Ta-Nehisi Coates Clapped Back at Mitch McConnell for Saying 'No One Alive' Is Liable for Reparations

[BeckyDem]

Michael Harriot
Today 8:00am

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing about H.R. 40, a proposal from Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) that would authorize a national apology and study reparations for slavery and racial discrimination against black people in America.

Among those testifying before the subcommittee was writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose seminal essay, “The Case for Reparations” is considered by many to be the spark that made the reparations debate a national, mainstream issue. Coates framed his prepared remarks, in part, around a quote from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said of the hearing: “I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us living are responsible are a good idea.”

Calling McConnell’s remarks a “familiar reply,” Coates said the Majority Leader’s statement “proffers a strange theory of governance, that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generation.”

“Many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for,” Coates explained. “But we are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach.”

Coates reasoned that it “is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery” before breaking down the social, political and economic legacy of the Land of the Free’s government-sanctioned institution. But one part of his Holy Ghost-inducing clapback came directly for McConnell’s throat and his claim that “no one alive” is responsible. Coates testified:

https://www.theroot.com/ta-nehisi-coates-clapped-back-at-mitch-mcconnell-for-sa-1835674314

[dlk]

1. Reparations Were Paid to the Japanese Interred During WWII

Ronald Reagan signed the bill.

[BeckyDem]

2. Thank you for bringing that up.

To mark the 25th anniversary of its passage, the Civil Liberties Act was put on display at the National Archives alongside the original Executive Order 9066, which authorized the internment. For senior curator Bruce Bustard, it was a powerful juxtaposition of the journey from a wrong to a right.

When she saw the Executive Order in a glass case, Marielle Tsukamoto, who grew up in an internment camp, said she had "shivers up and down [her] back" because she realized the order ruined lives.

To some, it might seem like a bureaucratic government document, but according to Bustard, that's precisely what makes this exhibition such a potent reminder of what federal documents really mean. "They are filled with legalese, and again that to me reinforces the idea that from these sorts of legal decisions that our government makes, these kinds of consequences can happen."

The Japanese-American internment camps were often nothing more than makeshift barracks, with families and children cramped together behind barbed wires. Most of the internees were U.S. citizens from the West Coast who were forced to abandon or liquidate their businesses when war relocation authorities escorted them to the camps.

John Tateishi says the experience was both humiliating and disorienting. "We came out of these camps with a sense of shame and guilt, of having been considered betrayers of our country." He says that after the war most families never spoke about it. "There were no complaints, no big rallies or demands for justice because it was not the Japanese way."

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/08/09/210138278/japanese-internment-redress

[corbettkroehler]

3. I Knew That Ta-Nehisi Would Do A Great Job But I Still Was Impressed

He rocked it, plain and simple!

[murielm99]

4. "We are American citizens, and thus bound to a collective

enterprise that extends beyond our individual and personal reach."

This sentence should be thrown in the face of Mitch McConnell and every repiggie who is going to hurl the "socialism" label at Democrats all throughout the 2020 election process and beyond. You know they are going to use the word "socialism" as a scare tactic. This sentence applies to more than the reparations issue. Much more!

[SunSeeker]

5. Great article.

Love this this paragraph about why Citibank and New York Life should pay up:

There are a number of major corporations who were founded on and profited from the slave trade. Moses Taylor made his fortune in slave-trading even after it was outlawed in America. He eventually took his money and started a bank on a not-so-popular location in Manhattan called Wall Street. A few years later, he convinced the US government to store millions of dollars of gold stolen from former slaves who had overthrown the white slave-owning government in Haiti. And that’s how Citibank was founded. The company is now valued at $1.8 trillion. Wells Fargo is worth a reported $207 trillion. Three hundred and thirty-nine of New York Life’s first 1,000 policies were written on slaves so I think shelling out one-third of its $311 billion in assets is more than fair.

[BeckyDem]

6. More than fair. An understatement if you ask me.