What do we mean by reparations?

MIT 21A.S01 Reparations for Slavery and Colonization: Contemporary Movements for Justice, Fall 2021
Speaker: Liliane Umubyeyi, African Futures Action Lab

This lecture is an introduction to how reparations are being pursued by different actors around the world, for different purposes and motivations. Specifically, this lectures gives a legal overview to how different groups have sought reparations in the courts from different countries.

Reading referenced: The Handbook of Reparations, Pablo de Greiff, Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2006

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

[mitocw]

We are trying a new experiment this semester to incorporate your comments and questions in the classroom. These videos are taken from a course being currently taught this Fall semester on campus. The lecture videos are posted prior to the in-person class, and respectful questions and comments from this discussion forum may be used in the classroom for discussion by the MIT students and the guest lecturers.

[billyhart]

Waiting to see how long until comments are disabled.

[dragonslayer]

"I owe no man because someone who looked like me did something terrible to someone who looked like him" - Justice Scalia

[R_Alexander]

I'm a white Mexican Immigrant living on Aboriginal Australian land. Am I a colonizer or am I a "welcomed immigrant"?

[pragmaticparadox]

If the purpose is to keep this dialogue open and free of bias one should look at every facet of reparations. If one concludes reparations are a necessity than one must have their facts and lineages in order. Imagine the amount of African-Americans who would owe reparation payments due to their kidnapping and selling of their own race. Also, why is it only the USA that would be responsible for reparations when the country, as a whole, had a far smaller percentage of the Transatlantic Slave Trade than the Caribbean or several South American countries? What about the Arab Slave Trade? Their slave trade lasted far longer and was much more brutal. I hope one can see where I'm heading here.
Slavery has been a part of almost every civilization in human history. Every race on Earth has been subjected to slavery...are we cutting checks for everyone? Furthermore, what is the cutoff date? If we go back 300 years, why not 600 or 1, 000 years? This entire thought process of picking one race out of the lot and paying them is absolutely preposterous. If the USA owes any race of people reparations, it's the Native Americans whom were nearly driven to extinction through massive genocide. I see black Americans everywhere in the States but it's pretty damn hard to find a Native American without going to a reservation.

[idontfeellikeit]

It’s amazing people earn phds for this kinda stuff.

[EvilSmonker]

The "colonial system" was far before the introduction of what we would consider as "international law". Regardless, I can't see the merit of the second or third arguments: what this entire presentation seems to be (from 1 viewing) is not whether or not reperations are correct, or even what they mean by it; rather it seems to be a way of explaining how it should be implemented.

[DomenicoMigliorini]

I cannot understand how one has to pay for the mistakes made by his ancestors… other thing of course would be to set things right and fix inequality today not because of the past but because inequality has to be fixed at anytime!

[michaelpcoffee]

Different people mean different things.
Many mean; forcing the innocent to pay nonvictims for something that happened to neither of them based on race.
A few mean regaining wealth that is demonstrably theirs, from those who wrongly possess it.

[stimpyfeelinit]

They passed up their chance for reparations in Liberia.

[femalesupremacistoverlord]

Reparations are a slippery slope. The majority of land and property was stolen or taken by force at some point. The best thing to do now is to help the impoverished, which is often largely comprised of those who were recently oppressed.

[SighKronmiller]

When will Native Americans receive theirs?

[JohnGeometresMaximos]

I'm a WHITE MAN and I want reparations too.
Read the book 'Christian slaves Muslim masters' by Robert Davis.

[jcdenton]

I am not familiar with any of the research of this field, but there is a couple of things I would like to share about the presentation. I hope the presenter reads it and finds it useful.

I liked the selection of your title, as someone completely unfamiliar with the area I am interested in learning what actually is what you called reparation, however i was discouraged when you said in the very begging that you were not going into that. I believe that to get to your point you always have to stablish some background to make sure that your audience is following you from the very beginning. I don’t know who was the original target audience of this video, but setting up a background is absolutely key in any presentation, specially when you are talking to people that do not know anything about what you do.
A slide with a list of the topics you were going to address would have also eased following what were your points going to.
Another thing is that your slides had barely any content, and most of it was long sentences. While they seemed to guide what you were talking, they missed the entire point of slides: guiding your audience’s attention.
You spoke for 24 minutes total using only 5 slides, and none of the concepts that you addressed stood out on any of the slides. 1 minute per slide is a good rule of thumb.
You are being ineffective communicating your ideas because you are relying too mucho the audience following every single thing that you say, on them to remember what you say, and on them to put together this concepts to come to your conclusion. Some individuals might be able to do that, but that is too much to ask.
Most of what you are saying must be represented clearly but briefly on the slides, otherwise people will have to choose wether to listen to you or to read the slides.
I hope you find my comments useful, I do not agree with what I understood that reparations are about, but maybe I am not really getting your point.
Working on your slides would help the audience understand the message you want to give. Only then some actually productive dialogues can happen.

[EatRawGarlic]

Is the exception on the intertemporal principle already present in international law, or are people like the UN special rapporteur arguing for its introduction?

[taylorleeforcongress]

Thank you so much for allowing comments, it's clear you actually care about a dialogue.

I disagree with reparations as it is commonly understood. But I think the thing you want to do, and what most African Americans want, and what most Americans are concerned about can be compromised upon with a one time gift of land or significant but modest monetary value.

It's not an admission of guilt, it's not tokenism, it's not a plea for forgiveness, it's a hand up from generations of trampling. What you do with your gift is up to you.

And so nobody feels left out, white people can after this say once a year. This is mostly a joke, but if you want true forgiveness and brotherhood to form, everyone has to give a little, we all just live in a world our ancestors gave us, it's up to us to build it more, or tear it down.

[bonesmalin]

Reparations are not about making the innocent pay for the crimes of the past. They are about recognizing that certain groups of people have been consistently prevented from fully utilizing the resources of society, in addition to their efforts at social mobility being actively opposed. All other groups benefit from this exploitation whether directly or not. It is not about punishing anyone; it is about correcting a socioeconomic imbalance that is the result of centuries of oppression and exploitation.

[ABIYSCGSTEGD]

I benefited from the white affirmative action program, which has existed in this country for centuries. I obtained an advantage in education (separate and not equal), employment (people of color need not apply), housing (not open to people of color), healthcare (regimens validated using studies only on white people), etc. For hundreds of years, people of color were clearly disadvantaged. This video is very educational on the subject of reparations. Additionally, until last year, I believed racism was isolated in our society, confined to the fringe elements. The previous two years, sadly, have proven that belief to be naive.

[Tartinitone]

Has anybody every considered the possibility of a virtual 51st state as a reparation to those who have suffered from systemic racism? 1 Congressman and 2 Senators with voting power. The members of the state would still get to vote in their geographic home states. Could additional representation be an even more valuable form of reparations making up for years with no representation? The number of representatives and duration of the virtual state could be negotiable since it shouldn't be open ended. Residents of less populous states already have disproportionately higher representation, so there is precedent.