Reparations and Racial Inequality

 

Racial inequality has stained human history for decades. Even in today's modern day and age, there are numerous acts of racial injustices that happen every day. One of the biggest groups of people who have suffered from harsh racial injustice is the African American community. Despite the abolishment of slavery and Jim Crow laws, the remnants of racial discrimination still lingers in association with those who are African American. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/10/race-inequality-disparity-audit-bme-women-britain

Because of the hundreds of years of hate that the African American community has had to suffer, they deserve justice. However, how do we punish slaveholders from the past who are currently dead? Their actions from long ago still have negative effects on the black community today, however, there is no way to punish them now. Furthermore, I believe that no one today should be forced to pay these reparations since it was not their actions that encouraged slavery. 

So...how do we go about paying Reparations?

In his article, Reparations and Racial Inequality, Derrick Darby argues that one way to approach this problem of paying reparations of racial inequality is "by shifting our focus away from the normative ideal of corrective justice and toward the normative ideal of freedom as self-development" (Darby 64). He argues that we should focus on other alternatives of black reparations that do not depend on specific causes of racial injustices. Monetary reparations is simply not enough to account for all the racial injustices that have occurred. Instead of focusing on the past horrors and how to amend those, we should be focusing on intangible reparations such as "self-development" and reinstating a sense of self-worth in the African American population. 

I agree with his argument in the sense that something needs to be done to repair the years of damage that inequality has effected black people. I don't necessarily agree with his belief to disregard past injustices however. Those actions were monumental in history and their effects still linger today, and for those reasons I do not think it is reasonable to completely disregard them. I also think that reinstating the idea of self-worth and getting to the foundation of the problem today, is crucial; however, some actions must also be taken to help repair the consequences and damage of racial inequalities from the past. Whether that be monetarily or on another form, unfortunately I am not sure, but I do strongly believe that something must be done to repay for what the black community has lost.