Reparations and Equity
By: Kathleen Brush, Ph.D.
April 23, 2022
Some states have been studying the payment of reparations for slavery, but California has taken the lead by advancing a bill to the legislature. Oregon, Washington, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland are in a study period. Each state is considering who should receive reparations. Some have proposed that a candidate recipient should provide proof of slavery, but not necessarily in their state. That would be impossible in California, Oregon, and Washington because they were never slave states. They only became part of the United States when slavery ended.
This raises the question: what counts as slavery? In 1700, 66-75% of the colonists were indentured servants, and almost all were white. Because they were servants, rather than slaves who were valued as property, they were given the more dangerous tasks. Many, or most, died before their indenture terms, so they were effectively slaves. In the 18th century, about half of European immigrants were indentured servants. They were governed under the same codes as slaves, and many died before their terms ended. In part, this was related to the harshness of the work, but also because many had 14-year terms, and the average longevity in the colonies was 28. Indentured servitude persisted into the 20th century. Most of the latest servants were Italians. Many had involuntary indentures that were illegal. For those verifiably enslaved, that was also illegal.
There is also Native American slavery to consider. Most of this took place within Native American tribes, and in the 19th century, most of it took place in the West. It was called debt peonage, but observations indicated it was harsher than black slavery. It existed after it was illegal, too. Then there are women. Slaves and servants were chattels, but women were virtual chattels. Into the 19th century, women in most states could be legally beaten for disobedience. Rape was virtually legal, and when it was prosecuted, it was a property crime. It was 1984 before all states made marital rape illegal. It was a final acknowledgment that wives were not their husbands’ property.
Many have argued that reparations should not be tied to slavery, but rather racism and class inequality and that all blacks should receive reparations. Paying blacks but not others would be racist and inequitable. Before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the United States was a hell hole of discrimination, and people didn’t care what color someone was. Religion and class were the greatest determinants. Historian Arthur Schlesinger (1888-1965) called the discrimination against Catholics “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” The history of the Irish Catholics and later Polish and Italian Catholics makes a convincing case. The Jews might disagree. Imagine a hatred so intense that during the Holocaust, Congress approved the admission of 10,000 British children, but denied refuge to 20,000 Jewish children with American sponsors. Eventually, in 1944, the U.S. accepted about 1,000 Jewish refugees who were housed in an internment camp. To gain acceptance from the American people, FDR promised they would be returned to Europe after the war.
When it comes to class inequality, the strongest case sits with the poor whites. There was little disagreement that poor whites had a harsher existence than slaves. Slaves perceived poor whites to be of a lower social status than themselves. Even today, poor whites make up the largest population of poor people, but they are overlooked as a discriminated class. There are many advocates for poor blacks and Latinos, but not for poor whites. Who advocates for white trash? Doing so is a recipe for being labeled a white supremacist. Just think, Bette Midler in 2021 didn’t hesitate to tweet out that the poor, illiterate, strung-out whites in West Virginia were holding up progress. It seems like poor whites compete with Catholics for the deepest bias. It’s hard to know; there are so many candidates. There are the descendants of slaves, slaves in all but name, and those whose ancestors were victims of heinous levels of discrimination based on religion and class. Equity dictates reparations for all of them. Who should pay? There are many candidates here too, but payments from a general state or federal fund would be the antithesis of equitable.