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Title: Should America Pay? : Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations by Raymond Winbush ISBN: 0-06-008310-7 Publisher: Amistad Press Pub. Date: 21 January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Ray Winbush Responds
Comment: As editor of "Should America Pay?: Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations", I thought it might be helpful to answer one criticism that has been consistent about the book, but is better understood after a little background information is provided.
I would classify the essays in the book under three broad categories: 1) those who favor reparations, 2) those who oppose them and 3) those who simply present the facts about the issue.
Several people have commented about why there are so few articles from those who oppose them. While compiling the book, we asked several persons who were opposed to reparations for Africans in America to write and they simply said there was little legal, empirical or otherwise substantive research about why reparations *shouldn't* be made for Africans in America! Simply put, the arguments *against* reparations for Africans in America simply are weak. and are more emotional than logical. The oppositional essays included in the book are from three writers (and a fourth from an "embedded" David Horowitz in Christopher Hitchens' essay) who are simply the best voices out there.
I approached a major conservative "think tank" (which I will leave nameless) about having one of their senior researchers write an essay for the book and was told that the "issue had been studied" but that "they" (the institution's researchers) could not mount a legal argument *against* reparations that was empirically based.
I think if one follows the "logic" of reparations for Africans in America s/he they will come to the conclusion (as both supporters and opposers to reparations have) that it is based in solid legal theory, international law as well as historical precedent, e.g., Nuremburg.
Finally, "Should America Pay?" was recently submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court as a "friends of the court" document involving the University of Michigan affirmative action case because of its comprehensive inclusion of views concerning compensatory measures for Africans in America. It is a book that if one reads it, will provide strong historical and legal evidence for the unpunished crime against humanity in the United States --- slavery. Read it with an open mind and you will see that not only are reparations due Africans in America, they will happen because it is the logical step in moving toward an honest discussion about racism (white supremacy) in the United States.
Rating: 4
Summary: Drinking from a single fountain - America comes face to face
Comment: SHOULD AMERICA PAY?:
Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations
Edited by Raymond A. Winbush, Ph.D
I really should have read this book. The fact that I know and am a fan of the editor, not withstanding.
The book " SHOULD AMERICA PAY?: Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations" is challenging, informative and insightful. The contributors were thoughtful and experienced. The documents of important legal ramifications are well worth the cost of the book itself to enhance a home library. What makes the book outstanding, however, is the clarity in which Winbush crafted his recognition of previously understood factors. One is that that the issue of reparations is complex for both Black and white Americans and for people on both sides of the issue and that reparations for American slaves of Africa has international contemporary relevance and world implications. If the issues presented in this book were to be successfully mediated, worlds Black and white, African and non-African, Western and European will be turned upside down. Until I finished reading this book I never understood how scary the notion reparations really should be. Nor did I understand how logical it should be. The book offers carefully balanced views, but extremely diverse voices within each of those groups.
Winbush and this focused collection place the issue of reparation in a cogent legal, cultural, global, political and human landscape. It is not too intellectual that it forgets that the slavers lashes still sting yet, not too soft that the complex legal and economic logistics are lost.
It provides the stuffing for both personal and collective challenges to the notion of oppression and white supremacy and how it works in this country, as well in other oppressive, inhumane commercial and cultural ventures. While you may not know what are the compromises that you might want to make on your personal feelings about reparations, once you have read the book, there is no more room for decisive internal arguing and personal political denial.
Shelby Steele, one of the contributors to the anthology reveals an intellectual sharpness to which we have become accustomed, while at the same time, a Black uncertainty that we already suspected. His commentary is as if we were listening to the morning shave dialogue between a man and a stranger who involuntarily appears in the mirror. On the other hand, if you want an iron shut case with the IRS, the man to crunch your numbers is Kevin Outterson, a tax law specialist, who gives hard numbers on the cost of slavery. His presence in this compilation gives Winbush thumbs up for having the insight to understand that most people need the cost/benefit analysis as the infrastructure to even consider the concept. A relatively new comer to the larger public eye, Christopher Hitchens seems to have perfected the cogency of the reparation opposition argument
This book should be read by every person on the planet who says that they have an interest in human or civil rights, American history or justice. It should be required reading for ninth graders and should be in the home library of any family that wishes to be enlightened about the role of history in current events.
Once an individual understands the history of human rights in the landscape of the history of American slave trade, the "no-question" of reparation becomes more manageable and less bulky. This book is a tremendous start in configuring such a context. Does it go far enough, does it compromise the brutality of slavery and its continuing legacy? Does it promise to be the political key to the greater global dialogue? No and yes. What this book does do is to whet the appetite more than enough to entice the reader to think that there is more here than an overwhelming outrageousness or the quick and easy dismissal of the "new Black Mau-Mau".
I walked away, validating most of what I already had decided about my position on reparations. Reading the book made my position less cluttered and less tainted by commercial media accounts, outmoded and ill-informed political and romanticized notions of the challenge and meaning of the reparation issue. It also helped me to unveil and shrug off the shackles and remaining remnants created by years of segregated Southern school racist history texts and "Negrotized" cultural education. Such a background easily affords to loose the uneasiness of embracing and facing the shame and injury. Reading this book, I feel more the ready to defend my position and to articulate the real case for reparation and stand confidently on the question and argument of whether America should pay.
Finally, tears ran down my face as I read the contribution made by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. I wept in gratitude and in awe for his unwavering compassion and love for Black people. He believed in us, when we sometimes forgot to believe in ourselves. We sometimes forget what activist like him forfeit to speak our pain. And for my Father who would have marveled that real people, in real places have given real and serious thought to the question of the slaves.
Kudos offered to Raymond Winbush. He shows insight and vision; the gift of listening and hearing and the touch of a maestros well-loved baton in bringing together the diverse voices important to this issue. It is not altogether easy to be the mediator in an argument in the family when the family consists of millions of members.
Rating: 3
Summary: My Opinion and Solution
Comment: The author of this book does indeed have a preacher-choir mentality in his attempts to justify reperations to african americans. the problem i have with this notion is that 1) contrary to popular opinion, middle and lower class blacks would benefit very little from this class action lawsuit. granted, Johnny Cochran would benefit and Jesse Jackson would benefit, but blacks as a whole would not benefit much at all and by the time this lawsuit DESTROYS any hope of true diversity in light of martin luther king's message, blacks would end up feeling victimized yet again. 2) another problem with the reperations argument is that it fails to take into account the actions of the government in trying to help blacks get back on to their feet. these actions include the civil war and the creation of the welfare system. there is great value of both these things that reperations fails to account for.
THE SOLUTION:
In my opinion, the issue of reperations must be dealt with but not in terms of money. Personally, i believe there is a great risk of ruining any shread of dignity that blacks have left. i believe that blacks should be given land to resolve this dispute in a manner similar to which the indians were given land. this method would greatly lessen the problem of ghettos and the inner city crime as well as allow blacks to self govern themselves on a community basis. the government owns millions of acres in the midwest and would have no problem allocating much of it to african americans. through this land allocation, blacks would benefit as a people and not as individuals. that is the ultimate goal that must not be lost sight of.
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Title: The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks by Randall N. Robinson ISBN: 0452282101 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 02 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Reparations: The Case for Black Reparations by Boris I. Bittker ISBN: 0807009814 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Uncivil Wars: The Controversy over Reparations for Slavery by David Horowitz ISBN: 1893554449 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: December, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Warrior Method : A Parents' Guide to Rearing Healthy Black Boys by Raymond Winbush ISBN: 0380792753 Publisher: Amistad Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land by Randall Robinson ISBN: 0525947582 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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