Book Review: From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by William A. Darity Jr., A. Kirsten Mullen
This is the most convincing case for African American reparations I’ve ever heard—making this book well worth reading by everyone. It’s a bit of a tedious left-brain slog through quantitative data on purpose—to ensure the case for reparations is made objectively. Darity and Mullen do this well, using objective data and historical accounts of oppression and often unconscionable abuse of African Americans throughout colonial and US history—continuing through to today in the time after the landmark Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s.
Although white readers may wince at what some of their race have done in the past (and what they themselves tacitly approve through ignorance), and what society still does today, the focus of this book is not on white people, but it is tangibly aimed toward making things right for African Americans. Whites feeling guilty doesn’t in and of itself help African Americans; correcting past and ongoing legal, institutional, and societal oppression of African Americans is the goal—that’s something everyone can sign on to.
The end of the book includes practical recommendations for national legislation and other measures to right the wrongs from history and wrongs that remain in place today. The objectively computed monetary values of the reparations proposed are in the double-digit trillions of dollars. And the authors propose a funding approach that does not burden middle class Americans—thus removing a cause of anxiety that may have fed into resistance to reparations in the past. The solution is brilliant—let’s do it.
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