Rx Reparations
Reparations challenge White supremacy: policy and culture
Makini Chisolm-Straker
In the first portion of this multi-part essay, I defined racism, highlighting interpersonal and structural forms. White supremacy is one manifestation of racism, in which people are categorized and ranked “…into social groups called ‘races’ and [the oppressing group] uses its [manufactured White] power to value, disempower, and differently allocate valued society resources and opportunities to groups of color [which are labeled]…as inferior” (emphasis added). White supremacy is a lie that undergirds racist U.S. policies and structures. White supremacist ideology purports the racial (i.e., constructed) superiority of White relatives and White supremacist policies facilitate the subordination of groups not included in synthesized Whiteness.
White supremacist ideology and policy are two sides of the same coin because culture and policy are interlinked. Culture is a set of ideas (aka ideology), values, attitudes, and practices shared by a social group. Policy is a course or method of action that influences and determines present and future decisions. Policy is never neutral and is guided by culture even when the ideology is not explicitly stated or acknowledged. Policies are the choices of the empowered and reflect the values and goals of the policymakers.
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In 1944, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (aka GI Bill of Rights), orchestrated by then Representative John Rankin (MS) who was chair of the Committee on World War Legislation in the House. Rankin used the model of administrative decentralization of earlier New Deal laws to ensure Jim Crow states and localities could continue anti-Black, White supremacist practices using federal funding. Rankin and other racist policymakers relied on existing local White supremacist practices and policies and required that the federal law’s administration be determined at local levels (i.e., administrative decentralization), allowing anti-Black practices and policies to continue. The result was that White veterans were able to avail themselves of benefits like job procurement, furthered education, and home ownership on Native land. Author Michael Bennett attributes the 1944 GI Bill of Rights with filling the suburbs, but, as pictured below, the suburbs were built for White relatives. Black veterans were largely excluded via locally racist benefit administration, furthering the U.S.’ policy-created White-Black wealth gap.
In a present-day example of seemingly race-neutral policy, the Trump administration and legislative supporters are defunding SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) via PL 119–21, signaling White supremacist values, just like Rankin did. For example, Representative Clay Higgins (LA) used thinly coded anti-Black language to justify depriving people of access to food. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2019, many recipients of SNAP were people of color: 26% were Black, 16% “Hispanic,” 3% Asian, and 2% Native. But, at 37%, White relatives comprise the largest racial group of SNAP recipients (16%’s race was unknown). To policymakers defunding SNAP, these White people are disposable. In fact, White kin rely on social welfare programming more than any other racial group. But the White supremacist narrative dishonestly purports that most “safety net” users are Black. Black relatives have been falsely demonized and dehumanized such that White supremacist ideology eclipses evidence and arrests the cultivation of communal abundance in U.S. policymaking.
Changing culture to change policy takes time. In this relatively young settler-colonial, White supremacist, capitalist-driven nation, oppressive policies have been brewed by the proverbial leaves of these poisonous ideologies for centuries. But other, loving, compassionate cultures existed first and persist. These values push back and challenge false, divisive ideologies like White supremacy. Communal abundance is an age-old value that is the antithesis of White supremacy: White supremacy materially lifts a few by drowning most others; communal abundance recognizes our interdependence and traditionally collective ways, and lifts us all. Valuing communal abundance over fallacies of inferiority and division will be a major culture change for the U.S. and is essential to sustain communal abundance policy changes. It will take more than an election cycle or two for this culture change to be fully realized, permeating U.S. society irrespective of individual or group leadership. The communal abundance cultural revolution is how White supremacist ideology will become and remain unattractive and immaterial to White relatives and other colonized spirits.
In the meantime and in parallel with narrative change work, elected communal abundance policymakers (who represent growing pockets of cultural transformation) must be far-sighted. Myopia preserves and can even further entrench racist ideology and policy. For example, in 1954 when the Supreme Court correctly interpreted that “separate is not equal,” policymakers were near-sighted when inscribing that principle into policy. Educational integration failed in many U.S. communities because policymakers focused on the outcome: the racial composition of a school. From a White supremacist view, the assumption was that Black learners would benefit from learning with White students. In fact, there were all-Black primary schools in which Black children excelled because they had teachers who believed in their potential and nourished their development. The closing of those institutions — presumed to be substandard because they were all Black — was a detriment to some Black children forced into schools with White supremacist “educators” and peers. Racial economic segregation and differential access to certified teachers contribute to the persistent inadequate public education of Black children (and others of color).
While there is value in learning with relatives who are, in some ways, different, a major argument against “separate but equal” was that separate hadn’t manifested equally: White schools had more resources like teachers, books, and desks than many Black schools. But U.S. apartheid was rooted in a fundamentally White supremacist and false idea that White children were — by virtue of being White — superior to Black children. Instead of centering school demographics, post-Brown v. Board of Education policymakers need/ed to also understand and change the U.S. policies leading to and upholding modern educational segregation. They should/have examine/d and changed educational and housing policies on stolen land, for example. It is the supposedly “colorblind” policies of how public education is (under)funded at local levels and educational “choice;” how credit scores are determined, housing assessment and appraisal practices, property tax laws; and so on that manufactured, preserved, and entrenched anti-Black segregation and economic-educational deprivation, even after supposed abolition of apartheid laws.
All this is not to say that policy change must wait on cultural transformation. Both can ensue simultaneously. But cultural revolution takes significant time and effort, and it requires coordinated, multi-faceted, long-term coalition work. Learning from post-Nazi Germany, U.S. policymakers can enable material change. In post-Nazi Germany, the West (and then East) German government authorized reparations (primarily to Jewish survivors and heirs) without waiting for the populace to collectively cry out for and seek good relationship. Policymakers who value communal abundance must look beyond their own election cycle and understand the historical context and impacts of preceding and existing policies. By doing this, they have the potential to use communal abundance centered policies (like reparations) to change material outcomes and governmental culture, ultimately influencing the national milieu.
Thank you to Thomas Craemer, for generous instruction on the context of Germany’s reparations actions.
Please subscribe to and share Rx Reparations. In coming editions, I’ll offer reparations as a method of policy change to undermine White supremacist ideology and leading to communal abundance. Message me to host a bespoke reparations workshop for your circle. Together, let’s repair, create, and experience liberatory joy.
