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Consider This from NPR

Reparation Discussions Are Gaining Traction But Not Widespread Support

Consider This from NPR

NPR

News, Daily News, Society & Culture, News Commentary

4.26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Juneteenth, the celebration to commemorate the end of chattel slavery in the United States, is the newest federal holiday after President Biden signed it into law on Thursday. It's another example of how the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd has been reshaping the way Americans think and talk about race. That shift is also evident in reparation programs for Black descendants of slaves that are being enacted by groups around the country.

The Virginia Theological Seminary, for example, has started cutting checks to descendants of the forced labor the campus long relied on. The city of Evanston, Ill., has started to offer housing grants to its Black residents, and other progressive local governments are considering similar approaches.

Despite increasing interest in reparations, there is not yet widespread acceptance among Americans. A recent poll from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that two-thirds of the U.S. does not agree with cash reparations on a federal scale.

Professor Tatishe Nteta ran the poll. He explains what the findings say about the political future of reparations in the U.S.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

UMass Amherst professor Tatee Chinateta could introduce his students to the debate over

0:06.0

reparations in a lot of different ways.

0:09.0

But there's a reason he chooses this one.

0:12.0

And now a News Center 3 special report with Frank Dobson and Chuck Taylor, a comedy show

0:17.1

sketch from the early 2000s.

0:19.4

It is a news report, right?

0:21.1

From Dave Chappelle.

0:22.1

I show the sketch almost every year when I teach.

0:24.7

Our top story, as we all know, Congress recently approved paying over a trillion dollars to

0:29.1

African Americans as reparations for slavery.

0:32.0

Well today, the first checks were sent out.

0:34.0

The comedian is dressed as a gray-suited ash-and-face anchor.

0:39.0

To give you an idea of where this attire is headed, the scene starts at a liquor store.

0:44.4

Wendy?

0:45.4

Thanks, Chuck.

0:46.4

We're standing here in front of the Olympic liquor store in Queens where scores of African

0:49.5

Americans have been lined up for hours.

0:51.3

We'd love to appeal to them early.

0:52.9

So, picture professor Natee, showing this to a room of college students, students who

0:58.4

let's face it, we're too young to have seen the show the first time around.

1:02.1

Maybe even too young to remember when reparations for black Americans were considered politically

1:07.3

radical and unreasonable.

...

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