Reparations?

Now that we have covered that it is more likely that you have connections to slavery than not, you may still feel very strongly that it is not your fault. Besides, you are barely making it as things are; how can you try and make up for that?

I do not disagree with you.

You are not responsible for the choices of anyone else. 

However, there may be ways in which you are benefiting from the choices of other people.

Keeping the mortgage paid is hard, but the reason I have the opportunity to do it is because my father served in the military and was able to get a VA loan. There were many Black men who served and could not get those loans; were not even eligible to get houses in certain areas, or for affordable rates.

That doesn't make me rich, and I could say a lot about what is wrong with the current mortgage system, but we still have a roof over our heads and don't have to get a landlord's approval for our pets. No one can arbitrarily raise the rent because of high demand (though I do get quite a few predatory offers from buyers).

In my situation, what can I do about the people who have not had those opportunities due to skin color and due to slavery?

That is a good questions and the answer may be "not much", but I do believe that a someone who cares about others, and someone trying to follow Jesus Christ which I can best do by being full of charity toward others, I believe I should be open to those inequities being repaired.

As a student of history, I also believe that these effects have an impact on us, whether we are aware of them or not.

One of the more annoying writers on Black history is Leon F. Litwack, who is always so quick to sympathize with the oppressors. Therefore, in Been In The Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery he spends an inordinate amount of time on white plantation mistresses who were now overwhelmed with caring for such large homes after never having had to work in their lives. 

A life built on exploiting others gave them more than they needed, and more than they could care for with their own resources, but left them resentful, without any empathy for those they had once owned.

Then, of course, the next step was finding ways to re-enslave and continue to control.

Today, in the age of billionaires, there are people who have more than they could ever use. Since it still does not feel like enough, they keep looking for more ways to exploit and wring and grasp, in ways that damage the Earth and many of its inhabitants. I could give examples, but then it becomes more about capitalism.

I can go off on capitalism for a long time, but I think these are the important points for today:

1. The oppression that happens to others moves up. I would hope that we could care enough about others that their suffering would be enough motivation for us to work on that, but if self-interest helps us here, fine: it is in your self-interest to fight oppression even when it does not center you.

2. A society where this oppression is allowed has a bad effect upon all of the members, including a hardening of hearts and a bad increase of pride with a lack of gratitude for the ways in which you have been blessed.

3. Where a sense of fairness and history should be helpful, conservative forces are working hard to obscure that history. They will make excuses like that it will hurt the self-esteem of white kids. No, it may change their view of some of their ancestors or of U.S. History, but that's okay; there can be pain on the way to the truth, but that is also something we believe in.

In terms of the best way to repair, there can be reasonable room for debate. That refusal to even consider inequity, the harm it causes, and how to repair it...

that is not appropriate for followers of Jesus Christ. We should believe in the work of healing, in seeking knowledge, and in humility, even though it is sometimes hard.

Related posts:
 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/09/reparations-happy-hour_19.html