The moral imperative to begin to correct some of the sins of slavery, by means of reparations, has been accepted by Buffalo Quakers. What does reparations mean? A fundamental understanding of this is in the protest songs of African Americans calling y’all to “take back what they stole from us!” What has been stolen? Hundreds of years of life and labor and wealth.
The majority of wealth in this nation is from those hundreds of years (and millions of souls) of forced labor, through the institution of slavery. Slavery created the wealth. The wealth transferred from white individuals and corporations (the owners of land and capital) through the generations. The majority of wealth in this nation is inherited.
It is my understanding that the Buffalo Quakers inherited wealth in the form of a gifted house, in the heart of the black community, on North Parade, overlooking MLK Park. When the house was sold, the money was put into the bank, where it sits today.
Does it matter that the house gift is not directly tied to slavery? It is inherited wealth sitting unused while proclamations are made about equality, reparations and solidarity in a time when there are forces conspiring to institute the 4th Reich. Meanwhile, the May 14th memorial of the racist massacre just passed. A decisive act of solidarity would be spiritually powerful. A very clear and direct act of reparations would be to give that money back to heart of the black community. Let black people build wealth and culture from the gifts of the Quaker spirit (the gift of inherited wealth).
It is a leap of faith. After centuries of colonialism and capitalism, it may seem hard to break away from individual (selfish) wealth accumulation and the accompanying moral justifications, but reparations can be the decisive break from these debilitations. Break free from the “yoke of righteousness with pride,” that Arsenious of the desert warned against.
What can be learned from Christian economics? The first of the beatitudes, (the core teachings of Jesus) from the book of Luke 6:20 proclaims “blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Conversely, he exclaims soon after “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” LK 6:24.
In a parable about reparations, (Mark 10:21) Jesus offers a path of redemption to a rich man. “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
After the resurrection, the early Christian community lived in egalitarian solidarity. According to The Book of Acts 2:44-45, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
The African American community (like all oppressed communities) lives and understands solidarity and mutual aid, the sharing of resources, better than primality white or wealthy communities. One of the 7 principles of Kwanzaa, (the 7 days between Christmas and New Year’s) is Ujamma, a Swahili word for cooperative economics. Dr. King’s integrated civil rights work began with an economic bus boycott in Montgomery and ended with a sanitation labor strike in Memphis at the advent of the poor people’s movement. That movement was resurrected in recent years by Dr. Barber and others. Simultaneously, The Nation of Islam focused on nation building, the building of economic wealth and independence from the racist society.
The anarchist Kropotkin wrote about the science of mutual aid - that cooperation is inherent in species survival and evolution (vs prevailing capitalistic takes on Darwin’s survival of the fittest). How do people trained (indoctrinated) by competition for the sake of the survival of the capitalist project free themselves? The words and teachings coming down through the centuries are whispering and shouting “blessed are the poor” “sell everything and give to the poor”, reparations, mutual aid, direct aid, etc.
Similarly, the Dalai Lama said that cooperation (mutual aid) is practiced and noticeable from the beginning of our lives. A child cannot live without the cooperative support of a mother’s care, the milk of her kindness. We can and often practice this outside of family structure. Passing wealth to children is motivated by a biological urge to support offspring, but is biology always spiritual? Do people love social equality as much as biology?
A local African American elder, Simba, who passed away, would often speak about the strategy of revolutions, evolutions and movement building. He asked us to know our roles. Black people have soul and white people have ways and means. Reparations, mutual aid and the sharing of wealth are acts of revolutionary love by white people. They are the acts of peace teams and alternatives to violence.