The Past Isn't Past: The Economic Case for Reparations

http://www.alternet.org/past-isnt-past-economic-case-reparations



“The past is in the past; it’s time to move on.”

That’s a common response to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ eloquent essay in The Atlantic, “ The Case for Reparations,” and his recent discussion with Bill Moyers.

But that sentiment betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how the legacy of hundreds of years of slavery and the American-style apartheid known as Jim Crow continue to hurt the economic prospects of African-American babies born today.

“The average black family has about one-tenth of the wealth of the typical white family — that’s ten cents on the dollar,” says NYU sociologist Dalton Conley, author of Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth and Social Class in America. “Income doesn’t explain the gap,” he adds. “African-Americans make about 77 cents on the white dollar, on average — the gap in income is much smaller than the gap in net worth.”

Even poor white households — those hovering around the poverty line — have $10,000 or $15,000 in accumulated wealth, according to Conley. But “the typical black family at that income level will have zero net worth, or even negative net worth, which means they’re paying interest on top of all their other bills.”