Rev. Kevin Peterson of The New Democracy Coalition is no stranger to progressive causes, from renaming Faneuil Hall to reparations.
He’s found many supporters of the cause in the current Boston City Council. On Wednesday, the council unanimously voted in favor of a task force to study reparations for Black Bostonians. There is little chance of a veto from Mayor Michelle Wu, so I expect this to pass quickly.
It would create a five-person body to research history of the effects of American slavery and other discriminatory policies like “redlining” of access to cash in Boston, then to assess what the city’s done to address those before coming up with yet-to-be-determined next steps.
“The objective of this task force is to both analyze and measure the severity of that harm, and then to analyze and measure what the severity of the cure to that harm should be,” City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, the government operations chair, said, as the Herald reported.
Will the task force determine who is qualified to receive reparations, and who is required to pay for them? How much money and/or land is in the mix? Who will handle the expected payoff – and how?
These questions illustrate why Black people would never receive reparations from Boston. It would be futile for a commission studying the possibility of reparations to try to find workable, just solutions to these problems. But that doesn’t stop the academics, consultants, clergy, and other “leaders” who use these issues as meal tickets and reputation enhancers. If you’re a Black person in Boston, you shouldn’t waste your time or energy on reparations. Taking on crime, narcotics, the underperforming Boston Public School system, and the dangerous gang members terrorizing Boston should be priority political issues.
But that’s not on the progressive agenda.
Democrats, who helped the terrible conditions in Boston’s Black community thrive, know they can count on Black voters’ continued support by promising reparations that will never happen. Black leaders who seek power can keep this issue in the spotlight and utilize it to build support for future political ambitions.
Reparations wouldn’t make life for Black Bostonians better. They won’t make neighborhoods safer, they won’t help the Boston Public Schools, and they won’t make gang members and drug traffickers loosen their grip on the community. Many folks received COVID relief checks – did they make us better people? Did they solve society’s ills? No, they did not.
Reparation payments to Black Bostonians are guaranteed to be contentious. Nobody on the city council, not even Mayor Wu, is eligible for compensation. Although Councilor Brian Worrell is the only Black member of the Boston City Council, he, like myself, is of West Indian Caribbean descent and hence ineligible because his ancestors were not slaves in Boston.
And Asian, Cape Verdean, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American immigrants are also not eligible. Most Black Bostonians who have lived here for generations are ineligible unless they can prove their ancestors were enslaved in Boston.
White Bostonians, immigrants, and Black Bostonians who don’t qualify will be paying for the misdeeds of individuals who have been dead for hundreds of years. How do you think this will go? Black Bostonians should look to the example of other groups who have endured persecution and suffering in the city, such as the Italians, Chinese, and Irish. Those groups worked together to help each other financially and to build communities that are safe and decent places to live.
No ethnic group in the United States has been saved by the government; instead, each group has saved itself.
Rasheed Walters is an entrepreneur, political commentator and historian. He is a member of Project 21, and resides in Boston. Follow him on Twitter @rasheednwalters.
Read More: Reparations not what Boston’s Black communities need