Friday, November 14, 1997
Question who should be receiving reparations
FAIRNESS:
Only those directly affected deserve compensation for lossesBy
Daniel B. Rego
Who owes whom? The question of reparations is one of
compensation to those who have suffered loss, paid by those who
inflicted that loss. But then, how do we determine who it is that
deserves compensation for specific acts done against them? It has
been suggested that there should be general reparations made to all
those of specific racial or ethnic classifications. This is absurd
because it assumes that everyone in that classification is a
victim. It stereotypes, and thus negates, the individuals that
comprise that particular classification. Let us examine the
fallacies of group reparations.
One of the most notable arguments for group reparations is that
in history, one racial or ethnic group oppressed another, thus
stealing the wealth of the oppressed. The poverty or wealth that
was unfairly transferred is carried down, and even magnified, over
time. Thus, those racial groups deserve compensation at the expense
of the racial group that oppressed them.
This makes a few glaring and false assumptions. The first is
that every individual in a racial group oppressed every individual
of another racial group. This never really happens. Take, for
example, slavery. Not every Southerner was a plantation master.
There were more whites who never owned a slave in the Old South
than one might think. The large plantation owners were actually a
small minority in the South. Most whites directly benefited very
little or not at all from slavery.
Another point is that poverty or wealth is not solidified into
definite and immovable classes in America. The very rich can soon
be poor, and the poor can become rich. This can be seen by the "Big
Four" of California (Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington, Leland
Stanford and Charles Crocker), all of whom were born relatively
poor, but ended up very rich. The same can be said of Andrew
Carnegie, who came to America as a poor non-anglo immigrant, and
became one of the richest people in American history. The level of
wealth is very fluid in America, not exclusive to race. Where there
is a will, there is a way.
A second fallacy in the argument for reparations is the belief
that one deserves compensation because his or her ancestors were
robbed. First of all, one is not culpable for the actions of
another. For example, if your father killed my father, why would I
have the right to punish you? Second of all, one does not have the
inexorable right to inheritance. Inheritance is basically the
exercise of private property rights and the right to transfer that
property. The person making the inheritance gives it to whomever he
or she wishes. The heir does not have the right to receive the
inheritance; it is an exercise of the right of a person to give it.
Thus, descendants have no claim on the private property, or
compensation for work done by their ancestors.
If reparations are made to only those individuals who have
suffered loss due to specific actions, then people will not demand
compensation for something that did not happen to them or affect
them directly. An example is the freed slaves after the Civil War.
The federal government set up the Freedmen’s Bureau for freed
slaves. This bureau was only for those individuals who had been
slaves before the Civil War ended. If you were not a freed slave,
then you could not benefit.
Another example is reparations for those who were sent to
Japanese internment camps during the second World War. Though one
could probably think up arguments for why Japanese citizens should
have been interned at the time, the internment of American citizens
was wrong. The government, much later, compensated those
individuals who were placed in the internment camps. Again, this is
an example of compensation to those individuals (people placed in
internment camps) who had injustice worked upon them (being placed
in internment camps). The compensation is not based upon race, but
of actual incidents that occurred toward individuals. A person of
Japanese descent born 40 years ago would not have any right to
compensation for what happened during the second World War because
they were not thrown in the internment camps.
This all helps us to understand the question of reparations for
slavery. All persons who owned slaves are dead. All persons who
were slaves are dead. There is no one left to take the compensation
from, and no one to give it to. As for the Jim Crow laws,
compensation goes only to those who were actually affected by them.
A law preventing a person who is African American from attending a
state university is wrong, but compensation would go to those who
attempted to reach and attend colleges and were denied on the basis
of race. If a person who was African American never wanted to go to
college in the first place, or was not even from that state, the
law never really adversely affected him or her.
Neither the internment example nor the slavery example should be
construed to belittle the seriousness of the situation. Indeed,
there have been egregious acts performed against various people of
all races, including whites. However, when we make general
reparations to a group based solely on race or ethnicity, we ignore
what the compensation is actually for and devolves into massive
inequality. Let us base reparations on actual reasons, not racial
classification.