It is common for nations where mass atrocities have taken place to engage in the process of reparation and repair. This process happened in Germany after the Holocaust, South Africa after apartheid, and here in the United States, forty years after the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. As a result, international human rights bodies have sought to lend their to the process, often by holding hearings and publishing international guidelines on the steps necessary to effectively administer a program for
Now is time for those same human rights bodies to add their expertise to the ongoing conversation around reparations for descendants of African slaves in the United States. That鈥檚 the fundamental assumption that guided our decision to request today鈥檚 hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and other forms of structural racial discrimination, in the United States.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, founded in 1959 by nations across the Western Hemisphere, has specifically been involved in such work, holding hearings and publishing international guidelines on the steps necessary to effectively administer a program for It did so after mass human rights violations in and , leading to both countries鈥� implementation of these initiatives. In March, the commission released a report that recommended reparations here in the United States to address the structure of the racial discrimination that underlies our current system of policing.
Toward the end of the launching that report at Howard Law School, vice president of the commission Margarette McCauley, addressed the audience, reminding us that the commission has a long history of recommending reparations for severe violations of human rights. In fact, reparations programs recommended by the commission often call for far more than simply eliminating the consequences of human rights violations. Often, the recommendations emphasize meaningful restitution, rehabilitation and compensation. This means restoring community cohesion and improving the social circumstances of affected communities.
That commission suggested that the United States respond to the crisis elevated by the Black Lives Matter movement by 鈥渦ndertaking studies with the goal of creating guidelines for the reparation of historic and structural discrimination鈥� and 鈥減rovide appropriate reparation to those affected by the racially disparate impact of federal, state, and local laws and policies.鈥� We should not have been surprised鈥攖he United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent issued a similar recommendation .
Closer to home, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee鈥檚 (D-Texas) proposal for H.R 40 would bring the U.S. in line with both international law and practice in the issuance of reparations for human rights violations. The international human rights community has taken the position that reparations are the right remedy for racial injustice in the United States. It鈥檚 time that our country recognizes that.
By approaching the reparations debate using a human rights lens, we sidestep the limited vision of those with shortsighted domestic imaginations. For example, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently that slavery was too long ago and that people alive today are not responsible for slavery.
A human rights lens shows that McConnell鈥檚 arguments are far too constricted, both in defining the issues and in considering solutions. No international body has suggested that we limit reparations to the question of enslavement. Indeed, while the Inter-American Commission focused on police violence, others have focused on Jim Crow, lynching, segregation, and other methods of racial terror that people alive today have and continue to experience. These questions have not proved to be insurmountable in other countries and are not unconquerable here in the United States.
Take Canada, for instance. The racist practice of removing indigenous Canadian children from their families and placing them in schools that prohibited their native languages and cultural practices began in the 19th century. In 1991, the Canadian government established a special commission designed to explore the relationship between aboriginal peoples and the government. Based on that commission鈥檚 recommendations and , the government issued an apology and, as of 2016, has provided approximately $2 billion federal dollars for a truth and reconciliation commission, as well as financial compensation for survivors under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Our problems and their solutions are more similar than one would think. One public school reform group found that there is presently a in funding between white and nonwhite school districts. A to close that gap and help to end the school-to-prison pipeline in America鈥檚 public schools.
The upcoming IACHR hearing offers opportunities to learn about additional comparative examples of reparations efforts. We should use the information gleaned from these hearings to inform the current domestic debate on how to remedy our country鈥檚 history of racial injustice.
