Book review: Reconsidering Reparations
by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
In this book Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò goes beyond the usual justifications and proposals for reparations to descendants of enslaved people, to straightforwardly propose a world making project. Táíwò calls it the Constructive view. “Reconsidering” does not mean tossing out reparations, and instead expands the scope of the reparations formula to the broader effects of colonialism—both historical and current. This view takes in the long arc of history from the first Portuguese slave traders to the remnants of colonialism in our own contemporary society.
Táíwò traces the history of slave trading and slave rebellions through Haiti, Brazil, and the US South to address the core moral issues of transatlantic slavery and colonialism. The author demonstrates that capitalism as we know it today would not and could not exist without the chattel slavery that established it—remove the lower cost of slave labor in preceding centuries, and there would be a different world economy today. That economy is one aspect of today’s society that Táíwò proposes changing. The solution can include market activities without the dominance of an elitist class.
A key point that Táíwò emphasizes is that the solution is not a simple binary, that of all wronged and all doing the wrong. In many respects everyone is part oppressed and part oppressor—however none of that negates the degree to which that is so between the circumstances of those who are economically white and others who are not. In the end we’re all human, and that’s the key—it’s time we act like it.
To accomplish that goal, Táíwò asserts that we need new translocal ways of thinking and acting across separate geographic and political contexts and boundaries—outside the formal levers of power. Táíwò properly insists that reparations for global racial empire should make tangible differences in people’s lives. This involves a fair distribution of benefits and burdens, based on the relationship of each to the core moral wrongs. Protection from elite capture of public movements is essential—cultural appropriation should be guarded against along the way.
This is not a zero sum winners and losers proposal. Although it will take a long arc to repair the damages from colonialism, it’s imperative to proceed on this journey now. We should advance this Constructive view as much as possible in each generation—the result is to enlarge the humanity of all of us.