Unthinking Racial Realism
A Future for Reparations?1
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2135447 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lawrie Balfour (0000-0002-2437-4096, University of Virginia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 43-56 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Du Bois Review Social Science Research on Race (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1742-058X • E-ISSN: 1742-0598 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1742058x14000058 |
| OpenAlex | W2085254705 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 37 |
Considered costly, divisive, and backward-looking, reparations for slavery and Jim Crow appear to have no place in the politics of the "postracial epoch." This essay proposes that the dismissal of reparations concedes too much. First, I contend that the conjunction of postracial discourse, on the one hand, and deepening racial inequalities, on the other, demands a counter-language, one that ties the analysis of the present to the historical conditions out of which it was produced. I explore reparations as a political language that (1) situates political claims within the historical framework of slavery, reconstruction, and segregation; (2) links past to present to future in its demand for concrete forms of redress; and (3) has played an important role in African American political life and in contemporary democracies in transition. Second, in contrast to much of the reparations scholarship, I focus on the demands of democracy rather than justice. Doing so both helps to evade some of the technical questions that have prevented full consideration of the political work of reparations and provides a vehicle for redefining both governmental and civic responsibility in the shadow of slavery and Jim Crow
Democracy · Dismissal · Economic Justice · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Redress · Scholarship · Shadow (psychology · Sociology · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Race, History, and American Society
The Schematic State
Reparations and Egalitarianism
White Americans’ Attitudes Toward Reparations for Slavery
Spanish citizenship and responsibility for the past
Ida B. Wells and “Color Line Justice”
The Politics of Reparations for Black Americans
Black Reparations for Whom? The Eligibility Debate in California
Grammars of reckoning
Official Frames and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
The Sociology of Utopia, Modern Temporality and Black Visions of Liberation
Freedom dreams
Reparations
The Presence of the Past
Moral Repair
Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing
Provincializing Europe
Silencing the Past
Critical Race Theory
Historic and Modern Social Movements for Reparations
Awakening to Race
The Politics of Official Apologies
Redress for Historical Injustices in the United States
Racism Without Racists
A Testament of Hope
Dissident Citizenship
The European Union Budget, the Balanced Budget Rule and the Development of Common European Policies
Abortive Rituals
The Accursed Share
The Rise of the Reparations Movement
A Testament of Hope
Race and Affirming Opportunity in the Barack Obama Era
Reparations, Leadership, and Democracy
Reparations
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,91 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2025 (11) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |