An Introduction to Reparations
May 2020 our family made the decision to move from Brazil to America, during a pandemic. On October 31st of that same year, the four of us arrived with 8 suitcases. We went from being American (me), Jamaican (my husband), and Brazilian (our daughters), to being white, Black, and “What are you?”
Back in May, I started preparing for our move. I started writing what turned into the book “Check the Box: Conversations with our kids about our multicultural history and family.” About half way through writing and learning and growing, I started studying and understanding the heavy word “Reparations.” I got so into it that I wrote 4 chapters in the book about it. And then I took them out. Because after 4 chapters into it I realized I had no clue about how to write about Reparations.
Instead, I finished the book, and kept reading and learning. And now I REALLY know I don’t know how to move the subject forward in a tangible, viable way. But I am ready to talk about what I’ve learned and the baby steps to talk about that I think are important for those of us that find ourselves in this group called “White Evangelical Christians.”
Reparations is a huge conversation, so I’ve broken it down into three parts: introduction, A Biblical basis, and my personal thoughts. Each one will have some resources for you to further study, as I have just begun, and certainly don’t have all of the answers. I would ask that as you learn and talk about reparations, understand that there are many, many different parts and facets to it—like letters of the alphabet.
Most people want to skip to the end of the conversation, and most of the time that shuts the whole thing down. Let’s say, for this conversation, that letter z represents “Giving cash to descendants of American slaves.” That is part of the conversation—but only one part, and probably the most tricky part. Let’s start with letter a,b,c and work from there. We can disagree about different letters in the alphabet conversation of reparations: but please don’t let that mean that we don’t have the conversation at all.
While the principle of reparations is pretty understandable (my young daughters understand when they argue and hurt each other and mom says, “Make it right!” What they need to do), how to carry it out is very complex and confusing for many different reasons. The first main problem being that the more TIME and DISTANCE from the EVENT (in this case, slavery), the more muddled the answers are.
Assuming that the principle of reparations is true and Biblical (see this for more detail), then the first question is, have reparations ever been made? The second question would be: if not, does the offending action’s results go away on their own? And then the third question: if not, do reparations still need to be made today? As a “fixer,” my mind then has a fourth question: if so, HOW do we do reparations?
In our current culture, while listening to conversations about racial issues, I have clearly seen a culture clash between individualistic thought (very common in white culture) and collectivist thought (very common in Black culture). Where an individualist may think “There is a statistically low rate of police brutality,” about an event, a collectivist may think “if it happens to one, it happens to all” about the same event. This leads to “Us verses Them” battle lines being drawn really quickly. Compound trauma over racial issues also changes the discussion and the solutions.
I think it is easy to get overwhelmed with this conversation really quickly. I also think it is easier to “pass the buck” off to the government, and tell them to solve this problem. The government does have responsibility, and should be a part of the process, but it doesn’t start there. A quote I heard from Terry Pratchett, “Even if it’s not your fault, it is your responsibility.” I firmly believe that it is time for us as Jesus’s bride, the church, to stand up and claim responsibility for this open wound that has never been resolved.
I personally see direct problems passed down from slavery that continue to have results today in the areas of education, prisons, housing, lending/investing, and trauma/healing. These are specific areas that need many different solutions put forward by the Black community themselves, with the agency to carry them out. I will give some of my humble suggestions on this here.
Taj James says, “White supremacy is built on two lies: separation and supremacy.” The opposite would be community/togetherness and humility/vulnerability. The opposite of thinking we are better than someone isn’t thinking we are worse than them: it is realizing that we need them. It is being vulnerable and open in a reciprocal relationship.
As you can see, you have no clear path to “how to” reparations from this blog. You certainly do not have any answers to letter z. You might not even agree with the premise of reparations. But for me, my God is a God of redemption. That’s His big plan. And I, as a little piece of that, being redeemed to Him through no merit of my own, gave my life to Him to do His work in the world. He calls me to redeem the relationships and situations in my own little world. To “make it right” and to bring them to Him for healing. And that is what reparations is to me. As Kwon and Thompson put it, “Reparations is, at its most basic, a call to be a neighbor.”
