In his July 31 “My Turn” headlined “Solve racial inequality correctly this time,” Joseph Mendola concludes: “The time for people of all colors to come together to solve the problem of racial injustice is now.” I agree, especially in 2020, the year demonstrations across the country to protest the death of George Floyd spread internationally.
Mendola arrived at his conclusion by taking issue with Paul Hodes, who had presented the case in an earlier “My Turn,” for reparations for descendants of American slaves. The essence of Mendola’s critique is that “reparations” are “a typical Democratic Party solution, that is, let the federal government fund our problems.”
To illustrate his case, he lists modern initiatives, all of them in his view costly failures, from the war on poverty to civil rights legislation. And he goes on to suggest that George Floyd’s death shows the failure of Democratic (and presumably Republican) mayors, who have controlled major American cities for years, to eliminate the use of chokeholds by police.
Whether or not you agree with Mendola’s sweeping assessment, his conclusion, quoted above, deserves attention. And he offers an economic solution to right the wrongs of the past: “Get the 10 largest companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 list to put together a fund that could raise the $50 billion to address the needs of people of color.” Great idea! With the New York Stock Exchange again booming, that solution might be viable, assuming stockholder agreement. Just who would take the leadership of the project is not clear.
In addition to the $50 billion fund, I suggest that something more is needed: A change in established habits and customs, imbedded in communities, villages, towns, and cities around the nation.
In one of many essays in the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which Mendola may not have studied, Trymaine Lee highlights “a vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates Black and white America.” That is a list for positive changes, starting locally.
Mendola wrote that “most white Americans are not racist and [are] empathetic to the need for racial justice in America.” I hope that he is right. And I also hope that Mendola will be an advocate for legislative reforms to effect change. More important, I hope he will be an advocate for changes of heart and mind, to make real “one nation indivisible under God with liberty and justice for all.”
Mendola quoted Ta-Nehisi Coates in support of reparations. The concluding sentence of the quote is worth repeating. “What I’m talking about,” Coates wrote, “is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.”
(Kent Hackmann lives in Andover.)