Can you define reparations?

Many academics and political theorists claim democracy is impossible in Iraq because competing factions are simply incapable of coming to terms with each other. If many Americans are like me, they probably wonder why Shiites and Kurds could not resolve their differences, recognize the greater opportunities at hand and unite in favor of a cohesive, representative government that could propel their country into political, social, and economic bliss. It seems easy to a foreigner that two groups could do so. However, to a member of one of the opposed sectors the suggestion is most likely one of naïveté.

The thought of Shiites and Kurds in Iraq makes me think of whites and blacks in America. Although there are substantial differences, there are fundamental similarities. The primary being the basic fact that a country's citizens allow ignorance of the other to drive a stake into the heart of their country's vitality.

The term "reparations" is probably one of the most misunderstood in the American vocabulary. Granting reparations is defined as the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury: the payment of damages. Reparations in one of the more narrow senses could involve cutting checks from the federal government to blacks. This individual direct-payment method of reparations has gotten the most press. This is most likely the case because politicians against "reparations" use this imagery to scare white constituents into wiping any possibilities of reparations off the table (and black individuals who think they might get personal checks are more likely to be vocal about wanting to receive them).

Another form of reparations could include establishing funds or grants for communities. For instance, Randall Robinson speaks of a college trust fund in "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks" that could pay for low income black students' college tuition. Some argue that welfare is already a form of reparations, and thus the black community has received its due. I do not think this is the case.

The question of reparations is a greater question than is often recognized. The issue of reparations is not about what whites owe blacks, but about what we owe ourselves; what Americans owe Americans. Until that is recognized, America can never move forward, can never make amends, can never heal its own wounds.

We must realize the similarity in the fear a white feels when followed by two black men on the sidewalk and the fear a black man feels when pulled over by a white cop on the Jersey Turnpike. We must see the connection between the agony of a single black mom working 70 hours a week cleaning white homes on the other side of town and the agony of a white man "losing jobs to minorities." We must appreciate the black man's stress of being a representative of his race as the only black man on the board of trustees and how it is so much the same as the stress a white teen feels as the one white guy his black friends will hang out with. We need to recognize that the agony of discrimination and prejudice weighs heavily on all our backs.

We must all take an active role in the discussion of reparations. There will be a conference on reparations and reconciliation Saturday, April 12th. Randall Robinson, Professor Cornel West, Larry Hamm '78, Professor Kiki Jamieson and others will be speaking and debating the role of reparations in America. The conference will also facilitate break out sessions comprised of students and community members to discuss possibilities for reparations. Dialogue, communication and sharing of this nature is necessary to create an American community that can most effectively reach its potential as a global leader in the best of senses.

Reparations can come in many forms. The form most needed — the one that could help America make the greatest progress — has, most likely, not yet been thought of. Whites and blacks alike should approach reparations not as a program to allocate goods, but as a way to come together in evaluation of our country's weaknesses and strengths. Reparations should be a look toward the future, however with the past and present always in mind.

However, we should not expect that reparations will solve all of America's problems and inequalities immediately. It is but one step of many along our path as an evolving community. As John Lewis, a great man, civil rights leader, and Georgia Congressman says, "We will never reach the top of the mountain. The summit will always recede. It is not there to be reached. It is there to give us a direction, a goal. It is there to lead us higher."