First, if you have not done so already, I would encourage you to read the entire article. Coates uses examples from people's lives, in addition to statistics and rhetoric, to defend his argument and to illustrate the ways in which black people have not traditionally received as much assistance as whites to buy property under fair circumstances. This, in addition to extralegal property seizures, penury and, often, illiteracy, has made it very difficult for black people to reach economic parity with whites.
The following quotes are, in my opinion, the most interesting and helpful in illustrating the extent of the injustice:
"In 2001, the Associated Press published a three-part investigation into the theft of black-owned land stretching back to the antebellum period. The series documented some 406 victims and 24,000 acres of land valued at tens of millions of dollars. The land was taken through means ranging from legal chicanery to terrorism. 'Some of the land taken from black families has become a country club in Virginia,' the AP reported, as well as 'oil fields in Mississippi' and 'a baseball spring training facility in Florida.'"
The story of Clyde Ross, a Chicago resident who migrated north from Mississippi. Ross's family was one of the 406 victims whose land and property had been unfairly seized: "Then, when Ross was 10 years old, a group of white men demanded his only childhood possession—the horse with the red coat. 'You can't have that horse. We want it,' one of the white men said. They gave Ross's father $17." The horse, according to Ross, was later put on a racetrack.
Not long before, the family's land had been seized: "When Clyde Ross was still a child, Mississippi authorities claimed his father owed $3,000 in back taxes. The elder Ross could not read. He did not have a lawyer. He did not know anyone at the local courthouse. He could not expect the police to be impartial. Effectively, the Ross family had no way to contest the claim and no protection under the law. The authorities seized the land. They seized the buggy. They took the cows, hogs, and mules. And so for the upkeep of separate but equal, the entire Ross family was reduced to sharecropping."
"As sharecroppers, the Ross family saw their wages treated as the landlord's slush fund. Landowners were supposed to split the profits from the cotton fields with sharecroppers. But bales would often disappear during the count, or the split might be altered on a whim. If cotton was selling for 50 cents a pound, the Ross family might get 15 cents, or only five."
Friday, May 17, 2013
What are some quotes from "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates?
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