With the 4th of July holiday here, we tend to look at the things that make us proud as a nation. We are particularly proud of the way we mobilize and help groups of people when they are in trouble. It’s the American way.
Farmers, who play a vital role in the welfare of the country, were provided $16 billion, because of the economic disadvantage caused by Trump’s tariff war. Automakers in 2009 received $10.2 billion to stay afloat and survive the crippling recession. The financial industry has received extensive bailouts, as found on this website https://www.thoughtco.com/government-financial-bailout-history-4123193 Veterans become eligible for a variety of benefits other citizens don’t receive, such as healthcare, special insurance programs, mortgage, and educational opportunities.
Yes, there’s a pattern in the United States: when we value the contribution made to the nation by various groups, there are financial rewards and safeguards. It’s what we do. But there’s one group that has been conspicuously left out of these kinds of rewards. The odd thing is, it was the labor of this group of people who created the wealth of the United States. Over half of the wealth of the nation prior to 1865 was the result of less than 6% of the population. As time went on, industries from construction to meat packing depended on their labor. At the same time, this group was systematically prevented from accessing the full benefits of the American Dream.
Yes, I’m writing about African-American people. Over the history of the United States, laws and other regulations prevented Black people from sharing in the wealth they built. Neighborhoods were red-lined to assure that Blacks lived only in certain areas. The design of public education based on local property taxes assured that public schools in areas segregated for Black-people-only would be substandard. In the South, the terror of lynching continued well into my lifetime. In the North, racism was just as present and stifling to African-Americans, only in less blatant ways. Today, we live as a nation with systematic inequality that is just as real as slavery prior to 1865 and the Jim Crow laws that followed. The only change is that racial bias is often more subtle.
Studies in psychology and sociology have proven that race-based bias is normative in the United States. Yet, myths about African-Americans prevail: that they aren’t hard working, that they are stupid, that Black men are violent and Black women are angry and uncontrollable. Polite white people claim not to be racist. We don’t belong to the KKK and other hate groups, so surely we aren’t racist. But most white people fail to consider how we’ve internalized beliefs and myths about people with dark skin. Some of our beliefs even find root in the Bible where things that are evil are dark and black and goodness is light and white.
Bias isn’t rational. It blinds us from seeing what’s true even when the truth is right in front of us. That’s why when the topic of reparations is raised, it is quickly dismissed. Part of the myth of reparations is that it’s just throwing money at people who will waste it. But that’s not reparations. Reparations aren’t like winning the lottery with free cash to people. No, reparations are about a process of rebuilding schools, healthcare availability, housing, and all the sub-par conditions that African-Americans face. Reparations are about leveling the playing field, a kind of New Deal which targets communities in need of help. Reparations begin with white people recognizing and admitting that throughout this history of the United States, we’ve benefited from the subjugation of people who are African-American.
It’s ironic to me that it’s part of the American psyche that when contributors to society are in need that we respond with generosity. But when it comes to African-Americans, not only do we shut down conversations about reparations as an automatic reflex, but we don’t even want to consider the ways African-Americans contributed to the wealth of the nation. What I find even more acutely ironic is that this nation prides itself on its ‘Christian heritage’, and yet, we systematically refuse to extend to our African-American citizens one of the most basic Christian teachings, “Love your neighbor”. On this 4th of July, I am mindful that we wouldn’t be the country we are today if it weren’t for the contributions of African-American people. I am thankful for my friends of African descent.
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