Reparations Opportunity
The impulse to create a new, living democracy is strong in Detroit. As a movement city, people have long understood the power of organized action for change. We are the home of some of the most radically democratic efforts in the country, infusing our political life with principles of justice and compassion.
The best of these efforts was highlighted this week when the Detroit City Council passed a resolution to establish a process for a task force on reparations. The initiative for the resolution came from President Pro Tem Mary Sheffield who has fashioned the resolution to address both short and longer term recommendations. Sheffield said, "There's a lot of systemic issues that African Americans face and this is a predominately Black city. I think it's important that we acknowledge it and we at least begin to have conversations on how to address the issue of reparations."
The scope of the resolution illustrates the expansive thinking by those leading this effort. It advocates for the city to look at a broad range of issues linked to the quality of life within our communities. It includes considerations of
Right to water and sanitation
Right to environmental health
Right to safety
Right to live free from discrimination, including people with disability, immigrants, LGBTQ, and others
Right to recreation
Right to access and mobility
Right to housing
Right to the fulfillment of basic needs
This is a welcome discussion at a critical moment. It is linked to the intensifying debate over Proposal P and the creation of a new charter. The proposed charter also has provisions for putting the question of reparations on the ballot.
These local initiatives, given new force by the movement for black lives, have a long history. Detroiters have given national leadership to the discussion of reparations. Queen Mother Audley Moore is considered the “mother” of the movement. Congressman John Conyers, Jr consistently championed the effort in Congress, and Rev. JoAnn Watson serves on the National African-American Reparations Commission as well as a leading force in the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N”COBRA).
In an analysis of Community reparations prepared by the Legislative and Policy Division last August, we find this comment:
Since at least the publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ June 2014 essay in The Atlantic magazine, the issue of reparations for African American exploitation and structural predation by white supremacist America has been the subject of extensive public debates. Coates surveys the historic structural policies of discrimination and exploitation against African Americans - not limited to enslavement, but extended effectively by regional Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement under the terror system of lynch “law” in the south, as well as national policies like redlining through mortgage discrimination, de facto segregation, structural racial disparities in health, wealth and income, and today’s racial injustices continuing right up to the present moment after the murder of George Floyd, the Flint River scandal and water shut offs in Detroit.
We are on the verge of being able to create a city that demonstrates a much deeper understanding of our obligations to each other, of the kinds of structures of governance that will and protect life, and of policies that are designed to enhance the quality of our communities.
In response to these initiatives, corporate powers and their various voices are claiming we cannot do any of this, because, “It will cost too much.” Far too many people have already paid far too high a price for the kind of changes we need. We have some very clear choices ahead.