Last week, in response to Ta-Nehisi’s cover-story, Frum laid out why he sees reparations as unworkable:
Affirmative action’s quirks and injustices are notorious. But they will be nothing compared to the strange consequences of a reparations program. Not all black people are poor. Not all non-black people are rich. Does Oprah have a housecleaner? Who changes the diapers of Beyonce’s baby? Who files Herman J. Russell’s taxes? Will their wages be taxed and the proceeds redirected to their employers?
Within the target population, will all receive the same? Same per person, or same per family? Or will there be adjustment for need? How will need be measured? Will convicted criminals be eligible? If not, the program will exclude perhaps one million African Americans. If yes, the program would potentially tax victims of rape and families of the murdered for the benefit of their assailants.
TNC pushes back:
The problem of reparations has never been practicality.
It has always been the awesome ghosts of history. A fear of ghosts has sometimes occupied the pages of the magazine for which David and I now write. In other times banishment has been our priority. The mature citizen, the hard student, is now called to choose between finding a reason to confront the past, or finding more reasons to hide from it. David thinks HR-40 commits us to a solution. He is correct. The solution is to study. I submit his own article as proof of why such study is so deeply needed.
Frum goes another round:
Ta-Nehisi does not wish to deal with fine details of who pays, who receives, how much, and on what basis. First we are to agree to his proposal. Only then will he tell us what the proposal is. But it seems to me the time to discuss an idea is before it becomes law, not after.
Especially since, in this case, the reparations idea actually distracts from understanding—and overcoming—the continuing disadvantages of black America. By Ta-Nehisi’s own telling, for example, his protagonist Clyde Ross was a victim not only of housing discrimination, but also of Ross’s lack of financial sophistication.
Taking the conversation in another direction, Matt Fletcher spotlights the difference between African Americans and Native Americans when it comes to the idea of reparations:
Tribal fights for hunting and fishing rights, education, sacred sites, and natural resources are all rooted in self-determination. When tribes settle claims against federal and state governments, the funds invariably go toward governance. Even Indian gaming, which many people think of as a form of reparations, grows out of tribal government activity, and Congress has mandated that gaming profits be spent on governance.
America’s moral debts to African-Americans and American Indians are shockingly deep and wide. African Americans point to slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crow, and redlining. And American Indians point to land and resources theft, boarding schools, and cultural and religious persecution. But while African-Americans eye individual payments, Indian tribes seek control over lands and natural resources taken from them by the United States and state governments. The advantage in the tribal strategy is to make Uncle Sam the bad guy. African-American strategists should take note.
Previous Dish on the reparations discussion here, here, here, and here.
The Dish 