At best reparations try to remedy current inequality though the past which taints current oppression --- at worst reparations are tainted by contemporary racist culture

Reparations for the outrages of the past-the holocaust of the Atlantic slave trade, the atrocities of plantation slavery, the exploitation of the sharecropping system, the indignities of segregation and the horrors of over a century of lynchings-are long overdue. Over the past decade the movement for reparations has gained in visibility and popularity. Although the movement is stronger today than it has been in the past, as a movement for social justice it is most problematic. It is problematic because even the most symbolic reparations proposals are stalled and unlikely at this point to succeed. It is problematic because racial oppression persists and because the current, dominant racist culture and prevailing socioeconomic and political arrangements stand like a brick wall between the movement and the attainment of reparations. Moreover, there are problems endemic to the movement. It has failed to address the dominant racist culture, to construct an effective counterideology and to develop the type of coalition strong enough to challenge the dominant power arrangement. At its best, this movement explains current patterns of racial inequality in terms of the past history of slavery. This explanation shifts public attention away from current problems of racial oppression. At its worse, this movement not only fails to confront present forms of racial oppression, it is tainted by the contemporary racist culture. This movement has been gaining in popularity among African Americans and growing at the same time that civil and human rights violations against them have been increasing. The call for reparations today is like the odd cry of a slave who is being brutally whipped. Instead of crying out for the immediate cessation of the whipping, the slave demands compensated for the beatings that took place years ago. The beatings must stop first. That is, the current patterns of racial oppression and repression must stop before compensation can be paid. Current patterns of racial inequality are not simple artifacts of the past. The facts that there are more African Americans on death row, more African American in prison and jail, and more African American teenagers serving life sentences without any chance of parole than ever before in U.S. history are not artifacts of past slavery. These facts are functions of current forms of state racial repression. The growth of concentrated poverty in the inner cities of Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and other older industrial areas is not a function of past slavery, but the results of current processes of racial oppression. Just as racist culture in the past legitimized the institution of slavery, racist culture today legitimizes and normalizes current patterns of racial oppression and repression. Before there can be any compensation for slavery in the past, racial oppression must end in the present. The beating of the slave must stop first, before the slave can realistically expect any compensation. The cry for reparations muffles the call for an immediate end to racial oppression. This essay reexamines the reparations movement in the larger context of contemporary patterns of racial oppression and current forms of racist culture. It does this first by reporting on the status of the reparations movement. Second, it briefly outlines current patterns of racial oppression. That is, it associates these patterns with the emergence of advanced capitalism or post-Fordism, which explains the growth of concentrated poverty and the persistence of racial inequality. It outlines forms of state repression and briefly describes contemporary racist culture. Racist culture today, as it has been in the past, legitimizes racial oppression. Finally, this essay concludes with a reassessment of the reparations movement and makes recommendations for a redirection of this movement.