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Coming to Terms with Our Past, Part IIOn the Morality and Politics of Reparations for SlaveryNorthwestern University There has recently been a surge of interest, theoretical and political, in reparations for slavery. This essay takes up several moral-political issues from that intensifying debate: how to conceptualize and justify collective compensation and collective responsibility, and how to establish a plausible connection between past racial injustices and present racial inequalities. It concludes with some brief remarks on one aspect of the very complicated politics of reparations: the possible effects of hearings and trials on the public memory and political culture of a historically racist society. The hope is that these arguments, taken together, draft a coherent case for slavery reparations as pursued by the Reparations Coordinating Committee.
Key Words: reparations slavery national responsibility transitional justice
Political Theory, Vol. 32, No. 6,
750-772 (2004) |
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