Reparations’ central purpose is ending black Americans’ burden of self-explanation

Evidence

The point of getting to the other side of reparations is to finally enable black Americans to stop explaining. Stop explaining why there are racial disparities, why we are disproportionately poor, why we aren’t prone to criminal acts, why we aren’t further along economically. What’s more, it would bring about the long-overdue economic, political, and social inclusion of a people who never asked to come here but whose ancestors were forced here in chains and who (along with black immigrants) have been targeted for their blackness ever since. Instead of black Americans feeling like outsiders in our own country, reparations would invite us in, because getting reparations includes transforming policies and practices so that they no longer subordinate black people. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 604

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what reparations are FOR — relief from the explaining burden and downstream transformative inclusion — which is key to the architecture being an argument.
• QUESTION: If reparations’ aim is ending explanation and transforming policy, how is that success measurable? Defensible standards of proof for such an outcome remain open in remedy design.