After the horrific killing of George Floyd by the police that were meant to protect and to serve him, mass demonstrations have pushed the conversation around police brutality to what is hopefully a new turning point in the United States. But the conversation around making reparations to black Americans for centuries of unpaid labor, stolen property, loss of life and emotional trauma remains as elusive as ever. In this episode, I step out of my depth to offer a personal opinion as a citizen and as a human being: if #BlackLivesMatter, then we need to demand reparations for black Americans.

WORKS CITED

-Glaunec, Jean-Pierre Le. The Cry of Vertières: Liberation, Memory, and the Beginning of Haiti. Translated by Jonathan Kaplansky. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020.

-Newsinger, John. “Liberty and Equality in Haiti.” Socialist Review. http://socialistreview.org.uk/303/liberty-and-equality-haiti.

-Piketty, Thomas. Capital and Ideology. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2020.

-Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

-Cohen, Patricia. “What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019.” The New York Times, May 23, 2019, sec. Business. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/business/economy/reparations-slavery.html

-Blow, Charles M. “Opinion | Allies, Don’t Fail Us Again.” The New York Times, June 7, 2020, sec. Opinion. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/opinion/white-privilege-civil-rights.html

UPDATES

-June 30, 2020. A few weeks after this episode came out, The New York Times Magazine published an incredible article, What is Owed, by Nikole Hannah-Jones, covering these themes and more: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/24/magazine/reparations-slavery.html

MUSIC

-Theme music and consultation: Georgina Rossi, www.georginarossi.com

-Interlude: William Grant Still, Here’s One, performed by violist Georgina Rossi (www.georginarossi.com) and pianist Silvie Cheng (www.silviecheng.com)