Name: Opinion: It’s past time for Congress to consider reparations
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Opinion: It’s past time for Congress to consider reparations

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AdvertisementBy Coming to the TableMar 03, 2021 at 6:05 pmOn Feb. 17, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss a decades-old reparations bill that refuses to die on the vine. HR40 calls for establishing a commission to examine the impact of centuries of American slavery and systemic racism, and to provide recommendations for remedies. As states, cities and counties nationwide begin to work through the pain of addressing systemic racism, it sure looks like HR40′s time has come. AdvertisementThe congressional hearing came on the heels of the Virginia House of Delegates passage of a bill requiring five Virginia public colleges to provide reparations to the descendants of people that the colleges enslaved, and Gov. Ralph Northam’s announcement of new appointments to the state’s commission to study slavery and racial and economic discrimination. This turn of events has millions of people asking, “Why reparations and why now?” Many assume reparations are all about money. Some argue that no one is alive today who endured enslavement, that writing a check cannot atone for racial injustices of the past, and no one benefits from slavery today. AdvertisementThe truth is reparations are about restoring lives ripped apart by systems intentionally designed to advance a racist status quo. A 2020 a DNA study of 50,000 African Americans conducted by 23andMe revealed that evidence of trauma that their ancestors endured during the transatlantic slave trade could still be seen in their DNA today. Furthermore, a recent Harvard Medical School study found that slavery reparations could have reduced the coronavirus deaths of African Americans who have disproportionately succumbed to the COVID-19 virus. America still reaps economic benefits from slavery. Structures built by enslaved African Americans, such as railroad lines, roads and ports, are still generating revenue today. Buildings and institutions constructed by slave labor, which include the U.S. Capitol Building, Wall Street, the College of William &amp; Mary and the University of Virginia, are still standing and thriving. WeekdaysStart your morning with today's local news &gt; During the 16th and 17th century England was a stratified society, where social status was strictly guarded. The English colonists who arrived on these shores in 1607 brought their customs with them. Within 60 years of English arrival, chattel slavery laws were enacted that gave rise to a caste system to position Englishmen and their descendants as a superior culture, while people of African ancestry were enslaved and viewed as subordinate. For more than 400 years, white Americans have lived with laws, policies and customs intentionally bent in their favor, while most people of African ancestry were relegated to inferior jobs, housing, education, health care, justice systems and income levels. Evidence that bears witness to this caste system still lies all around us today. Reparations would right historical harms by creating new initiatives that level economic playing fields so African American families and businesses can enjoy the same opportunities to succeed as white people. The U.S. military provides a striking example of what is possible if we do reparations right. President Harry S Truman gave Black soldiers the opportunity to obtain equal income, health care, housing, insurance, pensions and other benefits when he integrated the military in 1948. It is thanks to Truman’s leadership that some Black military families could use their GI benefits to buy a house in the suburbs, send their children to college, enjoy quality health care and live a middle-class lifestyle. As America grapples with where to go from here, the case for reparations has never been clearer. In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’” If systemic racism is the bad check the nation gave to Black people more than two centuries ago, then Congress can finally deliver “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” by passing the HR40 reparations bill. AdvertisementLaura Hill leads the Historic Triangle chapter of Coming to the Table, a national racial reconciliation organization (). Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Coming to the TableMar 03, 2021 at 6:05 pmOn Feb. 17, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss a decades-old reparations bill that refuses to die on the vine. HR40 calls for establishing a commission to examine the impact of centuries of American slavery and systemic racism, and to provide recommendations for remedies. As states, cities and counties nationwide begin to work through the pain of addressing systemic racism, it sure looks like HR40′s time has come. AdvertisementThe congressional hearing came on the heels of the Virginia House of Delegates...

Opinion: It’s past time for Congress to consider reparations

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