I cannot fathom the pain of minority communities, nor can I internalize structural barriers to happiness. I cannot comprehend the constant feeling of discrimination; I have spent my entire life in a bubble of relative privilege — unscathed by the brutal force of law, nestled safely in the shell of white, wealthy skin. I have profited since the day I was born from the historical oppression of my outgroups, unaware of it for most of my life. Thus, as I am awakened to the world’s political realities, I must come to terms with the implications of my own condition, the reality that my existence is an emblem of elitism and injustice.
Of course, I don’t deserve empathy for being privileged — just as I cannot formulate a sufficient apology for oppressive behaviors outside my scope of influence. Rather, I am limited to my body and time period, and, presuming my opinions are constructive, I must tackle the issue of oppression to the extent provided by my own worldview. Nonetheless, as I strive to separate my intellect from my privilege, I cannot agree with prevailing opinions that racial injustices can be solved by providing material concessions, or “reparations,” to minority groups.
In a recent report, the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent argued, “The legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations… for people of African descent.” This working group suggests modern racial oppression is intrinsically linked to the phenomenon of African enslavement. Undoubtedly, this is a valid argument. American history has demonstrated a continual progression of institutional oppression against peoples of African descent, from slavery to Jim Crow to the modern criminal justice system. In fact, the recent documentary “13” attributes this progression to a single clause in the 13th Amendment, which allows institutions to oppress certain groups as “punishment for a crime,” rather than on the basis of race. The documentary argues that the vague notion of “criminality” simply became the next conduit for racial discrimination, and that our modern, bloated criminal justice system (which disproportionately incarcerates African-Americans) appears to confirm this fact.
I find it inadequate, however, to argue that this historical repression justifies an immense transfer of wealth from one race of people to another. Disproportionality is not totality; countless demographics have faced institutional oppression throughout American history and, by the same logic, may also be entitled to reparations. Most notably, by nature of socioeconomic reality, the United States has continuously undervalued the lives of those of all races and ethnicities living in poverty.
In the documentary “The House I Live In,” one of the experts interviewed calls the modern system of mass incarceration a slow holocaust against poor people. Despite its dramatic connotation, this argument appears to contain a great degree of truth; in 2014, the median annual income of prisoners prior to incarceration was $19,185. Poor individuals, some of whom may be deserving of incarceration, are clearly overrepresented in our nation’s prison system. This may be due to the countless structural barriers to happiness and social mobility pervading low-income communities, though it is also the result of the policies of greed that have possessed our representative democracy since its invention. Wealthy individuals have continuously wielded their power to preserve their socially favorable status, thereby reducing and degrading the socioeconomic conditions below them. This fact manifests itself most clearly in our so-called War on Drugs, in which drug-related arrests disproportionately target low-income communities, removing poor individuals from civil society in droves, and, in turn, prolonging the conditions that breed drug use in the first place.
Undoubtedly, the oppression of our nation’s poor overlaps with the persecution of African-Americans (who are more likely to live in poverty), though it may be counterintuitive to provide monetary reparations to one sector of this poverty-stricken population without also doing so to others (e.g., Hispanics and Native Americans). In other words, if institutional oppression is indeed the source of African-Americans’ desire for reparations, then such a policy is essentially a form of self-interested, race-based socialism — a vast redistribution of wealth that benefits one race or ethnicity at the expense of countless others, many of whom have historically lived under a similar umbrella of institutional tyranny. Even if African-Americans have experienced the worst historical transgressions, their lives should not be overvalued; we cannot remove a single race from the chains of poverty and demand consent from those who remain.
Moreover, reparations of any form would require an immense shift in our current sociopolitical system (experts estimate the cost of slavery reparations at $5.9 trillion), which is simply impossible given the limited scope of our federal government and the overwhelming influence of wealthy individuals on policymaking itself. A better solution would be to redirect funds toward more aggressively improving the conditions of our nation’s lower classes. It is also imperative to restructure our nation’s systems of policing and mass incarceration, not only to remove the disproportionate treatment of African Americans, but to eliminate the stigma of “criminality” in all low-income communities regardless of their ethnic makeup. African-Americans absolutely deserve to be treated more equally under the law (and to reap the socioeconomic benefits of such a society), but this cannot be done without ensuring improved conditions for everyone currently facing institutional repression. Because “socialism” remains a taboo word for so many people, I doubt such a rehaul of fiscal policy will happen in the near future. Perhaps it is more effective for all races and ethnicities to unite under a battle against poverty, for I am confident that winning such a battle would deteriorate racial discrimination in the process.
Ryan Gorman is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at r.gorman@cavalierdaily.com.
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