The Case for Reparations
The article, “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates looks into the inequality and harassment of African Americans in the USA years after slavery was abolished, and considers the cruelty and hostility that was not only perpetrated by white individuals in the society but also administered by the Jim Crow administration. The author draws his insights from the untold stories of victims such as Clyde Ross, who had the rug pulled under their feet with no legislative protection they could turn to proclaim what was stolen. Clyde Ross’ family presents one of the thousands of black families in the early 190s who had settled well into the American society following the abolishing of slave trade and slavery and had worked hard to provide for their families. Ross’ parents had risen to become one of the most productive and influential farmers in Mississippi, having created immense wealth for the generation.
The author equates the family’s resources to present-day business tycoons who enjoy such luxuries as Cadillac SUVs and mansionettes. However, the author is quick to note how the Jim Crow laws dismantled the peace that had formed in America, following the Reconstruction era that bought to restore white supremacy in the American South. Coates observes how the election periods were the most dreaded in the lives of AfricanAmericans since they were not only denied their right to vote, but the little say they had in administrative matters was manipulated through the control the whitesupremacy had over them. Such authority and supremacy were propagated by the hijacking of the elections systemsengineered through the trickery of the poll tax. In most parts, African Americans were held at gunpoint and lynched to keep them from voting. The rising discrimination and alienation in the South not only disrupt the election systems, but it also returned black Americans into slavery.
Coates considers how the Ross family lost all of their wealth and returned in debt peonage. The Mississippi state regime under the Jim Crow laws combined robbery of the black franchise with theft of the purse, which means that not only were the rights of the black Americans withdrawn, but their resourceswere taken away as well. Farmers such as Clyde’s father not only lost their hard-earned status and resources, but they were subjected back to their former landlords, employers, and primary merchants. In pushing for a national reparation, the author considers the magnitude of the wrongs committed to the black community, and how difficult it will be to make things right. After centuries of slavery, the author presents almost another century of Jim Crow, under which all black Americans lost the status they had acquired, and whatever retributions they received following the abolishment of the slave trade and slavery.
The black community equally suffered 35 years of racist housing policies, which made it difficult for African Americans to own homes, despitetheir financial capabilities.Coates uses the case of Clyde Ross, who had lived through the Jim Crow, and whose father had lived through slavery, to point out the tribulations of the lack of access to a mortgage plan in Chicago. The author calls on the moral judgment of the white population in America, calling them to consider the enormous moral debt the country owes to the black community. Coates closes his argument by urging America to embrace and own up its past mistakes, posing that holistic healing can only be achieved through a reckoning with the compounding national moral debts.