Glenn vs. Hitchens: The Reparations Debate

the question tonight is should the united states pay reparations for slavery it's a question that hearkens to the earliest days of the american experience the first 20 africans were sold into slavery at jamestown virginia in 1620 by the time slavery was abolished at the end of the civil war 25 million black people had lived and died in slavery the separation the separation of the races and schools housing employment even in buses and restaurants would continue in much of the country for another century tonight we debate not whether the colossal human indignity of slavery and segregation left african americans disadvantaged the statistics on education crime income disparity single parenthood and life expectancy answer that question with definitive clarity rather the question is whether that indignity has created an entitlement a legal political or moral cause of action on behalf of black people against society as a whole is there a monetary value to be determined who are the appropriate beneficiaries and who should pay the damage should the payment be to individuals or groups in the form of cash or remedial programs and would it truly settle the debt ending other programs that benefit blacks disproportionately would it end those programs once and for all tonight we have debaters equipped by knowledge and experience to answer these questions or at least address them the first debater for the negative side of tonight's proposition is professor glenn lowery thank you i rise to address the question should the u.s pay reparations for slavery i'm going to argue in the negative on that question i take no pleasure in doing so would that i would be somewhere else tonight than here before you arguing the negative of this question i am not without sympathy for the arguments that just have been presented i mean how could it be otherwise i am a descendant of slaves i recognize that we have a past that needs to be reckoned with but the payment of reparations to african americans for the wrongs of that past is the wrong way to reckon with it i say that for three reasons it's bad social ethics bad social ethics it is bad racial politics bad racial politics and it averts our attention from the most profound issues with which if we do not reckon we're never going to put that past behind us now let's deal with the social ethics the tort law model that is implicit in the reparations claim party a injures party b party b sues party a party a pays party b is the wrong model for thinking about this problem if i was talking about somebody who carelessly let their automobile roll down the garage driveway and run into the automobile of someone else then we're talking let's get paid that is not what i'm talking about i'm talking about the desecration of the most important ideals that this country has advanced i'm talking about a nation founded on the notion that all men are created equal and endowed so forth and so on that nevertheless countenance the institution of traffic and human channel that is a monumental crime the magnitude of which is diminished into something picayune by saying that it's about money it is not about money what it's about is whether or not we are going to rise and be the people whom we have always proclaimed ourselves to be and let me tell you folks you cannot put a price tag on that the african-american family more than 60 percent of black children are born out of wedlock that has got something to do with the fact that men and women could be ripped from the moorings of their familial bond and sold away as if they were property as if they were horses under the institution of slavery that's not a small thing it's a big thing you want me to monetize that ten thousand dollars ahead times three thirty million people that's three hundred billion dollars and then we've we're done with it no not on my watch it's serious business as my erstwhile worthy opponent has said it is serious business too serious to be put down on somebody's paycheck it's bad social ethics us versus them they got hurt we're going to pay them this is not about black people and white people human beings this this is about human beings this is about america i don't want a contested legalized us them uh reduction of this problem i want us to understand that the stakes here are stakes for everybody we're all on the same side it's bad social ethics it is bad racial politics it is bad racial politics i am so tired of the politics of symbolism substituting for a substantive building of progressive coalitions in african-american political experience that i did not know what to do the nation is moving forward we are forward-looking people 30 million immigrants come to our shore since 1965 they and their children are a part of the national story too how can we address the problems that continue to plague us that derive from this outrageous history without real political coalitions prepared to enact into law the myriad statutes that will be necessary with respect to health care with respect to education with respect to housing with respect to doing something about the blight of our uh inner cities how are those laws actually going to be passed unless majorities can be formed that are prepared to affirm them those majorities need to be given a narrative a story an account of what we are about and i fear that the reparations construction is woefully inadequate to provide such an account we need a common narrative of national obligation that's the only way that black education is going to improve that's the only way that the quality of life for poor black children in inner cities is going to be made better a common narrative on to which at least 51 of the electorate is prepared to sign about national obligation you cannot get there from here with a reparations argument it's bad politics it is a diversion from the real issues as i said we need political coalition as i have said we need to garner the support of new americans who simply can't buy into this old argument as theirs but most importantly we need to recognize that even if african americans were to prevail in the reparations claim even if we were to get paid even if we were to get the check we could still lose consider the american who sits in the suburbs somewhere who is approached with the problems of 1.2 million black young men under lock and key on a given day and on the day after reparations checks have gone out saying oh yeah well you people have been paid consider the rural american resident who's approached with the problem of life expectancy of african americans 10 years shorter than that of white americans for all manner of reasons having to do both with the way in which health care is delivered and the general factors of our society that affect the quality of life of people of color and that person says yes interesting point but you know what you negroes have been paid consider the person perhaps a recent citizen to the country who was informed about the fact that african american 17 year olds in this country read and compute at the level of white american 13 year olds a four year gap in educational accomplishment by the time they're 17 and that person says it's an interesting point but you know what those checks just went out you people have been paid what i'm saying to you ladies and gentlemen and the reason that i urge you to support me is that precisely because this is a serious matter precisely because the possibility that our country will not live up to its most cherished ideals is very real precisely because the history of oppression degradation racism has left very real consequences in its training precisely because there are millions of people whose lives are yet to be blessed with the riches and the potentiality that this society holds so there for precisely that reason we should not go down the reparations road because you know what as long as it's possible to put a color on those faces of despair that look look up at us from the bottom rungs of american society the debt will be outstanding let us not close the door on our national obligation the easy way let us not buy ourselves out of this problem with one year's worth of military budget expenditures let us not let ourselves off the hook by converting what is a sacred civic obligation as yet unmet into the profane currency of greenbacks let's be serious about dealing with our past let's not talk about reparations let's talk about justice and let's mean it thank you the final debater on the affirmative side is christopher hitchens [Applause] good evening ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters i hope i can say comrades and friends i might go so far i should say first i think it's very impressive and rather encouraging that so many people would come out on such a beautiful evening to to discuss and debate such a serious and pressing subject i should add though that as a teacher i um insist that anyone who has been told by the professor that they have to be here leaves now i will not speak to captive audiences that's good then all right uh further to the principles of free inquiry uh and open debate that goes up to make a great university my view is and will always be that it matters not what you think anyone can have thoughts many people content themselves with feelings uh it matters how you think so since the um case has been so well phrased by my predecessor speakers i thought i might just begin by thought experiment by an argument from analogy of a case i once put myself in another context i wrote a book saying that the british museum should return to athens the chunks of the sculpture of the parthenon sometimes called the elgin marbles always pronounced wrongly in this country it was lord elgin in fact harchi that they had annexed in the uh 18th century they didn't make any sense that the sculpture should be separated it was carved as a unity uh that the original crime was the desecration of a great historic culture and a great historic temple a gross insult to an entire culture and society of the greeks the amputation of an organic and aesthetic hole a theft a rape a taking perpetrated by the strong upon the weak by the way this was all done at the same time as the british fleet her majesty's fleet was also the military guarantor of the slave trade of the triangular trade of the atlantic in the middle passage now the points i made on this how justice could be done how reparation could be made how wrong once inflicted could be restored made good i could well buttress by fact and could do so now if i was challenged additionally i suppose most importantly i said that while not every crime committed in the high days of empire and war and plunder could be repaired this one could restitution could be made that sculpture had been wrenched from its context it had been broken up it had been segregated it had been injured it had been damaged in the process not everything could be put right but most of it could it could be reunited and the scars and the missing fragments and the injuries would be just part of that great narrative once the healing once the reunification had been more or less accomplished now i was fascinated with this is a simple case as i hope you can see i was very impressed by the torrent of bad faith in which i was immediately doused by their arguments ladies and gentlemen you may know them when people begin to introduce the irrelevant and the non-sequitur and the generalization you know you're on to something for example people say do you mean that every artifact in every museum in europe should immediately be returned to its country of origin i think you can tell that that was not what i was saying but could i get anyone to get off that song i don't think i could do you see the analogy perhaps to what we're meant to discuss this evening i think perhaps you might there's a constant wine and drone what i call a white wine when this subject comes up people say what do you mean we'd have to go back and help the comanches get there you know how it goes a rather nasty combination actually of self-pity and self-hatred uh among white americans that deserves to be i think treated with great scorn um i was told uh well what about the babylonians they said well the babylonians are not going to come and make a claim the stuff from babylon in the british museum is probably best of where it is the rosetta stone and the pharaonic material there is probably best of where it is more people will see it and there are no pharaoh onic egyptians to press a claim either uh why are you mentioning this when there's a real case before you that could be made and a real injustice that could be repaired i think i know why i think i feel the itchings and prickings of a bad conscience behind this kind and mode of argument then it was said well didn't the great noble lord elgin actually sort of rescue the sculpture by stealing it and using it first to decorate his uh private home and then um to make a fortune by selling it wouldn't it maybe it had been worse off if it had stayed where it was well some of the sculpture that stayed in athens was very badly treated and has been badly knocked about and i heard it said this year in an argument about the confederate flag no last year excuse me in an argument about the confederate battle flag in carolina i heard it openly said by a spokesman for the confederacy uh of our present day one of whom is now our attorney general uh but he not that not not that he said this but partisans affairs said this said well how would those africans have got along if we just left them in west africa didn't we do them a favor we made them americans didn't we we brought them here do they wish they had not been uh removed now this argument also i think shows a very bad conscience indeed i'm going to come back to this argument by the way bear it in mind bear in mind what the underlay of this discussion really is but always notice and pay attention where people appear to be changing the subject and just distracting or trying to redirect your attention to some theoretical or cosmic or abstract injustice that can't be rectified that's beyond the reach of justice that's past our power to heal or to alter in other words beware when someone tries to make the best the enemy of the good this is the charge i'm going to make against the good professor larry whose opening speech i thought was superb beware of making the best the enemy of the good that's where i'll turn to our present case review it in the same way conduct if you will the same thought experiment was there an original traceable offense was there a taking a theft a rape a dispossession a conversation there isn't a thinking person who can say no to that the evidence is very clear and it mounts with every every chapter of historical inquiry did it consist of as i say a conversation can it therefore be made good if not all of it can be made good can some of it be made good can any of it be repaired don't make the best the enemy of the good is there anything to be rescued from this terrible story is there anything that can be done about it once it's been recognized we cannot possibly undo we i don't i actually don't think we even dare think of the scope of what it would take to imagine undoing the damage done to africa especially to west africa by the period of colonization colonial division plunder uh slavery and rape we can't undo the enforced underdevelopment of africa though we are you may notice compelled to keep trying to do that on other fronts all the time and to deal with the consequences of the amputation and dismemberment of africa in that period and who would say we shouldn't do that little as little enough as it is who would say it isn't our responsibility to do that in africa now as well i hope none of you would we can't make up for the middle passage for the uncounted millions of people who were captured and raped and tortured before they even made it across the atlantic to be other people's property we can't undo that but we can refuse we can decline to forget it if you really want to think about all the things that can't be redeemed you'll be in some danger i think of weeping but in my hometown of washington dc there's hardly one official brick piled on another that wasn't piled there by unpaid labor under the whip and that dead labor becomes dead capital and dead souls dead money and it's piled actually in the treasury department and the federal financial system who took that uh free labor and those dead souls and that and turned it into capital and it's back pay and it's owed and it's over due now professor larry in his very indignant nobility uh said that he would repudiate this cash he'd say keep your money you can't buy me like that i respect him very much for it i hope he would say that i would support him in saying it if he would he can only say it for himself it seems to me he misses two opportunities and i'll have to condense my remarks here he misses the chance a very important chance he doesn't want us to miseducate african-americans to feel dependent to feel mendicant to feel entitled uh and i see why he says so he's missing the chance to remind white society of what it does not know he's missing a chance to challenge the complacency and historical nullity of white society that says we don't owe anyone anything how dare these people bring all this stuff up it's the um it was too long ago so when he says keep your damn money i'm all the way with him but he can't he can't say keep your damn history and let's serve turn that back too this is america uh the right to entitlement to inheritance to be to a share in the common treasury is what defines that if it has to be fought for at law so much the worse but there's no alternative but to fight over it and if i've done nothing else i'm sure now every one of you knows that lord elgin is pronounced with a heart g [Applause] well here we are at the end of this uh interesting and important discussion i'm going to urge you to move to your rights when the time comes and to vote the negative on this question now we heard some arguments we heard some red herrings and we've heard some serious arguments i'm going to ignore the red herrings i'm going to ignore this business about some people say blacks might have been better off if they've been left in west africa i'm going to ignore all that because nobody here is arguing anything like that but i do want to deal with some of the more serious arguments uh mr hitchens suggests that i'm making the best the enemy of the good here the good is checks could be gotten the best is all of lowry's flowery talk about a great nation coming to realize in its practice the true meaning of its creed that is not what i am doing at all ladies and gentlemen i'm engaging in hard-headed political analysis about what is the good and how can it be achieved right checks coming into mail in the mail to some people is a good thing for those people i'm not denying that but there are other things that are good things too the construction of a progressive politics in the country that can address the underlying structural problems that leave those people and others who happen not to be black disadvantaged that's a good thing am i to understand that that's a unachievable ideal in american public life that it's unimaginable that we would ever become a nation in which we understand ourselves to all be in this together in which we understand that three strikes and you're out throw them away throw them in jail and throw the key away um communities in which thirty or forty percent of the prime age young men are in and out of prison understanding that is a bad thing as a blight on our national conscience is something that we ought not to tolerate am i to understand that that's unachievable that's some ideal that's out there that can never be gotten i think not i think not i'm not making the best the enemy of the good here i'm arguing about what's the good the race question continues to bedevil us it's not just a matter of whether or not somebody in theory owes something it's a matter of how we're going to work it out the facts on the ground are constantly changing it is not a small thing that 30 million new americans have come to our shores since 1965. that's a big thing what is the story of our country going to be in the 21st century is it about white wine or is it or will it become about black people whining yet again about what they haven't gotten about what somebody owes them i desperately wanted not to become that second thing i'm not saying that noble decent people who seek justice by asking for reparations are whiners and complainers but i am saying this there's the very real possibility that their efforts will persuade too many americans that that's the way they need to think about black people that would be a very bad thing mr hitchens invites us to consider an analogy he asked us to think about what the british museum ought to do relative to certain important artistic pieces that were taken away by bad armies from athens i'm inclined to agree with him but i'm not talking about the moral relations between two nations or two peoples played out over uh centuries i'm talking about the construction of political relations and national conscience within this nation right here right now the analogy fails it fails because what we americans decide that we are about is very much in the balance here the us them dichotomy that i want to avoid is what we're headed for if we frame this question in terms of reparations how can it be otherwise you put the matter as if somebody is old something somebody's supposed to be paid we're invited and you see the students in the audience saying so what do white people owe what have black people been uh how have black people been injured and so forth and so on when we put it in that way we invite ourselves to split the polity but it's not beyond our reach it's not beyond our grasp it's not outside the realm of political possibility that we might go forward as one people one national enterprise striving to achieve a common good which is the obliteration of this blight from our history as it continues to manifest itself in our contemporary life that's achievable we can get there the question you ought to be asking yourselves is what path is going to get us there checks in the mail or a progressive politics built around some idea about what it is that we owe to each other and what a decent society would look like i say the latter ask yourself whether or not the reparation debate frames the question in a way that allows the development of a politics of decency in our society a politics in which we look at the inner cities and we say oh my god how can that be happening here a politics in which we say about those 1.2 million african-american young men who are locked up today right now as i speak not what manner of people are they but what man of people are we that we accept that kind of degradation in our midst how are we going to get that kind of politics how are we going to actually achieve it in courts of law with litigants claiming about injuries done on the basis of race i think not i am accused of indignant nobility well i'll take the nobility part and i'll admit to a small amount of indignation yeah a small amount of indignation but not because i don't want to be sullied by having a check come in the name of glenn lowry that's not what this is about no i'm not here trying to speak on behalf of all black people i don't want to check therefore they shouldn't get it i'm here trying to speak on behalf of all americans let us consider how best are we to think about the problem what's the problem how to think about it what's the problem how should we think about it okay the problem is that the dark shadow of a morally problematic past continues to cast itself over the lives of too many americans that's the problem if those consequences were not here if those poverty rates weren't what they were if the districts that are the worst places that live in this country did not tend to be black and brown if the prisons were not overflowing with black people if the welfare roles weren't the color that they are we wouldn't be talking about this so the problem is that that history has a present-day consequence what is the solution to that problem checks in the mail is not the solution they are a good thing for as long as they last no i don't presume paternalism over those people who might get those checks i don't say that they would waste their money what i say is this is an open-ended problem here there aren't any checks big enough to cover it it is said that we mustn't allow the nation to forget what has happened it has been said that the issue is an insufficient memory in the white american population about what the past had been precisely i agree with that again if that's the problem what's the solution how are we going to get people to actually acknowledge what happened in the past right i say to you as has been said from the floor posing it as a question of reparations to be paid off is an invitation to close the door in historical memory it's an invitation to say once the obligation has been discharged financially we're done with it and there's no need to talk about what the past is i don't want to let us off the hook that easily it's as simple as that [Applause]

Channel: The Glenn Show

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Length: 30min 34sec (1834 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 03 2022