New Zealand has legally recognized animals as sentient beings and the United States of America still can’t wrap its head around equality for all humans.
Here’s what I believe, and what I hope is true for the majority of my country: We still hold these truths to be self-evident:
- That all people are created equal and should be endowed with certain unalienable rights;
- That to preserve these rights we form government, a social construct that derives its powers from the consent of the governed;
- And that when the government becomes destructive to the people who so consented, they can amend, alter, or abolish that government so that the social construct once again serves the needs of the people and protects their rights.
The first time such sentiments were published, the black people in America were not considered people. This is a frightening concept to embrace, because it is repugnant, abhorrent to most of us who have been raised since the Civil Rights movement. And yet, the oppression of black lives continued after the Civil Rights and Voting Acts were signed. Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush contributed substantially to the state of racial injustice that exists today by reframing the war on blacks as a “war on drugs” or a “war on crime.” Trump’s open hostility has exacerbated it.
Once we truly acknowledge this, then we have a moral imperative to make deep changes to how we, as a nation, function—from the institutional level down to the personal level. If we feel that wrong, that debt, then it is upon us to make reparations.
“Reparations” is a frightening word. If we tried to make good on old promises, then every descendant of enslaved Africans in this country would be owed 40 acres and a mule, or whatever the financial equivalent is in 2020 dollars. The cost of reparations would be trillions of dollars.
And the truth is that we cannot afford true reparations. There is not enough wealth to redistribute. Poor and middle-class whites fear it will be taken out of their paychecks and prospects. We know that the wealthy, powerful whites have tax havens for their money and multiple avenues for escape when the revolution comes.
If we cannot offer true reparations what can we provide?
I think the first thing we can provide is a sincere apology for not having spoken up since 1970. For seeing the results of Nixon’s “war on crime” and failing to connect it to the same racist system that Dr. King fought against. For accepting Reagan’s bullshit “war on drugs” when drugs were not the problem we needed to deal with in the 80s. For applauding when Clinton militarized the police in the 90s, without thinking about the disproportional impact black lives. For allowing Bush to leave every child behind in the 00s while he conducted two wars with consequences for men of color. For nominating and electing Trump in 2016.
The second thing we can do is become a part of a solution. I’m not talking about standing up with our black friends and neighbors in their protests, although that’s a good thing to do. I’m talking about being willing to help change the system that has benefited us.
Our Constitutional democracy needs an overhaul, and all hands on deck to re-imagine and rebuild it, and vote for the people who can execute it. We have to listen with humility, not hubris, to what others say they need to see in our government. We have to help think through how to best make those things happen. We have to give up some advantages when we do. The old, classist, capitalist system won’t bring our society back into balance.
It will be a long, frightening, and tiresome road. At the end of it, there may not be material profit. But there will be fairness, justice, and a sense of satisfaction, perhaps, in creating a system that can support the pursuit of happiness of all Americans.
morementum 