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A review by marisbest2
From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by A. Kirsten Mullen, William A. Darity
5.0
The history and ideas and rigor of this book are amazing and clear and well argued. I think I should probably go back and get the actual book rather than just listening. Overall this is a really important work.
Two small nits:
- the organization of the book is neither strictly chronological nor strictly conceptual, and so there's a lot of backward and forward referencing and some repetition.
- the whole point of the book is that reparations are due, not only because of slavery but also because of continuing violence and disparates of access. And then all of a sudden (if I understood the proposal correctly), the basis of the reparations payments would be 1860 / slavery and the eligible people would be only the descendants of slaves.
Overall the concrete proposal seems mostly reasonable and maybe we'll see some progress on it. I do wish there had been more exploration of the specifically political project of reparations (i.e. how to convince politicians and the public especially in areas with few blacks)
Two small nits:
- the organization of the book is neither strictly chronological nor strictly conceptual, and so there's a lot of backward and forward referencing and some repetition.
- the whole point of the book is that reparations are due, not only because of slavery but also because of continuing violence and disparates of access. And then all of a sudden (if I understood the proposal correctly), the basis of the reparations payments would be 1860 / slavery and the eligible people would be only the descendants of slaves.
Overall the concrete proposal seems mostly reasonable and maybe we'll see some progress on it. I do wish there had been more exploration of the specifically political project of reparations (i.e. how to convince politicians and the public especially in areas with few blacks)