By Sahil Handa
Friday, June 21, 2019
Picture the scene: A young man walks into a congressional
hearing to offer witness testimony. His grandfather was barbarically brutalized
by people who are now long dead. The nation in which he resides built its
wealth of his grandfather’s brutalization. The question: Should his fellow
citizens pay the young man his overdue inheritance?
He begins his speech by honoring his grandfather’s
suffering: Nothing he will say is intended to lift responsibility from those
who caused it. But he goes on to say that he does not believe he should collect
on his grandfather’s debts, because he does not want justice for the dead at
the price of the living. He sees millions of people in his country struggling
to afford the means to survive, and others’ lives being wasted as they languish
in prison cells. He sees citizens shooting each other on the streets as police
numbers dwindle, and schools too poor to offer their students the chance to
succeed. These injustices, he argues, are more pressing than his own
grievances. He comes from a privileged household in the suburbs and attends an
Ivy League school. Many of those who would be forced to pay him deserve his
compassion, not his financial demands.
This congressional hearing occurred on Tuesday, June 20,
2019. What I did not mention was that the young man happened to be black, and
that he did not only speak on his own behalf, but on behalf of the estimated 15
million black Americans who share his view. His name was Coleman Hughes, and he
argued that his country should not pay reparations for slavery — that debts
should be paid to those who were once affected by Jim Crow, but not to those
who have suffered no harm. For this, he was booed, but he persisted through the
taunts. He has since been labelled a traitor,
an Uncle
Tom, and a coon.
Ta-Nehisi Coates was one of those asked to testify for
the opposing view. The accomplished writer contended that reparations are the
only way that the United States can come to terms with its stained history.
Every one of its institutions stole from the African American community. The
nation’s financial accounts are not bound by generations, but by a collective
enterprise. If a person has benefitted from America’s shores, he has a duty to
help the descendants of those whose exploitation created them. Reparations are
tantamount to a thief returning his stolen goods.
Coates’s testimony was treated with a round of applause
in the room. He has since been hailed as a courageous hero who dared speak
truth to power. The people who have not praised Coates include those who are
currently homeless, starving, incarcerated, or uneducated. Because, even if
they received reparations, those facts would remain the same.
When he stepped into the room, Coleman Hughes knew what
he was doing. He knew that many members of his country would accuse him of
defending white supremacy, and that he would leave the room with fewer friends
and numerous life opportunities closed. But he delivered his testimony because
he was asked to state what he believed. He delivered his testimony because he
did not want millions to be turned into victims and perpetrators without their
consent.
One can debate the merits of the arguments for and
against reparations. One can label them impractical, immoral, previously paid,
or pressingly necessary. But one must never debate whether a person’s skin
color ought to determine his view. Because nothing — I repeat, nothing — could
be more disgustingly racist.
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