It's rare I outright implore people to read an article

[appal_jack]

19. I find the article's reasoning to be weak, and its prescriptions antithetical to forward movement.

Last edited Sat May 24, 2014, 10:59 AM - Edit history (1)

I read the article in-full, and am not impressed. Ta-Nehisi Coates plays fast and loose with time scales, conflating German reparations in the decade following WW2 (just one example of this among many) with a call for American reparations more than a century and a half after slavery ended.

Also, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes as if the oppression of African Americans was the only oppression perpetrated by the US government during the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries. But of course that was not the case. While slavery was indeed a "peculiar institution" and it and institutionalized racism are particularly horrible ones at that, during the post-emancipation years of the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries, American oligarchs exploited the poor and vulnerable of all races as much as they could. Often, the oligarchs have gotten their way by playing poor whites against blacks, blacks against Jews, natives against immigrants, absolutely everybody they could against unions, etc., etc.

Worst of all, Ta-Nehisi Coates seems willfully blind to the destruction of 99% solidarity that a call for reparations will bring about. You want to see white union members, Hmong immigrant communities, Latino activists, and many other essential allies in the 99% distance themselves from the African American community? A call for reparations will do that. Even Ta-Nehisi Coates tacitly acknowledges this when he mentions how the ACA Medicare expansion has been tarred by haters such as Limbaugh as a special favor to the blacks. If a colorblind, mildly-progressive program such as that can be denigrated as such, imagine the fury that an actual reparations program would engender. Meanwhile, too many potential allies in solidarity will abandon a movement that focuses on reparations towards one race, for one subset of exploitation and oppression. At this point in time, we need solidarity and ideas that build common cause, not fractional identity politics.

There are many other ways that we could 'lift all boats.' Racism is a real issue in America, and deserves to be confronted head-on as a part of any reform and progress. But there is a big difference between necessary anti-racist actions and the needless kicking of multiple hornets' nests and alienation of essential allies at once.

-app