What Is Owed?

Saraya Wintersmith [00:00:00] In this episode, we're talking pretty candidly about race. Now, if you've stuck with this up to this point, you've definitely heard it come up more than once or twice. That's because race is at the root of this reparations conversation. It was the early ideas of race that allowed for the first harms against black people, starting with the transatlantic slave trade. It was the exploitation of people based on race that created and maintained a massive imbalance in wealth and power, and it was the mechanism of systematic racism that defined centuries of race based discrimination, both state sanctioned and culturally enforced. So across U.S. history, race has been a very powerful idea, which is why we're talking with the scholar who has spent much of his career trying to address the effects of racism on U.S. society. Ibram X Kendi is founding director of the center for Anti-Racist research and professor of history at Boston University. He's also a bestselling author of several books, including How to Be an Anti-Racist. And as it turns out, Kendi has done a lot of thinking about race and reparations. In fact, he says, you can't deal with either issue without also addressing the other.

Ibram X Kendi [00:01:24] What I would ask for Americans who claim they're committed to racial equality and know the importance of wealth and opportunity within this system, how do you create? How do you eliminate the growing racial wealth gap without a policy like reparations? It's impossible.

Ibram X Kendi [00:01:42] So I wanted to share the conversation we had in hopes of trying to address the underpinnings of America's so-called original sin. I'm Soraya Winter Smith. This is what is owed.

Pre-Roll

Saraya Wintersmith [00:00:00] So to start, you're approaching this conversation as a leading thinker on anti-racism and moving society towards greater equity. How is reparations a part of this concept?

Ibram X Kendi [00:00:13] For me. I don't know of another policy proposal that has the capacity to eliminate the racial wealth gap. Obviously wealth is cumulative. If certain communities were denied access to jobs and wealth building, communities and others were given preferential treatment. You know, at some point our nation has to acknowledge that history and make amends and repair the persisting disparities that exists.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:00:47] To your point about the nation acknowledging its wrongs and trying to make good. We know that the United States has offered reparations at least twice before. Once in the 1980s, in response to Japanese internment, and then again through the National Indian Claims Commission. I'm curious, in your view, what lessons can we draw from those situations, and are they even fair or relevant models to consider when we think about the struggle for reparations for black people?

Ibram X Kendi [00:01:19] I mean, certainly I think there are similarities and and distinctions, but I think the lessons that we can draw is that there's a precedent for the United States not only acknowledging its racial injustice, but also seeking to make amends financially.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:01:43] It might surprise you to hear the U.S. has paid reparations before. In 1946, Congress formed the Indian Claims Commission as a way for indigenous tribes to raise their reparations claims with the U.S. government. Land claims were the main issue as many tribes sought to get their land back. But the commission instead offered financial compensation. Several tribes also got the Commission to reaffirm and enforce old treaties that the U.S. government had previously signed. Dealing with territorial borders or other matters. By the time the commission ended in 1978, it had allocated over $800 million to settle more than 500 separate claims by tribal entities. Then there's the other time the U.S. ended up having to pay reparations. That time, it was to Japanese Americans.

Milton Eisenhower [00:02:41] When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Our West Coast became a potential combat zone, living in that zone where more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two thirds of them American citizens. One third aliens.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:02:56] You're hearing Milton Eisenhower, brother of then general and later President Dwight Eisenhower. This clip is from a 1943 film. World War Two was still raging at the time. And in it, he explains the government's justification to incarcerate Japanese people on American soil.

Milton Eisenhower [00:03:17] No one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if Japanese forces should try to invade our shores. Military authorities therefore determined that all of them, citizens and aliens alike, would have to move.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:03:33] And this decision received overwhelming support. A poll from the time showed about 90% of Americans backed the internment of Japanese immigrants, and nearly 60% supported the removal of Japanese American citizens. The resulting imprisonment of more than 100,000 Japanese people in the U.S. caused them to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. It would be almost 40 years before Congress would try to remedy that action. In 1988, with the passing of the Civil Liberties Act. By 1992, the government had given checks to 80,000 living detainees, $20,000 each. Records from the time show that the total amounted to about $1.6 billion.

Ibram X Kendi [00:04:22] And so the question then becomes, why has the United States been willing to do it in those instances, and not as a result? And not in the instance of of African-Americans?

Saraya Wintersmith [00:04:35] Professor Kendi, you're posing my exact next question. Why do you think it is that the government has been so resistant to offering reparations to black people?

Ibram X Kendi [00:04:46] I think there's a number of different factors. I think those who are in positions of power. To a certain extent in both political parties are opposed to reparations, whether because of their own racist ideas that the cause of economic racial inequality is the result of some deficiencies that black people hold, or whether because that would hurt them politically with centrist voters or even some, high income black voters. And so they don't have the political will or courage to support reparations. You know, I think the widespread racist idea that black people are lazy, that black people don't know how to say that pretty much black people are the cause of their own, you know, economic plight, while simultaneously, when the government, has seek to, support even in minor ways that that support wasn't necessarily justice as much as it was handouts, handouts being given to, to people who are undeserving. And so you even have some black people who are like, I don't want any handouts. I'm not knowing that they have consumed sort of racist propaganda to undermine efforts towards justice.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:06:11] You're touching on a point now that I think lurks beneath this discussion. Reparations, I think, for folks who think about it a lot. It seems transformative because it does pay a debt, but it is also an attempt to get at our nation's social hierarchy, which was built largely on white supremacy. And for anyone who disputes that, we're tracking this idea through U.S. policy, starting with slavery and the constitutional 3/5 clause, and then link legally sanctioned and socially acceptable racism. So how do you get black reparations out of a country that's built on that concept?

Ibram X Kendi [00:06:50] Well, I think through organizing and through people who are committed to to justice, being in positions of power or even creating similar conditions that ultimately led this, this nation to, and, chattel slavery, even as it was built, you know, on chattel slavery conditions.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:07:11] When can candy refers to the end of chattel slavery? He's teasing out this important detail from when President Abraham Lincoln famously signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. You probably know that the declaration granted freedom to all enslaved people in areas rebelling against the Union, aka the Confederacy. And what Kendi is calling attention to is the political landscape that led to Lincoln's decision, namely, that he was three years into fighting the southern states in the Civil War, and the Union wasn't exactly winning.

Ibram X Kendi [00:07:49] Abraham Lincoln's administration realized that the only way to save the Union in the United States was through through eliminating slavery, and he tried every which way to propose we support, slavery where it existed. But enslavers rejected that. They either wanted the Lincoln administration to allow for the extension of slavery, which for them would allow for the persisting life of slavery.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:08:18] But when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Kennedy points out, the document allowed for the acceptance of those newly freed people into the Union Army. This meant more soldiers and a moral cause to bolster war efforts.

Ibram X Kendi [00:08:33] So even the Lincoln administration, when it decided to engage in the Emancipation Proclamation, it wasn't necessarily because of a justice or even commitment to the freedom of black people. As much as Lincoln needed troops to win the Civil War, black troops. So whether it's people who were committed to to justice, to anti-racism, to creating equality or conditions that more or less force those in positions of power to provide reparations to black Americans. You know, that's how how will one day get there.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:09:04] But can be also immediately points out what's in the way.

Ibram X Kendi [00:09:07] You know, also, just very quickly, you have many white Americans who imagined that providing African-Americans reparations is literally taking money out of their bank accounts. And so they resisted, as if that's what would happen. You also have white Americans who would say that. Why are they having to pay for something that they, quote, didn't do completely, again, rejecting their own knowledge that wealth is came later and that some of the reason for them having ten times more wealth than black Americans isn't just what their generation did or what they did, but also the wealth that has been passed on as a result of the history of racism.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:09:56] And to that point, if there are some portion of white Americans viewing reparations as a zero sum game. But there also are we have to assume some portion that. Want to be anti-racist and. Move along the struggle for reparations. How are white people a part of that conversation? What's their role?

Ibram X Kendi [00:10:21] I think that the role of white Americans is hopefully, to be honest about the past, that slavery was literally a system of exploitation and the transfer of resources and wealth from enslaved people to, to, to, to enslavers in the many collateral business persons that Jim Crow to was literally a system that allowed for the hyper exploitation of black people in the transfer, you know, of wealth. And so to support reparations today is to not only acknowledge that history but want to remedy it. And it's also to recognize that. These zero sum ideas you know are false. White Americans are not going to lose and typically do not lose when black people gain. If anything, white Americans are going to gain, you know, from having a society that's more equitable.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:11:28] I want to play some tape for you now. The concern that. The zero sum game will lead some portion of white America to build up. Resentment is one that we've heard, as my partner and I have been working across this podcast, and I want to play this tape from, William Sandy Darity, the economist at Duke University. Just so you know, this clip is from an earlier episode where we talked about the possibility of violence after reparations.

Darity [00:11:58] We have, a tradition of armed violence. On the part of, disgruntled whites in the United States directed at black Americans. And so I think, unfortunately. That is a potential chain of events that could take place in the aftermath of the adoption of a reparations plan, on the part of a minority of whites in the United States, but a dangerous minority. And so I I've consistently said this is a prospect that would have to be anticipated at the point in which serious consideration is being given to reparations. And, preparations should be made, to, to prevent that from taking place.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:12:49] Ibram Kendi, what do you make of this concern?

Ibram X Kendi [00:12:52] I mean, I think it's a valid concern. I think those who oppose reparations will likely spread lies to white Americans, to their constituents, to their readers and viewers, that, quote unquote, those who are providing reparations to black people are stealing and taking money from white people to do so. They're going to take all the money you had but you worked hard for and just give it to black people who don't deserve it, who are lazy. Who's going to just spendthrift like that, obviously is going to create resentment, and that resentment is going to almost certainly turn in to violence. And so I think that that certainly has to be anticipated. I, I agree with Professor Berry, and I think one of the ways we can do so is to talk about the fact that we have, for instance, a tax code that allows wealthy individuals and corporations to literally not have to pay taxes. But nobody characterizes their ability to avoid taxes as literally stealing from white people are stealing, you know, from Americans. People normalize that. And and I think there are a number of different ways in which we can pay for reparations. And I think that that conversation about how we're paying for reparations needs to be a part of the sort of narrative around it, to push back against the almost certain lies that it's being paid for through robbing white Americans.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:14:32] I want to stay with this idea for a little bit, just because I know that it didn't come up for me until I started working on this project, and maybe it should. But you're such a scholarly person, it sounds like you are making something of the idea that there could be violent backlash if the U.S. government ever got to a place where it was willing to give reparations to black people. Do you have any ideas about what we should do in preparation of that possible outcome?

Ibram X Kendi [00:15:04] So I think, again, I think part of it is, is defending against the narratives that will. Generated backlash through putting forth an affirmative narrative as to what reparations is, why it's happening, and where the money is coming from. But I also think if we were to be in a nation that was seriously considering reparations and we literally had the power to do so, hopefully we will also be thinking about radically transforming the gun culture in this country and making it much, much harder for people to purchase, you know, so rifles and, you know, hopefully it will be combined with significant media and educational programs that allow particularly white Americans to realize that the zero sum theory, you know, is a lie, and that every time the United States has moved to provide civil and voting rights and even economic opportunity for black Americans, that it's actually benefited white people, too. And so I think all of that sort of has to be paired, I think, with a serious reparations program.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:16:24] We'll hear more from Doctor Kennedy after the break.

Mid-Roll

Saraya Wintersmith [00:00:00] When we talk about reparations, we are often talking about cash payments. But we've heard that the real goal in doing a reparations program could be repairing the country and healing centuries of harm. I wonder, in your view, how important is that aspect, the healing aspect to reparations?

Ibram Kendi [00:00:24] It's an important part. And because certainly black Americans have not just. Been subjected to. All sorts of racist exploitation, but we've also been faced with all sorts of trauma as a result of this history of racism and dispossession and extraction, and certainly providing people with money is helpful. But it's not total, you know, in their healing.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:01:00] What do you think would be the most essential part in developing sort of a national plan to move towards healing?

Ibram Kendi [00:01:08] So to me, I think that I would imagine three different components. I would say first. Deconstructing this structure of racism, which exists through a whole host of policies and practices that are maintaining racial disparities and inequities. And those disparities and inequities are literally harming people and replacing those with equitable and anti-racist policies and practices that can heal people, that can heal communities that can heal a neighborhoods. Secondly, creating an educational system. And and even a media culture that is based on actively teaching young and old people about racial equality, that no racial group is superior or inferior, that there's nothing wrong or even right about any racial group. And I think that African-Americans being able to live. For the first time in a nation that doesn't make all sorts of judgments about them because of the color of their skin, in which they can sort of see their culture and their way of life affirmed. You know, for the first time, we'll be healing. And finally creating true safety for African-Americans for the first time, in which we no longer have to fear racist violence, whether through vigilantes or police officers.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:02:48] And if you were to let your imagination run wild, or if you had a magic wand and you could conjure up. Real examples of what those three points you just described look like. What would they be?

Ibram Kendi [00:03:02] First, I think that creating a, a sort of a Medicare for all program in which everyone has access to free health care, combined with creating hospitals and medical facilities of high grade, you know, in every community in this country so that there are no more trauma deserts. There are no more situations in which people are driving bys hurt in hospitals because they know they are harmful, in which everyone, no matter in which black people who are most likely to have to live in trauma deserts or receive sort of subpar care will receive, high quality care in their communities, as with other Americans. And secondly, you know, creating an educational system, which is, let's say, similar to Germany, where kids in Germany learn about the Holocaust beginning in, in kindergarten. And our children systematically begin learning about slavery and racism in kindergarten and continue to learn about it and what it means to be anti-racist in each grade in developmentally appropriate forms. And then finally creating a, you know, a society where people don't have access to assault rifles. And we don't try to, quote, reduce or eliminate crime by more prisons and police. As much as we try to do that by thinking about the larger social conditions that are leading to people engaging in harm in violence.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:04:41] And for my last question, I'm just curious, because I've read the introduction that you wrote for How to Be an Anti-Racist, and I know that you don't like revisiting that high school oratorical competition and where you were in your journey with. I guess, sort of regurgitating racist ideas to the approval of black peers. Could you just describe your ideas about reparations and anti-racism over time? I'm absolutely certain that there must have been a journey from that point to where you are now on this issue.

Ibram Kendi [00:05:21] When I was in high school. I can't even remember having any serious conversations about reparations, but I suspect that if I did. I would probably post it as like a quote, a handout for black people. But over time, as I started to realize that sort of racist propagandists created the construct of the handout to sort of cover up the fact that white Americans were primarily receiving preferential treatment from public and private sort of policies and practices. The more I learned that there was nothing wrong with black people, and black people deserved to receive justice for the harm that they have been subjected to over the course of history. When I also learned, particularly by the time I got to graduate school, that many of the most anti-racist thinkers and activists in history were major supporters of reparations. The more I realized that reparations as a policy program was essential to radically transforming this country.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:06:37] And do you think that's a journey everyone can take?

Ibram Kendi [00:06:41] I think so, because I have yet to come across someone who is knowledgeable about American history and about present racist policies and practices, and I've yet to come across someone who truly believes that there was nothing wrong and inferior about black people. I've yet to come across somebody who believes that when things are taken from you, you should received it back. Who opposes reparations?

Saraya Wintersmith [00:07:13] Professor Ibram Kendi, thank you so much for joining us.

Ibram Kendi [00:07:17] Of course. Thank you for having me.

Saraya Wintersmith [00:07:19] It's hard to know how much of what Candy says here applies to people in Boston. The city presumably, is in a different place. I say that because in Boston, officials have already approved a task force and researchers to study the city's complicity in harming black people. And so far, there's no major opposition. There are concerns, but the public complaints about the city's efforts haven't been coming from white people. On our next episode, our last episode, we take this conversation back to where we started to Boston, and we're taking all the lessons we've learned back to the people in charge of the city's reparations effort, including task force members and Mayor Michelle Wu. What is owed is a production of GBH news. This episode was produced and written by our senior producer Jerome Campbell, along with me, Soraya Wynter Smith. Editing by Paul Singer. Production oversight by Lee Hill. Melee is our project manager and managing producer for podcasting at GBH is Devon Maverick Robins. Mixing and sound design by David Goodman and Gary Mott. Theme song and original music by Maleek Williams. Artwork by Matt Welch. And mommy, how about we love hearing from our listeners? Leave us a voicemail at 617958 6061. GBH.