I think of a campaign in pursuit of reparations for slavery (and possibly discrimination) as not confined to Black persons. Clearly, such an idea is based on liberal notions of property rights -- the slaves were owed compensation, they didn't receive it, therefore their descendants should get it by right of inheritance. Liberals of all colors and classes, being concerned for property rights and the social relations which depend on them, ought therefore to support compensation for the theft of labor. Naturally, a good many non-Blacks won't follow this ought, because immediate self- interest generally rules, but on the other hand quite a few of them may, and their support may prove helpful.
Since the idea of reparations derives from liberal notions of property rights, I think it is best to stick close to these in developing the idea. For that reason, I would suggest focusing on slavery, where the theft of labor is specific and undoubted, and staying away from compensation for discrimination, which is far more difficult to define and calculate. As I said before, where there are thirty million plaintiffs with a money payment in question, the case will be very closely argued, and the defendants will exploit every doubt and ambiguity to the fullest. But the theft of the slaves' labor, and its deleterious effects on their descendants, cannot be contradicted even by the most conservatively classical fundamentalist liberals.
Perhaps a two-pronged attack would be useful, however.
> 2. Among those of us who are RADICALS, which includes those
> who are REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISTS as well as MARXISTS,
> reparations is only one part of an overall strategy for the
> restructuring of society. There are NO radicals that I know
> of who think that reparations are the solution in and of
> themselves. Only ignorant white folks, some of them who call
> themselves Marxists, think that the reparations campaign
> is a "misguided" or "potentially disastrous" political
> strategy. These people simply don't know what the fuck
> they are talking about, and they obviously have little
> understanding of the Black radical tradition, or contact
> with Black radicals for that matter. If they did, they
> would understand that reparations is a single piece in
> the overall strategic puzzle of societal transformation.
Reparations exists in a liberal framework of property rights, and it seems doubtful to me whether society would be necessarily transformed very much by them. There would still be class war, racism, sexism, imperialism and so forth. These might even be exacerbated -- it's hard to tell. I can envision many scenarios in which most of the reparations would be extracted from working-class people and scooped up by a few smart operators, leaving things pretty much as they are now.
Under communism or even real socialism, which is what I thought most Marxists were still on about, reparations would be irrelevant, would they not?