America owes Black folks. The modern-day prophet Ta-Nahesi Coates, drawing on the wisdom and generations-old fight of Black freedom fighters such as Mother Callie House, James Forman, Randall Robinson, and the Malcolm X grassroots movement, cogently made the case in his seminal article, “The Case for Reparations”, when he called out the 250 years of chattel slavery, 96 years of Jim Crow, and 60 years of separate but equal that Black folks have endured in America.
This argument is further buttressed by the half-told history of the wholesale gentrification of Black neighborhoods that have been devalued by redlining and disinvestment, and the restrictive covenants that historically undermined Black homeownership and the ability to build Black wealth, which in turn has perpetuated the racial wealth gap. It is also made plain by the ongoing violence against Black bodies that occurs in every form, from the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Black people to the brazen, state-administered killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland and countless other Black people at the hands of those who are supposedly sworn to protect and serve them.
This is what racial capitalism is designed and intended to produce. Black folks know this all too well. Others are discovering and experiencing this reality, too.
