Response to Monday's Class on Slavery Repartions

I believe that a form of reparations for slavery is needed to change the racial disparities in daily life for many Americans. What form those reparations take, I am unsure of. Some students have mentioned throwing money at the problem by investing in education. Those ideas do not always produce the desired results. One way of slave reparations would be changing the legislation that targets certain groups of people. For example, the crack/cocaine laws that create larger sentences for crack dealers/users then for cocaine would be a great place to start. Instead of throwing money in programs that may or may not work, altering the sentences and punishments for crack would drastically change the racial disparity in prisons. This legislation does not effect the dealesr/ users who are smuggling in tons of crack/cocaine; it targets people are who are addicts/ dealers in the lowest class of society who are barely making ends meet and whose influence in the illegal drug market is very minuscule.

Also, I agree that reparations for other minorities groups, such as Native Americans, are needed as well. I have traveled to Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the poorest county in the Western Hemisphere only second to Haiti. In talking to community members of Pine Ridge and learning the history of US policy towards American Indians, I have come to the realizations that in some cases “fixing” a problem such as the long term effects of slavery or manifest destiny often creates more injustices and disparities. One important lesson I learned from advocating for Native American issues, is that doing something without fully reflecting what exactly the community needs or what specific problems need to be addressed causes reparations to be ineffective.

I know that Native American history with the US is very different from African American history, but I feel that over-simplifying these issues is not going to solve any racial disparities. Some students mentioned that having panels and discussions on how to repair these injustices is a waste of time and money, but I feel that it would be time and money well spent. In order to initiate the reparations so that they effectively repair society’s disparities, I feel that a committee or panel of experienced, educated, diverse group of people needs to be established.

Racism today is not as obvious as it once was. It is an underlying part of society that continues to haunt the United States. The nation was built off of slavery and it directly links us to today’s view of African Americans. Reparations are a necessary in order to repair the relationship of African Americans with the American justice system and society; however, the process of implicating reparations is not something to simply solve with financial compensation.