Reparations: Why We Need a Community Ownership Approach – Non Profit News

Image credit: Thirdman on Pexels How should reparations be structured? I believe the Black nationalist/Pan-Africanist tradition that places Black people practicing sovereignty at the center holds vital answers. The late Dr. John Henrik Clarke, a 20th-century historian who helped create the field of Africana Studies, was a pioneering thinker for this approach. In a lecture, likely from the late 1980s, called “Are We Ready for the 21st Century?” Clarke argued that Black people had lost the internal capacity to manage our own economic affairs, which he called a sense of “nationhood.” Instead, in countries that have struggled against apartheid—including South Africa and the United States—Black people have become reliant on white institutions, which have locked them into generational socioeconomic stagnation. Like Clarke, I believe that Black communities must work toward owning and controlling the institutions that produce and manage our food, telecommunications, and other vital functions. Too often, Black reparations conversations center solely on cash payments. But cash is insufficient. Relying on institutions outside Black communities perpetuates the structure of colonial subjugation and subordination. When we consider reparations, I believe there are no sustainable solutions to the myriad challenges that face Black people without increasing our economic capacity to meet...