Editor's note

Like a lot of old black men, my dad strikes most people as pretty mild-mannered.

A college psychology professor, he exhibits a patience that reassures and relaxes most of his students after even the most contentious class debates. He much prefers reading, a bail game or yard work to a night on the town. Most of the times we talk, he laughs easily.

A few months ago, we were having one of those conversations--until I asked him what he thought about reparations.

The lines in his face hardened, he squared his jaw and his voice got loud. "I want my 40 acres," he declared without hesitation.

At first, it surprised me. This understanding and pleasant man, this educator who preached multicultural awareness, this integrationist with a biracial child who had lived in mostly white areas for decades--he had no trouble articulating why he felt this country owed him something.

We talked some more, and his indignation began to make more sense. He was in his 30s, after all, when the government began desegregating the schools, libraries, parks and other institutions that had been closed to him, his friends and his family. He had not followed a career of his choosing. His dreams of becoming a chemist were ruined when he was barred from the University of Virginia. His own father caught pneumonia in a drafty hospital basement (the "colored" ward) during one of his periodic leukemia treatments.

But, for the rest of us, who may not have those stories to tell, reparations becomes a more difficult question to consider--even in the black community.

What about those of us who did not live through Jim Crow, who have middle-class jobs or who can blend in better with whites than my father could? Does anyone owe us anything?

Conrad Worrill, profiled in this month's issue, certainly seems to think so. For him, part of undoing racial inequities in this country means examining its past. For him, it's easy to see the lasting effects of slavery's legacy.

For some of us, however, it's not so easy.

I have a white mother and was born with light skin and "good" hair. I was not only welcomed, but recruited, to attend Northwestern University, and scholarships helped me stay there. I was able to choose a profession I enjoyed.

I have friends, many of them with darker skin, who have similar stories. Sometimes we talk about what it's like to achieve the goals our parents couldn't realize. We are proud and excited, and know how lucky we are.

A different feeling still nags at us, however--the sense that we are the exception to the rule. Statistics, after all, don't lie. Proportionally, Americans like us are still more likely than anyone else to be unemployed, die of HIV-related causes, get shot, go to jail and experience poverty.

And yet, we also understand that every group faces some form of inequity. The question is whether black people set some sort of standard for it in this country.

I don't personally know anyone, for instance, who would ask to trade places with a black American, save Oprah, Michael Jordan or Bill Cosby. And, even with such models for success, my friends and I often struggle to find ways to articulate our pride in being black. Why, after all, should we need to? Society tells us that our degrees, job titles or paychecks should provide enough validation.

Worrill is not naive. He has chosen this battle knowing it may not result in any material restitution in his lifetime, hoping it will at least uplift the minds of his people.

Does anyone owe us anything? No two African Americans would give the same response. Expand the circle to other groups and the opinions would vary even more widely.

But perhaps a different question needs to be answered: What will it take for any of us, no matter how successful we are, to feel we have a right and a responsibility to fully consider, debate and weigh slavery's legacy?

COPYRIGHT 2003 Community Renewal Society
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group