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Date: 1/17/2023
AMHERST – The African Heritage Reparations Assembly (AHRA) hosted a virtual community listening session on Jan. 11. They were joined by special guests in the form of U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern and State Rep. Mindy Domb. Members of Amherst Town Council were also present including Council President Lynn Greisemer, as well as Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Director Pamela Young and Assistant Director Jennifer Moyston. At the start of the meeting there were 113 members of the public in attendance.
Prior to opening the floor for public comment and questions, the assembly gave a presentation on slavery’s lasting impact on America’s Black community and their goal of reparations. Assembly co-chair Michelle Miller said, “Tonight we’re going to present the Five Injury Areas of Slavery: peoplehood, education, health, criminal punishment and wealth/poverty.”
Different assembly members presented slides on a different injury area. Alexis Reed presented on peoplehood, which was defined as “destruction of cultures, denial of the right to express our cultures, subsequent displacement of people from their identities, endangerment of our histories, destruction of black spaces, suppression of community-building.”
Dr. Irv Rhodes presented on education. He explained that “lower levels of education attainment has been correlated with negative outcomes for African-Americans in health, rates of incarceration, wealth/poverty and access to home ownership.”
Heather Hala Lord presented on health. The slides said that “the Black mortality rate is 24 percent higher than the white mortality rate. Black infants have more than twice the white infant mortality rate. As of May 2020 Black people were 3.57 times more likely to die from COVID [-19] than white people. [There exists] unequal access to health care and segregation of medical facilities as well as exclusion of Black folks from medical schools and fields; in 2018 only 5 percent of active doctors were Black.”
Dr. Amilcar Shabazz presented on criminal punishment. Slides listed “disproportionate incarceration for Black people, racial profiling, disparate imposition of the death penalty, dual punishment system originating from the enslavement of African people,” as just some of the impacts of slavery.
Yvonne Mendez led the presentation on wealth and poverty.
“There is discrimination in the job market. Black job candidates are often scrutinized with different requirements than their white counterparts and overlooked for promotions once they do get a job, so many families then rely on minimum wage jobs or multiple part time jobs to support their families. That creates a very difficult situation to amass wealth and get out of poverty,” Mendez said.
Shabazz explained that reparations is an old idea that should occur naturally in the aftermath of conflict.
“Reparations is an old concept. It’s as old as human conflict itself. When groups are in conflict and at the end of the hostilities, you try to assess the situation and what the harms were to those who were affected in the conflict and to repair that, we often come to these areas that look at the question of the people themselves who have been harmed, the harm to their sense of dignity, their stories, their existence as a group of people,” Shabazz said.
McGovern spoke about the incontrovertible existence of systemic racism in America, and that all of its malaises can be traced back to slavery.
“I think it’s best for me to do more listening than talking so I’ll keep this brief, but the structural and systemic impacts of slavery in this country are undeniable. The disproportionate number of Black people who have experienced housing discrimination, school segregation, health disparities and mass incarceration is a symptom of its legacy…Generations of Black people have been denied wealth and opportunities, and the consequences and harm to Black families have been severe. This shouldn’t be a controversial statement, these are just the facts,” McGovern said.
He has supported and continues to support policy which would establish an infrastructure for reparations to be determined and distributed.
“This is why I’m a co-sponsor of HR-40, which is a bill that would create a federal committee to study and develop reparations proposals for African-Americans. Clearly, our federal government needs to catch up with a community like Amherst. Since the first historic hearing on reparations in 2019, HR-40 has only maintained and gained support from my colleagues, and while a Republican-led Congress leaves much to be desired, I truly believe this progress is inevitable,” McGovern said.
Despite its comparatively small size, Amherst is leading the charge when it comes to reparation efforts in the contemporary U.S.
“Thankfully, Amherst is ahead of the majority of the nation when it comes to reparations. I couldn’t be prouder of the work that’s being done here. These efforts important for determining how our country might address the harms of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, but they’re also necessary for telling the real history of this nation. We have an obligation to teach the story of this nation truthfully even when its uncomfortable and even when its ugly,” McGovern said.
Overall McGovern acknowledged that although he does not know exactly how to solve the reparations issue, it is of vital importance that the nation works to solve it and rights its wrongs.
“When we have the opportunity to right those wrongs, we ought to do so. We have two options: we can do nothing, or we can do what’s right. We can do nothing, or we can do what’s fair…We can do nothing, or we can live up to the high standard of human rights that we all claim that we want to see as a reality. I’m in the business of trying to do what’s right, what’s fair, what’s decent, of trying to uphold a high standard of human rights, and I take it that you all are, too. So I won’t pretend to have all the answers for the most fair and equitable ways we can rectify these harms, but that’s exactly why we need conversations like this,” McGovern said.