Reparations cannot be more divisive than the harms they would right

Evidence

I begin with the generalized objection that somehow reparations would be divisive. Do you know what else is divisive? Taking black Americans’ property, lynching, preventing black Americans from living and working where they want, and targeting them with police violence. If ending our country’s history of treating black Americans as second-class citizens is viewed by some as divisive, they need a history lesson. If their views remain unchanged after that, they cannot hold the rest of us hostage. We must keep moving our country forward. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 533

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the argument for the reparations case as a legal brief — rebutting the ‘divisiveness’ objection mirrors the pattern in the sacrifice piece of defending a difficult redress against charges of destabilization.

Related

• Violence and exclusion against black Americans are more divisive than reparations (similarity 0.94)
• Structural systems, not individual prejudice, are the primary target of reparations (similarity 0.84)
• Reparations require confronting how slavery corrupted white beneficiaries, not just black victims (similarity 0.84)
• Reparations are a completion of American democracy rather than a departure from it (similarity 0.83)
• The standard objections to reparations form a stable recurring set (similarity 0.83)
• Every reparations program pays far less than the actual harm suffered (similarity 0.82)
• California’s reparations effort faced a substantial backlash (similarity 0.82)
• Reparations would not end racism but would strengthen monitoring against backsliding. (similarity 0.81)
• Reparations offer white Americans relief from maintaining delusion and denial (similarity 0.81)
• Reparations can be framed as accountability for intrusive government, winning conservative support. (similarity 0.81)
• Black Americans support reparations across every demographic divide (similarity 0.81)
• Non-black precedent plus post-slavery history can win majority support (similarity 0.81)
• Framing reparations as a slippery slope serves white supremacy. (similarity 0.80)
• Slavery and Jim Crow inflicted lasting moral harm on white Americans as well (similarity 0.80)
• Reparations should cover all black Americans, not just slave descendants (similarity 0.80)