Reparations May Be One Cure for What Ails Us
Anti-Imperialism You Can Try at Home
Reparations May Be One Cure for What Ails Us
By Mattea Kramer
Robin Rue Simmons had been very curious about the truth of American life as a young person. But it was only after she finished high school, left her native Evanston, Illinois, and returned as an adult -- ready to buy a house in the historically Black neighborhood in which she grew up -- that she delved deep into her city’s history and fully understood the policies that had kept Black residents poor while enriching their white neighbors. Of course, this isn’t the kind of history that’s taught in school, even if today’s students do sometimes learn unsavory truths about the American empire. Local history is different, perhaps because it can be especially uncomfortable to examine how that empire’s economic plunder shaped our present-day communities. Yet experiencing such discomfort may be preferable to any alternative -- and I write this as a white person.
In 2017, Simmons ran for Evanston City Council and won. She was interested in the idea of reparations and began studying a bill that has been sitting in Congress for decades. H.R. 40, as it's called -- the number refers to a broken promise of the post-Civil War era that formerly enslaved people should receive 40 acres and a mule -- would establish a commission to examine the legacy of slavery and how restitution could be made. Federal reparations will be necessary to address this country’s vast racial wealth gap that’s the cumulative result of economically oppressive policies since the plantation era. Yet Simmons also knew that the federal government was hardly alone when it came to committing such injustices -- and here she had a visionary idea.
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