>>Coming up on an "American Black Journal," reparations for African-Americans.

It's a topic we have been talking about for decades.

My special panel of guests will give their perspectives on what is owed to the black descendants of enslaved people and the survivors of discrimination, plus we'll talk about what to expect from Detroit's task force on reparations that voters approved in the last election.

It's an important topic.

Stay right there.

"American Black Journal" starts now.

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(pleasant jazzy music) >>Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Stephen Henderson.

Reparations: what is owed to black Americans?

That's the question we recently tackled on a virtual town hall hosted by "American Black Journal" and Bridge Detroit.

It was an emotional discussion that covered reparations for discriminatory housing and economic practices in Detroit and as a way to close the wealth gap between whites and blacks.

We also talked about what form reparations should take and who should receive them.

Today, we're bringing you a portion of that town hall that features civil rights activist Reverend Dr. JoAnn Watson, Lauren Hood who's chair of the Detroit Planning Commission, Keith Williams who's chair of the Michigan Democratic Party's Black Caucus, and Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

So based on your research and of course on your opinion, tell us why do African-Americans need reparations, and if we don't do that, what is the likelihood that we solve the inequality that we all live with?

>>Well, our inability to pay the unpaid debt is still with us, that the racial wealth divide where we see white families' median wealth eight times that of black families is a direct result of the systemic exclusion of assets or of subsidies that we are owed, and this continues to this day.

In addition, the sort of framework, if you will, of denying African-Americans public subsidies that other populations enjoy was taken up in different ways in more contemporary context, so you have housing discrimination, you have criminal justice bias, you have business discrimination.

All of these follow a certain path that black people were denied what they are due.

And so, there's a real cost that black people still have to pay, a real penalty.

My research shows that homes in black neighborhoods compared to areas where there are few black people in them are under priced by 23%, about 48,000 per home cumulatively.

That's about 156 billion in lost equity in black neighborhoods, and this is particularly true in Detroit where so many black people used to own homes, but could not hold onto them because of the housing crisis, and let me just bring this back to wealth.

When you have less wealth, it's harder to withstand the economic shocks that inevitably occur.

Those who had wealth could survive the housing crisis better.

Those who had wealth could survive the pandemic, can withstand environmental hurdles.

And so, that lack of wealth really predicts for lower outcomes in every other area.

So, this is an issue that has not gone away.

People say, "Oh, I didn't own any slaves."

Well, the impact of slavery, the impact of Jim Crow racism, the impact of housing discrimination is still with us, and by the way, we're not asking individuals to pay for reparations.

We're asking the federal government, state governments, local municipalities to pay and also institutions because we can't let them off the hook.

So, colleges and universities, churches.

So I'm encouraged by what's happening all across the country with these local efforts, but hopefully, they will move up to the national level.

>>Yeah, so I wanna talk about the practical end of this with you as well, the form of reparations.

So, you just threw out a number, $156 billion, that gap between what white families in America have been able to to earn through property ownership and what African-Americans have been able to do.

I mean, that's a huge number, but we throw huge numbers all of the time (laughs) out with federal spending, but what is the way, what is the way to make up that gap?

Is it through some sort of payment, or is there a more creative spectrum of things that we ought be thinking about to make that number go away?

>>Well remember, reparations is mostly about the claims people can have around systemic oppression, so there are different types of claims made.

When you're talking about slavery and unpaid labor, you're talking about a check.

When you're talking about housing discrimination, you're talking about down payment assistance and the like, and so it really depends on the claim.

My colleague, Rashaun Ray, and I put out a report not that long ago where we outline a a series of steps, including cash payments, but also including scholarships to make college free.

We also include business grants because we know that businesses were denied opportunities.

We also include other subsidies, so I think it's a range of approaches coming from multiple levels.

Again, when you're talking about housing discrimination, for instance, there was housing discrimination on the part of federal, state, and local ordinances, entities.

So, all of those institutions, all of those levels of government have some responsibility to pay, so it's gonna look different.

And that 156 billion, it was only in the case of housing devaluation, and I just wanna put this in perspective.

In just that one area, 156 billion would've financed more than 4 million black-owned businesses based upon the average amount black people used to start their firms.

It would've paid for 8 million four-year degrees based upon the average amount of a four-year public education.

It would've replaced the pipes in Flint, Michigan 3,000 times over, covered nearly all of Hurricane Katrina damage, and it's double the annual economic burden of the opioid crisis.

It's a big number.

So when you're talking about reparations which falls in anywhere in the area of three to $17 trillion based upon the model you use, you could see a dramatic shift in how black people live.

And again, I just want to emphasize this, and I say this like it keeps my teeth white, that there's nothing wrong with black people that ending racism can't solve, that when people talk about what's wrong with with black communities, they blame black people.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese philosopher who recently died once said that if you're growing a head of lettuce and it's not growing, you don't blame the lettuce.

You look to see if it's getting sunlight.

You look to see if the soil's enriched, if it's getting rainwater.

You don't blame the lettuce, but when it comes to black communities, we're constantly blaming the lettuce and not looking at the policies that still inflict harm and penalty on us.

So for me, reparations is about healing, is a moral debt as was mentioned, it's a fiscal one, and this one more point that this idea that we can't handle a check is ridiculous.

Just this past pandemic, you actually saw two things happen.

When Millennials had their student loans frozen, guess what happened?

We saw small bump in home ownership, and the the relief packages has actually caused an uptick in black businesses, particularly microbusinesses.

And so black people used their stimulus checks to start new businesses.

Why wouldn't they start more businesses with more money?

I mean, the evidence is pretty clear that when given a opportunity, we take it.

>>Reverend Watson, it's always good to see you, but it's especially good to see you today for this conversation.

>>Thank you so much, and thank you for inviting me on this very important topic.

I've been involved on a reparations issue since my youth.

I was absolutely mentored by some of the greatest reparations freedom fighters, Mario Badele, then known as Richard Henry, Reverend Milton Henry Gaidi Obadele.

Reparations Ray Jenkins got his title from me when he would call into my radio show talking about reparations every day.

Many of our own people don't know that the Confederates who lost the Civil War, they received reparations.

Many, many populations have received reparations, but not Africans who helped build this country, and the whole country benefited from the unpaid labor of African people who were kidnapped, and I prefer to say people were enslaved and not to say slaves and not refer to those who thought they owned slaves.

They were not masters, they were enslavers.

America will never be fully healed from this original sin of enslavement until reparations is that is rightfully due is afforded to the Africans who help build this country.

It's not a handout, it's a debt owed.

It's not a handout, it's a debt owed, and that has been recognized as a recognized legal principle that has been applied to every other group of people that has been wronged except of African descent.

>>Let's talk about what Detroiters approved last year and what the status is of this task force.

What will we see in the coming months?

>>Well Stephen, it's a challenge.

(laughs) >>It always is.

(laughs) >>(laughs) So, I'll talk a little bit about this group of us that meets.

There's myself, Cousin Keith over here, Council President Sheffield and her people.

We had Jamann Jordan in the conversation earlier for the historical lens.

There's some other grassroots activists that have been coming to the conversation, so we're kind of a defacto steering committee, and like you said, have been engaged since November.

So, we as a group are trying to make the most authentic and inclusive process possible, but there's always a tension with getting something done and being inclusive 'cause the longer it takes to do something, the more inclusive you can be, but then we're also contending with this pressure from folks to see something happening.

It's always my contention, the the subject of reparations, this is sacred work.

We're overturning generations of trauma here.

This is something that's gonna take a lot of time to get it right, but folks are like, "Where's my check?"

So, there's this tension of those two things, and I think what our group is trying to consider is what can we do now?

We need some direct service 'cause there are people struggling now, but also create a long enough runway where we can get this right 'cause this is sacred work.

There's a lot tied up in here.

It's not just like a wealth gap.

It's a hope gap, a worthiness gap, a self-respect gap.

There's a lot tied into what reparations can and should do.

>>Keith, the Black Caucus commissioned a poll that showed majority of Detroiters support reparations for past discriminatory housing policies and practices here in the city.

Talk about those feelings and what you feel those reparation could look like.

All of us remember, I think, the struggle that African-Americans had to own homes in many places here in Detroit.

I think a lot of people know about the struggles that we have right now keeping homes in the City of Detroit.

Tell us about what Detroiters think about what we should do about all that.

>>You know, when we got involved in this, I got involved because of Robin Rue Simmons.

I was looking at channel seven one night, and she was on, and she was talking about this little town in Evanston, Illinois.

I was so impressed.

After the show, my wife was sitting.

I said I'm getting ready to call this young lady, so I inboxed her, and she called me back.

And so, I was inspired by she took a little city of 75,000 folks, 82% African-American, and created this new economic engine, and so I said if she can do it here, then why can't we do it in Detroit?

So, I got involved.

To delve off into this, you gotta know the history of Detroit.

Like you said in your opening, from slavery, mid-1900, there was 6,000 blacks, then you go to 1931.

That's when the influx of blacks came from the South to come to work for Ford Motor Company, then they had to have a place to stay, and they moved us over there, Black Bottom and things like that.

And so, I got to see, and so, and I got to think about how much wealth was stolen from us.

And so, if you look at it, then Black Bottom, and then this 375 movement, then 1941 on Burwood Street how they used federal dollars under the auspices of urban development as well as they did Black Bottom, we didn't have a place to stay, and they did it with ordinances, restricted covenants, and using the words slums so they can use urban development money, and then I got more deep into it.

Then I realized up until 1971, black folks could not live in Rosedale Park because of restrictive covenants, and so I look at it like this.

I don't look at it as a cash handout.

I look at it as a redevelopment of the city and African-Americans leading the charge on it such as housing.

Housing is where all the wealth was lost, and so like Lauren said, this is sacred stuff.

I cried.

I cried when I got involved in this, and when we did that poll, I knew when we did that ballot initiative- You know, this is the first of this kind in the country.

I just came from December 12th, I was in reparation convention sponsored by Robin Rue Simmons in Evanston, Illinois.

It was 40 cities.

Detroit is the true chocolate city.

San Francisco, LA, they got black folks, but nothing like Detroit, and so I said if Detroit can be the lead dog in this initiative, if we just come together like Lauren said, we're going through some family issues right now, and we gonna get through it, (laughs) but when you get us all together, it's a family, but it's all about love.

But now, our language says the city council got to set the task force up to make recommendations on economic development and housing.

>>So Lauren, we've got a question from Kelly on Facebook.

I wanna put it to you.

She goes, "Why do you think "there's so much resistance to reparation?"

I think that's an interesting question to talk about the things that we are uncomfortable talking about, right?

That when race- >>It depends on which group are we talking resistance from?

I think black folks re resisted 'cause we have a lot of pride for what we've been able to accomplish, and again, like Mama Watson said and we all say, it's not a handout.

It's for work served.

So there there's a lot of pride on the part of black folks.

I think that other groups, I would just say anti-black racism like in your opening segment, you talked about the other ethnic groups that were compensated for their pain and trauma and time served, and I think if you, apples-to-apples, harm-done compensation.

What's the differing factor in those groups and us other than our color?

I really think it's specific anti-black racism that people don't want us to have anything.

>>I think there's also, there's a dimension of this that differs from some of these other groups, right?

After the Holocaust took place during World War II, the Germans were sorry for what they did, and they were made to be sorry by an international community, but there was a feeling that they did owe something to the Jews who were victims.

After Japanese were interred here in this country during the war, eventually there was an apologetic imperative to try to make that better.

I don't think that has happened quite yet with African-Americans.

It certainly didn't happen after the Civil War.

There was a backlash that was angry that African-Americans were free and wanted to compete for all the resources that everybody else did.

You move up through Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement.

Today, we're fighting about the language that the president of the United States is using to describe his next Supreme Court nominee who would be the first African-American woman to sit on that court.

I think that's part of what is missing.

There is not an imperative to be sorry.

>>That's correct, but what is it the root of that?

(laughs) Why is that?

I think also there needs to be some education around what our contributions were like even for black folks.

Everything I know about black history, I learned starting at the age of maybe 35 through my own research.

So, what does it look like when we have a comprehensive understanding of what our contributions actually were?

We were doing a reparations program at the Charles H, and one of the participants had his grandfather show up who was an actual sharecropper.

So he walked us through his day as a sharecropper.

After his testimony, we all understood why we were worthy of this compensation, but everybody doesn't have access to stories like that, but what if every did?

>>I just think that the money should go into housing so people can lay their head and build some wealth, and then we need an economic engine with all this new creativity out here, these kids with entrepreneurs, they should be able to go out there and produce a product and sell their product to make money off of it.

This is not about a handout.

This is about a hand-up, and we're not asking for somebody to do something for us, and then you got some African-Americans going through that psychological problem.

They don't wanna be under the auspices of thinking that somebody gave them something, but guess what?

It would take us 233 years to catch up with white America and their wealth, and so somehow, we gotta close this gap, and why not in Detroit, why not in Washington DC, where we know- I grew up in Detroit.

I was born and raised in Black Bottom.

I was born in Women's Hospital.

The street, East 4th Street, is still there.

It's old King's football field where we live, and so I came from that.

We moved from there to Northwest Detroit in 1957, so I get it, but currently, we got this tax problem on the 600,000 of the assessment part of it, and we need to do something about that.

So, it's like a smorgasbord of things, but I think housing and and economic development should drive this agenda.

A lot of folks had their hand in causing the pain and the harm in African-Americans.

All I wanna see is black folks get repaid and we get our dignity back and we can have a brighter future for all our kids.

I'm 66 now, and I went through the whole shot of city Detroit.

I just wanna see a vision of a hope, and my acronym for hope is this: helping our people elevate.

I wanna see people elevate to a new standard of living and where they can prosper and they can enjoy the American dream.

>>And you can see this entire hour long-town hall on reparations on the "American Black Journal" Facebook page.

That's gonna do it for us this week.

Thanks for watching.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org, and you can always connect with us on Facebook and on Twitter.

Take care, and we'll see you next time.

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