In attempted compliance with President Donald J Trump’s executive order to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in federal workplaces, the Defense Intelligence Agency paused the observance of Black History Month, as well as other observances such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pride Month, and Holocaust Remembrance Day on the federal level. This is a blatant attempt at erasing history in America – and we must fight to continue not just to recognize it but to address it.
As a young Black woman, seeing these initiatives is frightening – recognizing my history and its impact on my race today is vital. According to census.gov, “Black individuals made up 20.1% of the population in poverty in 2022 but only 13.5% of the total population.” America’s history of slavery and segregation is what landed us on the poor soil we’re in today. According to the State of California Department of Justice, “Over the 200-plus years of slavery, enslavers extracted an estimated $14 trillion of free labor from enslaved people.”After abolition, ex-slaves had to build their lives from scratch in a world filled with segregation and racism that wanted nothing to do with them if it didn’t help them profit.
An example of this is redlining – the denial or overcharging for financial home assistance such as mortgages and home insurance based on discriminatory beliefs. Black people were not allowed to buy the homes that white people could, so as home prices rose, those with those homes built generational wealth, leaving Black citizens behind. While this occurred in the 1930s, these effects are evident in the livelihoods of Black Americans today. According to the Washington Post, “The 2019 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances shows that 45 percent of Black families own their homes, with a median home value of $150,000. That compares with a 73.7 percent homeownership rate for White families, with a median home value of $230,000.”
So, how can two centuries of racism, injustice, and segregation be fixed? According to Chinwe Oniah – writer, journalist, and visual storyteller based in the Bay Area – it can’t. “If the country were to pay back every single cent owed to descendants of enslaved people, that would effectively mean giving the country over to Black folks. There’s not a reality that we can imagine where that is possible,” said Oniah. There is also the psychological effect slavery has had on the community. Oniah continued, “It’s not just the loss in wages. There is a cultural, there is a physical, there is a psychological effect that has happened as a result of slavery and that has been perpetuated for generations to where we are today.”
What we as a community can do is look for ways to make things better for those who were wronged through reparations. Reparations are making amends for wrongdoings by compensating those impacted through money or other forms of aid. Luckily for us in California, steps have been being taken to get to that better tomorrow. On September 30th, 2020, Assembly Bill 3121 (AB 3121) was enacted, establishing the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. This task force was to “study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans, with a special consideration for African Americans who are descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States.” The state of California has made strides in the issue of reparations for the African-American community, and we as a society must continue to try and compensate to the greatest of our ability to make up for a fraction of the pain the U.S. has caused.
Some believe that we don’t deserve it. Youth Leadership Institute Program Coordinator Salem Boulware says, “The main argument against it is that those people aren’t alive so there’s no need for reparations. But those effects are very much still felt in just about any system in America: in the criminal justice system, in housing, schooling, and obviously the economy. With every other aspect, you can draw a direct line to the enslavement of Africans and their descendants.” The African American community deserves reparations for our troubling history in America, and it’s the belief that we don’t that makes it hard to create change.
In light of the current controversy over Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs, this urgency toward the fight for reparations may seem like a long shot. But it’s our job as American citizens not just to know about this history, but to use the power of knowledge to get to the root of the issue and resolve it so that systemic poverty stops eating away at us like a parasite. If we as a society truly acknowledged the effects of slavery and segregation on the Black community today, reparations wouldn’t be in our distant future; it would be our reality. Whether or not you believe that systemic economic inequality for the Black community can ever be fully repaid, we must get to the root of the issue to provide the relief that is owed. We can’t change the past, but we must create a better future for Black Americans who have been wronged by this nation for centuries.