Reparations: How Could It Work?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2020

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The idea of paying Black Americans reparations for slavery has been around for a long time, but it’s starting to get more support than ever. So we ask: If the country does agree to pay up, how do you calculate the bill? And how could the U.S. come up with that kind of cash? To find out, we talk to historian and farmer Leah Penniman, economist Prof. William Darity Jr., public policy scholar Assistant Prof. Naomi Zewde, and Ebony Pickett. UPDATE 10/30/20: An earlier version of this episode said that the average White person who didn't finish high school makes more money than the average Black person who graduated from college. The actual statistic is about net worth, rather than income, so we removed this reference. We’ve updated the episode. Check out the transcript here: https://bit.ly/3kSFe3q Selected resources: Leah’s book, Farming While Black Sandy’s book, From Here to Equality This Time article about Rosewood This episode was produced by Rose Rimler and Anoa Changa with help from Wendy Zukerman, Hannah Harris Green, Michelle Dang, and Nick DelRose. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Sam Bair. Music written by Peter Leonard, Emma Munger, Bobby Lord and Marcus Bagala. Baby sounds provided by Hunter and Lyric. Thanks to everyone we got in touch with for this episode including Sophia Clark, Dr. Dania Francis, Dr. Dionissi Alliprantis, Prof. Kristen Broady, Prof. Rashawn Ray, Dr. Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe, Prof. Henry Thompson, Prof. Richard Edwards, and Prof. Steve Greenlaw. A special thanks to the Zukerman family, Walter Rimler, and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Vestus from Gimlet.
0:11.4	This is the show that pits facts against 40 acres and a mule.
0:15.6	On today's show, reparations.
0:17.6	Okay, well my name is Ebony Pickett.
0:20.7	I am a wife and a mother of seven and four bonus children, so that's a total of 11.
0:29.5	You'll hear some of those kids in the background.
0:32.2	And Ebony is one of the few black folks in the country who's actually been given reparations.
0:38.4	It was because decades ago her family was the victim of a horrible massacre.
0:43.5	It happened in a small town where a lot of black people lived, called Rosewood in Florida.
0:48.9	And it all started on New Year's Eve in 1922.
0:52.8	So it was a happy time.
0:54.2	It was a time when they were celebrating and they were cooking and they had fireworks,
0:59.6	little sparklers, you know, they were just enjoying one another.
1:03.2	A group of white people in a nearby town had become convinced that a black man attacked
1:10.2	a white woman.
1:12.2	And over the next few days hundreds of them poured into Rosewood in a frenzy.
1:17.7	Nobody really was expecting it.
1:19.6	From what we know, they just started shooting up the house from outside.
1:23.5	And that's what they did for seven whole days and they didn't stop until everything in
1:28.4	a town was burned down.
1:30.4	Every house was burned down to the ground.
1:33.1	Some of our family members were lynched.
	...

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