Library Catalog
On the Shelf at CCBC Libraries
Rethinking Racial Justice by
The racial injustice that continues to plague the United States couldn't be a clearer challenge to the country's idea of itself as a liberal and democratic society, where all citizens have a chance at a decent life. Moreover, it raises deep questions about the adequacy of our political ideas,particularly liberal political theory, to guide us out of the quagmire of inequality. So what does justice demand in response? What must a liberal society do to address the legacies of its past, and how should we aim to reconceive liberalism in order to do so?In this book, Andrew Valls considers two solutions, one posed from the political right and one from the left. From the right is the idea that norms of equal treatment require that race be treated as irrelevant - in other words, that public policy and political institutions be race-blind. From theleft is the idea that race-conscious policies are temporary, and are justifiable insofar as they promote diversity. This book takes issue with both of these sets of views, and therefore with the constricted ways in which racial justice is debated in the United States today. Valls argues that liberaltheory permits, and in some cases requires, race-conscious policies and institutional arrangements in the pursuit of racial equality. In doing so, he aims to do two things: first, to reorient the terms of racial justice and, secondly, to make liberal theory confront its tendency to ignore race infavor of an underspecified commitment to multiculturalism. He argues that the insistence that race-conscious policies be temporary is harmful to the cause of racial justice, defends black-dominated institutions and communities as a viable alternative to integration, and argues against the tendencyto subsume claims for racial justice, particularly as they regard African Americans, under more general arguments for diversity.
Call Number: E185.89.R45 V35 2018
Reparations by
Should descendants of slaves be compensated for the suffering their ancestors endured? Should the losing side in a war be forced to pay the victor? When modern-day states confront long-ago atrocities, is acknowledgement and an apology enough? This fascinating examination of reparations offers opinions by leading experts on such past injustices as the Holocaust, the slave trade, the Armenian genocide, the forced relocation of Native Americans, and the Imperial Japanese Army's comfort women. An asset to any library, Reparations takes on the very uncomfortable issue of how governments and individuals can reckon with sins of the past.
Call Number: E185.89.R45 R469 2017
Reparations by
Today, the debate over reparations--whether African-Americans should be compensated for decades of racial subjugation--stands as the most racially divisive issue in American politics. In this short, definitive work, Alfred L. Brophy, an expert on racial violence, regards the debate overreparations from the 1700s to the present, examining the arguments on both sides of the current debate. Taking us inside litigation and legislatures past and present, examining failed and successful lawsuits, and reparations actions by legislatures, newspapers, schools, and businesses, includingapologies and truth commissions, this book offers a valuable historical and legal perspective for reparations advocates and critics alike.
Call Number: KF4757 .B66 2008
Reparations for American Slavery by
Books in this anthology series focus a wide range of viewpoints onto a single controversial issue, providing in-depth discussions by leading advocates. Articles are printed in their entirety and footnotes and source notes are retained. These books offer the reader not only a full spectrum of dissent on the subject, but also the ability to test the validity of arguments by following up on sources used as evidence. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to further research. This series provides a quick grounding in the issues, a challenge to critical thinking skills, and an excellent research tool in each inexpensive volume.
Call Number: E185.89.R45 R47 2004
Databases
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
Articles on any subject. This is a good place to start.
- Opposing Viewpoints This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- SIRS Issues Researcher This link opens in a new window
Viewpoint essays, topic essays, and news and magazine articles on controversial issues. Browse for topics or search.
- Criminal Justice This link opens in a new window
Articles on criminal justice topics, including corrections administration, law enforcement, social work, industrial security, drug rehabilitation, and criminal and family law.
- Sociology Database This link opens in a new window
Articles on sociology topics including criminal justice, gender studies, racial studies, social services, and social work.
- SocINDEX This link opens in a new window
Articles on sociology topics including criminal justice, gender studies, racial studies, social services, and social work.
Ted Talk
Video: Moyers & Company: Facing the Truth -- The Case for Reparations
- Moyers & Company: Facing the Truth—The Case for Reparations In this edition of Moyers & Company, Bill speaks with Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic about his cover story “The Case for Reparations” about why America needs to reconcile with its racist past. Broadcast date: May 23, 2014.
Online Articles
- What the US can learn from Africa about slavery reparationsThe Conversation, May 6, 2021
- US: Congress Advances Slavery Reparations Bill
Human Rights Watch, April 9, 2021 - Revisiting reparations: Is it time for the US to pay its debt for the legacy of slavery?The Conversation, March 4, 2021
- Why we need reparations for Black Americans
The Brookings Institute, April 15, 2020 - The Case for Reparations, by Ta-Nehesi Coates
The Atlantic, June 2014
Latest News
- Reparations boost local program for Black teens
Washington Post, July 1, 2021
(Must be logged in to CCBC account to see article) - How the meticulous bookkeeping of two sisters led to reparations for Black people across the countryWashington Post, June 30, 2021
(Must be logged in to CCBC account to see article) - Seminary Built on Slavery and Jim Crow Labor Has Begun Paying Reparations
New York Times, May 31, 2021 - What slavery reparations from the federal government could look like
NBC News, May 12, 2021 - Evanston passes first-in-nation reparations
Chigago Sun-Times, March 23, 2021 - Episcopal church established by Baltimore slave owners creates $500,000 reparations fund
Baltimore Sun, January 29, 2021
Online From CCBC Libraries
From Here to Equality by
Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. Perhaps no moment was more opportune than the early days of Reconstruction, when the U.S. government temporarily implemented a major redistribution of land from former slaveholders to the newly emancipated enslaved. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents. In From Here to Equality, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen confront these injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. After opening the book with a stark assessment of the intergenerational effects of white supremacy on black economic well-being, Darity and Mullen look to both the past and the present to measure the inequalities borne of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, they next assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War. Finally, Darity and Mullen offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. Taken individually, any one of the three eras of injustice outlined by Darity and Mullen--slavery, Jim Crow, and modern-day discrimination--makes a powerful case for black reparations. Taken collectively, they are impossible to ignore.
Publication Date: 2020
Heirs of Oppression by
Packing his case with moral argument and relevant facts, Angelo Corlett offers the most comprehensive defense to date in favor of reparations for African Americans and American Indians. As Corlett see it, the heirs of oppression are both the descendants of the oppressors and the descendants of their victims. Corlett delves deeply into the philosophically related issues of collective responsibility, forgiveness and apology, and reparations as a human right in ways that no other book or article to date has done.
Publication Date: 2010
Atonement and Forgiveness by
Roy L. Brooks reframes one of the most important, controversial, and misunderstood issues of our time in this far-reaching reassessment of the growing debate on black reparation. Atonement and Forgiveness shifts the focus of the issue from the backward-looking question of compensation for victims to a more forward-looking racial reconciliation. Offering a comprehensive discussion of the history of the black redress movement, this book puts forward a powerful new plan for repairing the damaged relationship between the federal government and black Americans in the aftermath of 240 years of slavery and another 100 years of government-sanctioned racial segregation. Key to Brooks's vision is the government's clear signal that it understands the magnitude of the atrocity it committed against an innocent people, that it takes full responsibility, and that it publicly requests forgiveness--in other words, that it apologizes. The government must make that apology believable, Brooks explains, by a tangible act that turns the rhetoric of apology into a meaningful, material reality, that is, by reparation. Apology and reparation together constitute atonement. Atonement, in turn, imposes a reciprocal civic obligation on black Americans to forgive, which allows black Americans to start relinquishing racial resentment and to begin trusting the government's commitment to racial equality. Brooks's bold proposal situates the argument for reparations within a larger, international framework--namely, a post-Holocaust vision of government responsibility for genocide, slavery, apartheid, and similar acts of injustice. Atonement and Forgiveness makes a passionate, convincing case that only with this spirit of heightened morality, identity, egalitarianism, and restorative justice can genuine racial reconciliation take place in America.
Publication Date: 2004
