Max Sawicky wrote:
>
> [clip]
>
> The politics of reparations in the purely domestic
> context, white v. black, are no easier today than ever.
> But one can't help but notice that the call for
> reparations has more of a political impact than,
> say, a call for expanded social welfare programs
> or for redistributive policies. It's more of a
> conversation launcher. *Debt* is more specific
> and pointed an idea than moral obligation or social
> welfare. It provokes, perhaps in a way that will
> prove useful. Maybe the reason is that contractual
> theory is such a strong thing in our society.
>
> If you talk to people close to the movement, you
> would learn that the point is not to establish some
> system of precise transactions wherein the government
> delivers payments to whomever is classified as black.
> This is all reductionist legalistic twaddle, the stuff
> of secondary political arguments. The point is that
> establishing the idea of a large debt that stems from
> fundamental economic injustice, and that elevates
> the case for in some significant way acting to
> redress the injustice. This kind of discussion
> is easily related, I would suggest, to a more
> general one about the arbitrariness (from the
> standpoint of merit, rights, or social well-
> being) of wealth transfer. It opens the way,
> therefore, for bringing class back in, though
> that is not its main purpose.
>
This seems a very concise statement of the context in which discussion
of reparations should at least start. "It's more of a conversation
launcher." This I think is crucial. And it is, of course, crucial to
talk about the future but _not_ the future in which reparations would
actually be paid; the future to focus on is that nearer future: what
kind of a political world would/will it be after two or three years of
noisy campaigning for repatriations. There is a book which has the
splendid title of _They Should Have Served That Cup of Coffee_. I could
imagine a book appearing in, say, 2013, entitled, _They Should Have Paid
Those Fucking Reparations._
Carrol
