healed. But state and local governments with their combined $3.1 trillion budgets can’t meet a debt running upwards of $14 trillion. #pu
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