If a Tree Falls in the Wilderness: Reparations, Academic Silences, and Social Justice

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command . . . Do not consider it a hardship to set your servant free, because his service to you these six years has been worth twice as much as that of a hired hand. And the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.

(Deuteronomy 15:12-18)

I am a descendant of slaves. I know this with certainty. My paternal grandfather, as a sharecropper, worked the same land his father and grandfather worked as slaves on the plantation, now a town located in Coatesville, Mississippi, from which we take our name. My maternal great-great-grandmother, raped by her "massa," lived in shame for the rest of her life. The light skin that my family still possesses bares witness to this event. It is not with shame, however, that we band together, but with the pride that comes with prevailing. No one asked any of my ancestors if they wanted to be kidnapped from their land, enslaved, raped, or if they wanted to be sharecroppers or work till they died from exhaustion. We have never expected, begged, or asked for anything that was not our just due from those who stole our lives and our heritage or who tried to destroy our futures. Although exploited, we have never internalized the victimization, thus we have never been victims. While holding European and American greed responsible, we have never blamed individual whites. While western imperialism is guilty, we, deprived, have never been depraved. We have been and continue to be overcomers and survivors.

It is with this background, which obviously influences my orientation, that I begin this article on reparations. I cannot even imagine approaching this from a value-neutral perspective. Given this bias, I wonder why apologies and atonements, restitution and just remedies, have been so long in coming. We have seen too many unmet promises made in the haste of the guilty moment, too many half-empty glasses placed on the table of despair, and too many dreams deferred as lynch mobs, white citizens leagues, and gangs of thugs snatch our fruit from the vines. We have no faith that the rapists, kidnappers, or murderers and those who have benefitted from their actions will willingly acknowledge their guilt or choose to make restitution. Watching the past through lens distorted with deceit and despair, we fully understand that promises made have all too quickly been forgotten, and that that which has been given has either been not worth the having or quickly taken away. The past, filled with conspiracies and exploitation, does not give me much hope for future restitution in the form of reparations or anything else. We, the descendants of this conspiracy, do not anticipate anything but the little we have always received — unless we present our case for receiving more. It is in the spirit of justice that I write — not for a handout but a paycheck, not for welfare but our fair share, not for crumbs that fall from the massa's table — but for the wealth represented by the houses built by the Africans. No, in the spirit of liberty we make our just demands. We require nothing that we did not create through our own devices. We will make our way, we will take what is only our due for services rendered, lives lost, and hopes deferred. It is our call for justice, and our...