Conference Addresses Perspectives on Racial Reparations

The conference -- titled "Reconciling Hope and History: The Question of Reparations" -- was the sixth in the annual series of Conferences on Race, Class, Gender and Ethnicity, a series organized by UNC law students.

Clare Norins, a law student and one of the conference's four co-chairmen, said about 140 students, professors and community members attended the conference.

Norins said the topic of reparations for past racial and ethnic injustices was picked because of recent legal cases that have dealt with affirmative action and compensation for descendants of slaves.

"This topic is one that is pretty timely," she said. "Reparations is something that is not normally discussed."

John McClendon, an associate professor of African-American studies and American cultural studies at Maine's Bates College, delivered the conference's keynote address, which connected racial discrimination to politics and economic class issues.

"Understand that the history of this country has always been slanted by the hands of those who rule," McLendon said. "White supremacy has not been based solely on being anti-black; it's about maintaining power."

McClendon said reparations alone can not fully correct a history of racial injustice because they would not change the social and political infrastructure that he said perpetuates injustices toward blacks.

But McClendon said the discussion of slavery reparations can be used to raise interest in organizing efforts that could lead to blacks achieving equality.

"We must see reparations as instrumental, not as an end in itself," he said.

After the address, a panel of professors heatedly debated the pros and cons of reparations and the form they should take.

Robert Sedler, a law professor at Michigan's Wayne State University and an active civil rights lawyer, spoke against granting slave reparations by arguing that such an idea would not be supported by the white community.

"Reparations will not happen," Sedler said. "The word has the unfortunate consequence of undermining race relations, and therefore it should be abolished."

But Adjoa Aiyetoro, a law professor at American University, said racial injustice cannot be corrected until past injuries against blacks are understood and resolved. "Reparations must take us back into history," she said. "Not for us to stay there, but because we first must understand the injury."

The second half of the daylong conference included 10 individual workshops that examined different issues related to the topic of reparations, including compensating Japanese Americans detained in concentration camps during World War II.

After a question-and-answer session with a panel of professors who led the workshops, UNC law Professor John Calmore closed the conference by praising the study of reparations as a way to alleviate injustices of the past while still looking toward the future.

He said, "Talk of reparations is talk of making hope and history rhyme."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.