Mackenzi Kimball, No intro or conclusion yet. All quotes are free standing right now.
HR 40 is a bill that has been proposed for over 25 years calling for the study of reparations. Yet it has not been passed. One clear reason HR 40 has not been passed is due to the governments unwillingness to be upfront about the country’s past mistakes. Reparations are first seen as a payment option, but Coates provides an alternate reason for them in the form of justice. “Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution” (part 3, para. 11). Reparations in the case of justice require the U.S. government to acknowledge all previous and current wrongdoings towards black people. This is obviously an unthinkable amount which makes our government uncomfortable. Thinking of reparations as something deeper than a check is intimidating to the government. Reparations are much deeper and more complex than we can imagine. “The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America’s heritage, history, and standing in the world” (part 9, para. 7). The government has denied the idea of paying reparations many times, as seen with the denial of the HR 40 bill. All this bill calls for is the study of reparations and slavery so that maybe there might be a solution in the future. HR 40 is just a starting point yet the government refuses to initiate this change. The government is uncomfortable since they built the facade of America through “patriotism.” The sheer existence of America now is about patriotism and that is being “threatened” by the notion of reparations. “An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future. More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders” (part 10, para. 16). The governments’ overall discomfort towards the topic of racism and slavery is keeping the country from growing out of the childhood myth that Coates describes. Talking about the truth of American history ,both past and present, can bring so many people out of their blind patriotism. This could kickstart a whole new America where it learns from its mistakes and tries to actually fix the deep cracks in its structure.
L/H’s article is a great example for why the U.S. is having such a hard time coming to terms with its past. L/H present the term “vindictive protectiveness” in relation to the sudden “sensitivity” of students on college campuses. “turn campuses into “safe spaces” where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable. And more than the last, this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that aim, even accidentally. You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse” (L&H, para. 5). This idea of vindictive protectiveness can be related to the U.S. specifically towards the creation of a culture where everyone must think twice before they speak. The U.S. simply does not speak at all in this situation. They refuse to speak since there is no way to defend the blatant racism in this country due to the lack of education on the subject. The lack of education on the subject of racism can be seen in the not-so-recent movement of Black Lives Matter and the request for HR 40 to pass. This lack of understanding has caused HR 40 to be misunderstood and has caused much trouble/hesitation in getting the bill passed. “HR 40 has never—under either Democrats or Republicans—made it to the House floor suggests our concerns are rooted not in the impracticality of reparations but in something more existential” (Coates, part 3 para. 14). The majority of the U.S. in my opinion, is of the mindset “don’t ask don’t tell” and “every man for himself” so the thought of paying reparations is a jab at these ideals. Lukianoff and Haidt point out the idea of vindictive protectiveness with respect to speaking on issues that may be uncomfortable for some individuals to hear. The U.S. is trying to protect itself from having to confront and pay reparations for all the hurtful history that it’s tried to cover up for hundreds of years.
The U.S. chooses to stay in it’s white fragility bubble by refusing to even consider reparations. “A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill… We would support this bill, submit the question to study, and then assess the possible solutions. But we are not interested” (Coates part 3, para. 12). The possibility of learning about how reparations would be paid has been presented to the government for over 25 years. Yet they refuse to see why and how black people should be repaid. Simply refusing to go out of your comfort zone is childish, and refusing to try to learn and understand why reparations should be paid is just wrong. The U.S. has a fixed mindset when the topic of our own history is brought up. “From their more fixed mindset perspective, their intelligence had been up for judgment, and they failed” (Dweck, 00:41). The reparations that were requested through the HR 40 bill are seen as threatening the comfort zone that the U.S. created for itself. There is no clear cut way to pay reparations after years of generational trauma, so the U.S. is faced with either not acknowledging the past, or not providing a sufficient way of paying those reparations. The U.S. does not want to fail, but it already has by ignoring this call of reparations for so long. OR The U.S. has called itself so powerful for so long that we believe it to be true. But you cannot be a powerful and prosperous country if you deny the true history of the country and deny that you have made any mistakes.
Works Cited
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic, June 2014, The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic, 4 Apr. 2021.
Dweck, Carol. “The Power of Believing that You Can Improve” TED Talks, November 2014, Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve | TED Talk, 31 Mar. 2021.
Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt. “The Coddling of the American Mind.” The Atlantic, September 2015, How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus – The Atlantic, 31 Mar. 2021.
