It’s time, beyond time really, for America to confront the issue of slavery reparations. It’s an issue that rarely emerges in the national discussion and when it does, it’s the source of enormous controversy. It should not be controversial; an egregious injury was inflicted on Africans, later African-Americans, on this continent. That injury, which in some forms continues today, has never been redressed. The consequences of our failure of atonement spread globally.
Reparations should be made by the federal government and by state governments, in proportion to their participation in and benefit from the practice of slavery. Reparations should also be made by those immortal entities that have all the rights of citizens – corporations that profited from slavery. The banks FleetBoston, JP Morgan Chase and Wachovia have recently been called on to make slavery reparations, as have the CSX railroad and the Aetna insurance company.
Why make reparations? Why not? Corporation fortunes founded or increased through slavery still exist. Governments and corporations in Europe are being called on for reparations if they profited from Holocaust slave labor; the federal government made reparations in the 1980s to Japanese-Americans who were interned during the Second World War. Why should the sin of slavery go unatoned merely because the profiteers enjoyed a hundred-year respite?
Well, grumble reparations opponents, it opens doors. Yes, it does. Why shouldn’t it? One of the doors opened by reparations for African-Americans is the matter of unfulfilled treaties the U.S. government signed with any number of Native American nations. If African-Americans have a strong moral case, Native Americans have a strong moral case AND they’ve got it in writing. As it is, a century of paternalistic care by the federal government has squandered $100 billion dollars that belongs to Native Americans. How bad should things get before we’re willing to do the right thing?
Here’s another door that would be opened by slavery reparations – it would go a long way toward ending slavery. It’s nice, if complacent, for Americans to think slavery ended in 1865, but running the word “slavery” through Google News resulted in stories from Taiwan, where Thai laborers working on the railway complained of slave conditions (sound familiar Union Pacific?), an American bureaucrat in the Philippines urging that country to do more to end modern slavery, stories of rampant sexual slavery throughout the world (including the U.S.) and a criminal slavery case in Denver.
Thanks to the forces of globalization and “international development,” a hefty portion of the cocoa grown for our chocolate depends on slave labor. In Brazil, a non-profit organization, ReporterBrasil, keeps a “dirty list” of the 100 worst slave-dependent companies in that country. God have mercy on us all that we should live in a 21st century where a group keeps a list of the hundred “worst” slave traders.
Well, that’s Brazil, right? What do you expect? And cocoa, that’s grown in Africa. But who do you think controls all this trade? Multinational corporations, headquartered in the U.S., perhaps Europe. Slavery is the end result of out-sourcing, the finish line of the race to the bottom. Companies like Cargill, Archer-Daniels Midland and Bunge control the trade in crops like cocoa and soy that are grown with slave labor. These same companies control financing agreements with contract farmers around the world (including the U.S.) that are so restrictive they amount to a resurgence of slavery’s sibling: serfdom. Call it peonage if you prefer.
We need to make reparations for American slavery because, ethically, it’s the right thing to do. Righting that wrong will give America the moral standing it needs to fight modern slavery. We can’t right today’s wrong until we account for the wrongs of the past. Best, we can finally wash this collective sin from our social soul. All it takes is money.
Time to Pay Up
It’s time, beyond time really, for America to confront the issue of slavery reparations. It’s an issue that rarely emerges in the national discussion and when it does, it’s the source of enormous controversy. It should not be controversial; an egregious injury was inflicted on Africans, later African-Americans, on this continent. That injury, which in some forms continues today, has never been redressed. The consequences of our failure of atonement spread globally.
Reparations should be made by the federal government and by state governments, in proportion to their participation in and benefit from the practice of slavery. Reparations should also be made by those immortal entities that have all the rights of citizens – corporations that profited from slavery. The banks FleetBoston, JP Morgan Chase and Wachovia have recently been called on to make slavery reparations, as have the CSX railroad and the Aetna insurance company.
Why make reparations? Why not? Corporation fortunes founded or increased through slavery still exist. Governments and corporations in Europe are being called on for reparations if they profited from Holocaust slave labor; the federal government made reparations in the 1980s to Japanese-Americans who were interned during the Second World War. Why should the sin of slavery go unatoned merely because the profiteers enjoyed a hundred-year respite?
Well, grumble reparations opponents, it opens doors. Yes, it does. Why shouldn’t it? One of the doors opened by reparations for African-Americans is the matter of unfulfilled treaties the U.S. government signed with any number of Native American nations. If African-Americans have a strong moral case, Native Americans have a strong moral case AND they’ve got it in writing. As it is, a century of paternalistic care by the federal government has squandered $100 billion dollars that belongs to Native Americans. How bad should things get before we’re willing to do the right thing?
Here’s another door that would be opened by slavery reparations – it would go a long way toward ending slavery. It’s nice, if complacent, for Americans to think slavery ended in 1865, but running the word “slavery” through Google News resulted in stories from Taiwan, where Thai laborers working on the railway complained of slave conditions (sound familiar Union Pacific?), an American bureaucrat in the Philippines urging that country to do more to end modern slavery, stories of rampant sexual slavery throughout the world (including the U.S.) and a criminal slavery case in Denver.
Thanks to the forces of globalization and “international development,” a hefty portion of the cocoa grown for our chocolate depends on slave labor. In Brazil, a non-profit organization, ReporterBrasil, keeps a “dirty list” of the 100 worst slave-dependent companies in that country. God have mercy on us all that we should live in a 21st century where a group keeps a list of the hundred “worst” slave traders.
Well, that’s Brazil, right? What do you expect? And cocoa, that’s grown in Africa. But who do you think controls all this trade? Multinational corporations, headquartered in the U.S., perhaps Europe. Slavery is the end result of out-sourcing, the finish line of the race to the bottom. Companies like Cargill, Archer-Daniels Midland and Bunge control the trade in crops like cocoa and soy that are grown with slave labor. These same companies control financing agreements with contract farmers around the world (including the U.S.) that are so restrictive they amount to a resurgence of slavery’s sibling: serfdom. Call it peonage if you prefer.
We need to make reparations for American slavery because, ethically, it’s the right thing to do. Righting that wrong will give America the moral standing it needs to fight modern slavery. We can’t right today’s wrong until we account for the wrongs of the past. Best, we can finally wash this collective sin from our social soul. All it takes is money.
© Mark Floegel, 2005