A Reader Asks: Why Reparations?

In correspondence with a reader of this website, she asked for clarification on why I support reparations. She also asked why I capitalize “Black” and do not capitalize “white.” Here is my response:

Dear Reader,

Thanks for your good thoughts & questions.  I appreciate the opportunity to seek more clarity in my own thoughts.  There is a lot of depth to these topics - so please forgive the length of this email.  :)

I used to feel a great deal of resistance about reparations, but along the way something shifted.  Immersion in Indigenous-led community work and honest conversations with Black friends helped.  In addition, there are many books, articles, podcasts and films that illuminate the deep, systemic, founding economic brutality of the United States.  The Indigenous population was reduced to 2% of its original size and some tribes were obliterated completely through a genocide that was sanctioned by 24 American presidents.  The entire continent was appropriated by European immigrants through Manifest Destiny, the lie that Europeans were God's chosen people with a divine destiny to dominate the earth and all non-Christians.  Mothers, fathers, doctors, artists, and engineers were stolen from Africa to build an economy so massive that it impacted the entire world - solely to benefit white, landowning men and their descendants.  People were enslaved for 12 generations and their descendants have been impacted by systemic poverty and oppression ever since.  While slavery had existed throughout the world previously, the chattel slavery of the United States was a unique form designed to be intergenerationally brutal.  Black friends have told me that slavery never ended for their communities; it just changed form and manifests today in the racial wealth gap, the school to prison pipeline, and police brutality.

Before they left Europe, our ancestors also suffered and perpetrated brutal colonization for 2000+ years, including land theft, displacement, slavery, capitalism, patriarchal religious institutions, witch hunts, the Inquisition, and endless war. These traumas have been acted out in our families for generations, as you mentioned.  Deep secrets and intergenerational sickness plague many white families.  Without a doubt, these harms need openness, healing, and repair.  The difference is that systemic racism in the United States has allowed white communities to slowly work our way into more prosperity, security and safety, while it has kept Black and Brown communities invisibilized and marginalized, without access to the same opportunities most white communities enjoy.

None of us alive today created these systems, but we do play a role in deciding how they will change.  I used to think of reparations as being punitive, but now I see them as restorative medicine for the economic violence that is still playing out every day; a potent form of sharing power and privilege.  I have come to see reparations as giving back what was stolen.  I agree that we must create a humanized and uplifting culture for all, and to do that we will need all of our relatives (Black, Indigenous, Peoples of Color, and white) operating at full capacity.  Changing the systemic inequity of colonization is the foundation for a new culture.  It took many generations to create the mess we are in, and it will take many generations to find our way out of it.  Economic reparations are only part of what needs to happen; I think we ultimately need broad movements of truth, conciliation, racial healing, and restorative justice.

This inquiry began when I learned that my ancestors had actively participated in the colonial project, and that I benefit from that painful history.  After years of doing my own healing work, I now make reparations as an act of love rather than from a sense of guilt.  I long to contribute to mutual healing for Mother Earth, our ancestors, and future generations.  An integral part of the settler colonial setup is that we white people don't know our own history.  As you have probably experienced, discussing this history among ourselves is often considered taboo or impolite.  As part of my commitment to reparations, I am trying to break the curse of intergenerational amnesia and silence, if you will.

I capitalize "Black" to follow the lead of Black women authors and friends.  Blackness began as an oppressive social construct, when Africans of diverse cultural and ethnic identities were stolen from their homes and labeled "black" though the process of dehumanization described above.  I honor "Black" being reclaimed and embraced by those communities and I capitalize this word out of respect for the unique identities, resilience, and brilliance that continues to emerge from tragic circumstances.

I'm currently using "white" in lower case to cultivate awareness that whiteness is a false identity, engineered to assimilate the diverse peoples of Europe into a homogeneous mass, for the purpose of upholding capitalism and male land ownership.  Whiteness was created to curtail cross-racial solidarity.  White culture, identity, systems, and language (i.e. English) have been weaponized since the beginning.  I use "white" in lower case to de-center whiteness while continuing to unpack it.  Those of us who have been trained to be white need healing, because whiteness costs us the full expression of our humanity.  We can develop a new culture for ourselves that is based in peace and wholeness rather than the insatiable hunger and denial of whiteness.

I'm not an expert by any means - just sharing my current, always evolving understandings on these topics.  :)

with appreciation for your inquiry,

Hilary