Reflections on: Reparations by Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson

I probably should have written this earlier, back before I had to return my copy of the book to the library system, but alas.  Some reflections based off of my memory on Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair by Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson.  

Going into the book, I think I would have said that my opinion of the concept of "reparations" was generically negative, mostly based off of the pragmatic, "How would we manage this? It sounds too hard to implement, surely there's a better solution" type thoughts.  I must admit reading the book gave me a number of new categories and I found it very compelling.  The authors argue a Christian case for reparations.  I'm sure I'm going to blow a bunch of details, but here were a number that stuck out to me.  

1) American culture has been characterized upon white supremacy: the practice of prioritizing, centering, and focusing on whites, viewing other things through the lens of white culture, bias, preference, and comfort and setting up systems and structures to continue these practices.  While many view white supremacy as isolated to individuals proclaiming KKK chants and insisting overly on the superiority of the white race, the authors helpfully point out that white supremacy is much more subtle than that, it is a culture, a lens, a practice, a habit of prioritizing, focusing on, listening primarily to white voices at the expense of other voices.  I found the defense of the term "white supremacy" as eye-opening and extremely helpful.  When a term has been clearly defined and used in history to refer to a particular concept, it's entirely right and proper to name what is happening and let the offense stand.  

2) The call for reparations is a response to a particular action: theft.  Because of white supremacy in the US across the years, black lives, truth, power, influence, and money were unjustly stolen, to the detriment of the black community and to the benefit of the white.  Money is not the only thing that needs to be restored, but only the first one we start talking about.  

3) Related to theft, the authors had a helpful analogy to that of a stolen car.  If someone steals a car, the thief ought to return the car, even if the thief thinks that the owner will then misuse the car.  It's not appropriate for the thief to put constraints on how the car is used after being returned.  The thief ought to simply return the car.  Similarly, if the thief gives the car to their child, it's not any good for the child to say, "but I didn't steal the car."  The child (even if innocent of the original theft) ought to return the car.  To refuse to do so is actually to participate in the theft.  

4) Christians are not innocent of this theft.  Other Christians benefited from this theft, and in many cases Christians have actively participated in this theft.  Particularly stunning were accounts of churches who owned slaves and leased them out to others to pay the bills, allowing tithe money to go towards development.  Those slaves were often treated even worse than if they were simply put to work by the church, since the people putting them to work didn't have to worry about their long term health.  Sad and sobering. 

I would definitely recommend the book.  It was eye opening, sobering, convincing, and convicting.  It raises hard questions, but questions that I want to be part of answering rather than questions that I want to be part of denying.  

If you want to get the "short" version of the book, I think the two part response to Kevin DeYoung's review covers the main principles, but doesn't highlight the historical facts.