Coleman Hughes VS Ta-Nehisi Coates

yesterday when asked about reparations Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered a familiar reply America should not be held liable for something that happened 150 years ago since none of us currently alive are responsible this rebuttal profits a strange theory of governance that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations but well into this century the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers we honor treaties that date back some 200 years despite no one being alive who signed those treaties many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for but we are American citizens and thus abound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach it would seem ridiculous to dispute invitations of the founders or the greatest generation on the basis of a lack of membership in either group we recognize our lineage as a generational trust as inheritance and the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that a dilemma of inheritance it is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery as historian Edie Baptist is written enslavement quote shaped every crucial aspect of the economy and politics of America so that by 1836 more than 600 million almost half of the economic activity in the United States derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million odd slaves by the time the enslaved were emancipated they comprised the largest single asset in America 3 billion in 1860 dollars more than all the other assets in the country combined the method of cultivating this asset was neither gentle cajoling nor persuasion but torture rape and child trafficking enslavement reigned for 250 years on these shores when it ended this country could have extended its hollow suppose life liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all regardless of color but America had other principles in mind and so forth century after the Civil War black people were subjected to a relentless campaign of terror a campaign that extended well into the lifetime of majority leader McConnell it is tempting to divorce this modern campaign of terror of plunder from enslavement but the logic of enslavement of white supremacy respects no such borders and the god of bondage was lustful and begat many heirs coup d'etats and convict leasing vagrancy laws and debt peonage redlining and racist GI bills poll taxes and state state-sponsored terrorism we grant that mr. McConnell was not alive for Appomattox but he was alive for the electrocution of George Stinney he was alive for the blinding of Isaac Woodward he was alive to witness kleptocracy in his native Alabama and a regime premise on electoral fete Majority Leader McConnell cited civil rights legislation yesterday as well he should because he was alive to witness the harassment jailing and betrayal of those responsible for that legislation by a government sworn to protect them he was alive for the red lining of Chicago and the looting of black homeowners of some four billion dollars victims of that plunder are very much alive today I am sure they'd love a word with the Majority Leader what they know what this committee must know is that while emancipation dead-bolted the door against the bandits of America Jim Crow wedged the windows wide open and that is the thing about Senator McConnell's something it was 150 years ago and it was right now the typical black family in this country has 1/10 the wealth of the typical white family black women died in childbirth they're four times the rate of white women and there is of course the shame of this land of the free boasting the largest prison population on the planet of which the descendants of the enslaved make up the largest share the matter of reparations is one of making amends and direct redress but it is also a question of citizenship in HR 40 this body has a chance to both make good on its 2009 apology for enslavement and reject fair weather patriotism to say that a nation is both its credits and it's debits that if Thomas Jefferson matters so to Sally Hemings that if d-day matters so does black Wall Street that if Valley Forge matters so does Fort Pillow because the question really is not whether we will be tied to the some things of our past but whether we are courageous enough to be tied to the whole of them thank you take your attendance and you're recognized for five minutes sir Thank You chairman Cohen ranking member Johnson and members of the committee it's an honor to testify on topic as important as this one nothing I'm about to say is meant to minimize the horror and brutality of slavery and Jim Crow racism is a bloody stain on this country's history and I consider our failure to pay reparations directly to freed slaves after the Civil War to be one of the greatest injustice 'iz ever perpetrated by the US government but I worry that our desire to fix the past compromises our ability to fix the present think about what we're doing today we're spending our time debating a bill that mentions slavery twenty-five times but incarceration only once in an era with no black slaves but nearly a million black prisoners a bill that doesn't mention homicide once at a time when the Center for Disease Control reports homicide as the number one cause of death for young black men I'm not saying that acknowledging history doesn't matter it does I'm saying there's a difference between acknowledging history and allowing history to distract us from the problems we face today in 2008 the House of Representatives formally apologized for slavery and Jim Crow in 2009 the Senate did the same black people don't need another apology we need safer neighborhoods and better schools we need a less punitive criminal justice system we need affordable health care and none of these things can be achieved through reparations for slavery nearly everyone close to me nearly everyone close to me told me not to testify today they told me that even though I've only ever voted for Democrats I'd be perceived as a Republican and therefore hated by half the country others told me that by distancing myself from Republicans I would end up angering the other half of the country and the sad truth is that they were both right that's how suspicious we've become of one another that's how divided we are as a nation if we were to pay reparations today we would only divide the country further making it harder to build the political coalition's required to solve the problems facing black people today we would insult many black Americans by putting a price on the suffering of their ancestors and we would turn the relationship between black Americans and white Americans from a coalition into a transaction from a union between citizens into a lawsuit between plaintiffs and defendants what we should do is pay reparations to black Americans who actually grew up under Jim Crow and were directly harmed by second-class citizenship people like my grandparents but paying reparations to all descendants of slaves is a mistake take me for example I was born three decades after the end of Jim Crow into a privileged household in the suburbs I attend an Ivy League school yet I'm also descended from slaves who worked on Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation so reparations for slavery would allocate federal resources to me but not to an American with the wrong ancestry even if that person is living paycheck to paycheck and working multiple jobs to support a family you might call that justice I call it justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living I understand that reparations are about what people are owed regardless of how well they're doing I understand that but the people who are owed for slavery are no longer here and we're not entitled to collect on their debts reparations by definition are only given to victims so the moment you give me reparations you've made me into a victim without my consent not just that you've made one third of black Americans who pull against reparations into victims without their consent and black Americans have fought too long for the right to define themselves to be spoken for in such a condescending manner the question is not what America owes me by virtue of my ancestry the question is what all Americans owe each other by by virtue of being citizens of the same nation and the obligation of citizenship is not transactional it's not contingent on ancestry it never expires and it can't be paid off for all these reasons bill HR 40 is a moral and political mistake thank you thank you mr. Hughes chill chill chill chill he was presumptive but he still has a right to speak I thank you Jeremy Coleman : I think the most obvious reason is because the federal government is complicit in it the article that you spoke about this this period of our white supremacy that she referenced in the headline it is so broad that if I tried to cover it him in one article it would have been impossible so I focused on a very specific thing and that is the period of Jim Crow and housing segregation and red line explicitly in the city of Chicago the federal government repaid because the federal government was deeply complicit in housing segregation and redlining and in the plunder of black homeowners in Chicago he would not have existed if the FHA had not had a policy of not insuring loans for black people living in Chicago it would not exist have existed if not for the redlining maps which were written and created by this government of every major city in the country which effectively relegated black people whether they had a down payment or not outside of a class of people who could benefit from a movement which basically created our modern middle class and so I don't know how it would be possible to exempt the federal government from such a process and furthermore just I have to make this point over and over million people who were victimized by housing segregation and by redlining are very much alive today so this is not strictly about the past is identifiable victims as dr. Moniz professor Miller said who are there and who are ready and to be part of the process like mr. chairman and again thank you to all of you for your time and your your heartfelt sentiments and we know they're sincere miscues I want to thank you for your honesty and your humility and your courage sir I know this isn't easy today here's a big question that hangs over all this and that all of us need to I guess address look many people believe on all sides of the political spectrum that racial inequality that we see today is not entirely attributable to the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow it's a factor but it's not entirely attributable ken can you elaborate on what some of the other positive factors maybe well the the first thing I would say is that blaming slavery and Jim Crow for the entirety of racial disparity obviously it's clearly a factor but blaming it for the entirety of the problems we see today facing black people is actually a way of not taking responsibility for policy decisions that were made just in the last 50 years our prisons did not balloon until the 1980s unemployment for black black and white youths were virtually identical until the late 1950s early 1960s so by perversely by blaming slavery and Jim Crow for everything we actually failed to take responsibility for policy decisions that were made on both sides of the aisle in very recent history secondly I would say that there is a naive assumption that wherever there is a statistical gap in outcomes between two groups that that gap must be attributable to some kind of discrimination whether that's overt or whether that's structural and systemic that assumption is not true okay just just I'll give one example but I could I could give dozens according to 2015 census figures there's a 21 cent on the dollar gap it's 21 cents on the dollar gap in household income between white Americans of Russian descent and white Americans of French descent right disparity is the norm not the exception so the question is not why two groups would have different outcomes whether it's for wealth income or incarceration the question is why we would expect any two groups with different histories different geographical patterns different patterns of migration different cultures - nevertheless get exactly the same outcomes first of all one of the things I tried to make clear in my testimony is that we received the era of enslavement the era of Jim Crow and in fact I would actually even add the era of mass incarceration as separate that are somehow not tied to each other the greatest damage that enslavement did besides the economic damage this besides the normalization of torture of rape beside besides the normalization of treating people as though they are things is the institution in the American mind that black people are necessarily inferior in 1865 when black people were emancipated that belief did not magically dissipate it receded for 100 years afterwards he proceeded as I said my testimony well into the lifetime of many panel members chairman sorry Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and when there many of the people are here in this audience and so it's not a matter of the past these things are linked it's been said I think or alluded to repeatedly throughout this conversation that somehow wealthy African Americans are immune to these effects but in addition to the wealth gap that's cited one thing that that folks should keep in mind is that quote unquote wealthy African Americans are not the equivalent of quote unquote wealthy white Americans in this country the average the average African American family in this country making $100,000 you know decent money actually lives in the same kind of neighborhood that the average white family making $35,000 a year lives in that is totally tied to the legacy of enslavement and Jim Crow and the the the input and the idea in the mind that white people and black people are somehow deserving of different things if I injured you the injury persists even after I actually commit the act if I stab you you may suffer complications of long after that initial actual stabbing if I shoot you you may suffer complications long after that initial shooting that's the case with African Americans they're people well within the living memory of this country they're still suffering from the after-effects that thank you very much for their remarks mr. Hughes I wanted to ask if there was anything that was said previously that you'd like to respond to yeah I'd like to address myself to the comments made on the subject of us not knowing our history of us not having told the truth about slavery and Jim Crow it's it strikes me that that this is not exactly true mr. mr. Glover mentioned all of the studies and books that have been written on the subject I would argue in fact that in the ten thousand year history of slavery on every continent there is not a single example of slavery that has been more studied than slavery in America from the 17th century to the 19th century so it is actually not true that we have not told the truth that we don't know our history moreover in the past 50 years if we're talking about what what scholars in America in the American social sciences have directed their attention towards it is hard to find a subject on which more books have been written that has been more studied than racial inequality thank you thank you for that I think my fellow panel members quite correct that at this moment in history it's certainly true that the system of enslavement in America has probably been the most study in America that's not particularly surprising given the extensive and revolutionary and wide system of universities we have in this country which is also probably unprecedented and also probably a new development also but but I think even given that it's well it's worth noting the lack of penetration that those studies have had into the American mindset I don't know if it's still here but relatively recently there was a statue garden here in the Capitol that I believe had statues of General Lee and Alexander Stephens and one has to ask if in the Capitol people understood the HUS the history of this country why there would be statues honoring people who led a revolution or destroy it one would have to ask if that history were well understood why and for instance the state of Mississippi there still was a flag flying dedicated to people who tried to destroy this country why only a couple of years ago we saw the murder of Heather hire and that was participate precipitated by a movement to erect a new a new group of statues and remove the statue of General Lee and so while it's been well studied I don't know that Americans quite understand it at this very point you can get at least a plurality of white Americans who will tell you that the Civil War was about states rights with no our conversation about states rights to do what in terms of the differences in approach today what I would say is that's why we need HR 40 that's exactly what we're here to discuss in the first place I'm very skeptical of the notion that one person should stand up and speak for 40 million african-americans then one person should stand up and speak for all the generations that came before me I think the proper thing to do is a for this this body to convene a committee and convene a discussion about to study exactly what the damage was and what potential remedy might be offered and also to convene conversations around the country just attended to that I also would like to say there's been a lot of shall we say shade throwing on the notion of cutting checks I just want to say you know in the spirit of openness in the spirit of actual study I don't think we should necessarily rule out cutting checks there are people who deserve checks and so and and I think that that actually should be part of the study we aren't ruling out any solution I don't think we should rule out that we need them to mr. Hughes for for a moment in spite of your relative young age you've had some valuable experience publicly discussing sensitive issues of race and culture and I just wonder what advice you would give to young people who are thinking about this as mr. Owen said everybody ought to let that marinate a little bit as they began to think about it it's been suggested this morning that that ignorance of our history is a big part of this that we everybody across the country in large numbers we suffer from that what's the response and what advice do you give to young people well I would I would urge people to observe the distinction between understanding history and responding to history you can understand history and it can still be the case that you have a range of possible responses in front of you so addressing myself to mr. Coates as comments before if I understand them the is if we really understood our history then we wouldn't keep Confederate statues up for example therefore the fact that they they're still up implies that we don't really understand it in our bones and that that I think highlights a distinction between how how I think about this issue and how other people on the panel think about it for example there was a poll in The Washington Post last year which found that 30 percent of black Virginians wanted the Confederate statues to stay up now I don't think they wanted that because they hated themselves I don't think they wanted that because they didn't understand their own history perhaps they were people who just didn't like seeing their communities change there are many people like that and I respect that even though I myself would be fine to see those statues come down so the point here is that our response whether or not you agree with it is not itself evidence that we don't understand our history and we can have we can have two separate conversations one is what happened in this country what was done to black people what harm was incurred and the second conversation is what do we do about that and that second conversation isn't the answer to that second conversation is not self-evident from the answer to the first thank you 15 seconds maybe give me one more question you can answer to hope you wrote an article a while back entitled black American culture and the racial wealth gap and you talked about and specifically a city of Boston and there was a disparity within the black community and you you you've pointed out that black Bostonians of American estrous ancestry had a median household wealth of $8 in in that but Caribbean ancestry had 12,000 dollars of wealth talks to the disparity I just wonder if you'd comment on the implications of that this just goes back to the point I made before about disparities even within races being normal so if you go to if you look at census figures for white Americans and break it down instead of talking about quote-unquote white people into white people of French ancestry Russian ancestry Swedish ancestry you will find all kinds of disparities that by definition cannot be caused by some kind of systemic discrimination likewise with quote-unquote black Americans it's a very diverse group something like 10% of black people in this country are immigrants from places like Jamaica Jamaica Haiti Nigeria Ghana and if you look at each individual group you will find various disparities in wealth and income in crime rates that by definition can't be explained by either race or racism so my point in citing that disparity is to upset the notion that if society were fair evidence of that would be equal outcomes between all groups because there are there are so many differences historically in groups themselves geographically just in terms of median age right the average black person in this country is ten years younger than the average white person so when you're comparing blacks to whites that's just one of the many ways in which you're not actually comparing apples to apples so my point in citing that was just to upset that that lazy assumption that we make about socioeconomic and other outcomes

Channel: The Invisible Man

Views: 676,407

Keywords: Coleman Hughes VS Ta-Nehisi Coates, Reparations, Reparations debate, politics, racism, racial politics, inequality, equality, debate, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Coleman Hughes, Quillette, society, culture, argument, black Americans, black and white, race, systemic oppression, historical oppression, slavery, Jim Crow

Id: F5AQyWAWHU4

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2019