Reparations: the value of justice

What a time to bring up reparations.

Isn't the United States broke and post-racial? The economy is staggering, and we're in the midst of a presidential campaign in which the leading candidate is biracial.

But there at Seattle Center all day Saturday around 300 people talked about the debts the U.S. owes to many of its citizens, and how it has dealt with them. The Seattle Race Conference has been held each fall for the past six years. The main topic changes, but the central purpose remains to organize and encourage efforts to eradicate racism. It's a boost to people who are involved in the movement.

There were quite a few college students and other young people, local government employees, educators, and longtime activists. Probably not too many people who just woke up and said, hey, I think I'd like to spend my Saturday talking about racism.

For most people it's always the wrong time to talk about racism, white supremacy, or inequality. Which is why we are still afflicted with the consequences of America's early sins, while we wait for time to work its magic.

But the idea of reparations does get people talking. What it means is repairing, making up for a wrong or injury. The idea is built into our legal systems and into our genes. You break it, you fix it.

For instance, 20 years ago Congress approved an official government apology and reparations for thousands of Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II.

A recipient of that payment spoke Saturday, as did a Holocaust survivor. Native Americans, Mexican Americans, African Americans were represented too. Each story was different, each experience of America different.

No group thought money itself was enough to make up for the harm done.

In the case of African Americans, it's much too late for individual compensation to have any meaning. But the idea of reparations gets people talking, and might even spur some collective action to address current problems.

Ray Winbush, the keynote speaker, a psychologist and director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University, said honest talk about racism would be a big step toward healing. We have a lot of distortions to clear up.

The historian James Horton says our problem today is not the problem of slavery, it is the lingering problem of the distortion of reality that was necessary to justify slavery in a nation of high ideals and Christian faith.

America created an image of the enslaved that is still embedded in people's minds — lazy, dumb, dangerous, inferior; and made whiteness the residence of most good qualities.

That's why people can tolerate disparities in education, criminal justice, poverty. What else would we expect?

Different assumptions wouldn't let us rest while that kind of injustice continued.

Barack Obama tries to be post-racial, but racism stalks him. His campaign and our economic trials give us reason to reconsider our values and the assumptions we take for granted.

This is the right time to talk about justice.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.