Dear Dean Magazine: December 22, 2022

P A R T 2 : S Y S T E M I C
R E P A R A T I O N S
400 years of systemic racism demands that
reparations are also systemic. Too often the most
common association with the word “reparations”
is “cash payout.”
And though there will be a cash payout, systemic
racism demands systemic reparations to address
hundreds of years of racism throughout all
segments of society that specifically targeted and
harmed Black people and which continue to
prevent Black people from being fully actualized
citizens.
People who are against reparations are often
quoted saying “Money can’t solve all the problems
in the Black community.”
They are partially correct. Money “alone” won’t
solve centuries of systemic racism.
We will further explore the “Governing the Money”
in next week’s post, but for now we will look at
reparations from the areas of society that have
harmed, are harming, and which will continue to
harm Black people if present inequities are not
addressed.
Black citizens have been targeted in every way
imaginable in America, from where we live, home
loans, credit interest rates, and public-school
funding, to wages, healthcare, small business
loans, and of course enforcement of the laws.
It is for these and other reasons any talk of
reparations must involve aggressively addressing
the inequities designed into society that have
harmed Black people’s ability to earn money, raise
standards of living, and to build generational and
transferable wealth.
The comprehensiveness and thoroughness of
racism necessarily invites remedies that address
the inequities we’re all familiar with and which
We know Black labor enriched America and much of
the western world. Labor that was free to white
people, but which exacted centuries of wealth and
life from Black people.
What is the value of the wealth Black people created
during centuries of enslavement, a century of Jim
Crow, and another sixty years since the Civil Rights
Act was passed when we were and are underpaid?
And it is not only free labor that demand reparations,
but also lost lives, low and underpaid wages, lost
land, and of course the cost of violence perpetrated
on women, men, and children. Violence that includes
rape, lynchings, and stealing babies/children, among
other atrocities.
have negative value that can be immediately
corrected to provide relief and reparations to
Some experts have theorized enslavement alone
Black people who have long suffered the
could be worth $10-15 trillion dollars. But as
indignities the policies were designed to harm.
mentioned above reparations demand far more
DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | p.12