Opinion | Evanston, Illinois permitted a “reparations” housing program. Besides it isn’t making amends.

On March 22nd, Evanston, Illinois City Council approved a Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program to address discriminatory policies and practices in the city’s past. The program, touted as historic in the media, allows qualified black residents to receive up to $ 25,000 in home repairs or down payments.

This is a good move for the city, but let’s be clear: this is a home voucher program, not redress – and it cites more harm than good.

The cause of justice requires ownership of the meaning of “reparations,” and we reject these kinds of piecemeal and misleading labels. True redress can only result from a comprehensive program of recognition, redress, and closure for grave injustice.

With regard to African Americans, slavery, legal separation (Jim Crow), and persistent discrimination and stigma are among the serious injustices that speak for redress. What would take us there? We believe four features are essential to a true black reparations plan.

First, the plan must carefully delineate eligibility. Two conditions are critical: Eligible recipients must have at least one ancestor who was enslaved in the United States. These are the individuals who bear the burden of the cumulative intergenerational effects of all three periods of racial atrocity. Recipients must also show that they have identified themselves as black, negro or equivalent in an official document for at least 12 years before a reparations program is initiated.

Second, any real reparations plan must address the nation’s staggering black and white prosperity gap. Black American descendants of slavery make up approximately 12 percent of the nation’s population, but own less than 2 percent of the national wealth. The wealth gap is simply the best cumulative economic indicator of the damage American racism has wrought over generations.

Third, payments must be made directly. As in previous cases, such as German payments to Holocaust victims and US payments to citizens and non-citizens of Japanese origin for their internment during World War II, the recipients must decide at their own discretion about the funds received as reimbursement.

Finally and critically, the bill must be paid by the federal government.

To match the black portion of America’s wealth with the black portion of the population, it would ultimately require spending of $ 14 trillion. In total, the total annual budget of all state and local governments is $ 3.1 trillion. Individually, local communities like Evanston generally do not have the resources to pay black reparations in a meaningful way. But a sufficiently engaged federal government – one that found more than $ 5 trillion in a single year to answer the Covid-19 emergency – can do this.

And that is the core problem of Evanston’s initiative, regardless of its merits as a housing program. Such local efforts can divert the dynamism of the nation from a long overdue comprehensive federal program. And the misapplied “reparations” label can only lead to confusion about the scope of what is required for a real refund.

Some of the details of the Evanston Initiative help shed light on this point. The program is funded by the city’s cannabis excise tax, creating funding uncertainty. By restricting the use of funds on home ownership, the Evanston Plan ignores deficits in other asset classes that affect black Americans, such as property management. B. Non-residential real estate, corporate capital, retirement accounts, savings, and stocks and bonds. Restricting expenditure to the accommodation of recipients disempowers the recipients and denies them the choice of how best to use the funds.

Additionally, the Evanston Plan neglects the huge equity void of black and white owned homes, a legacy of segregation and redlining. Nationally, the median estimated value of a home in a white neighborhood is $ 155,000 higher than the median price of a neighborhood with a majority of black residents.

And therefore, Evanston’s history of housing discrimination clearly reinforces the need for a national reimbursement program. Redlining was used nationwide; it calls for a national remedy. Additionally, many black victims of Evanston’s practices are not current residents of the city – how can they get reimbursement without a national program?

Virtually all states and communities in the United States play a role in the country’s ongoing injustice, but none of them can alone meet the bill to close the black and white wealth gap. The federal government has established the legal and regulatory framework that enables atrocities to be committed at the state and local levels.

States and municipalities must certainly reduce and combat systemic racism, but reparations are and will remain a national imperative. Let us continue.

Aqeela Sherrills, who negotiated a ceasefire between the Crips and the Bloods in Los Angeles, says the police are not the answer to stopping cycles of violence. (Ray Whitehouse, Emefa Agawu, Kate Woodsome / The Washington Post)