The theme this week is “Regenerating and Re-patterning.”
Today’s topic is New Patterns: Reparations
01 Learn
The National Black Food and Justice Alliance, along with growing numbers of regional and local groups, including white “accomplices,” are calling for reparations of land and resources to Black and Indigenous people to account for decades of extracted wealth. For more on the history of, and some of the numbers associated with, the economic damage in the African American community, see this infographic.
In the last several years, the US Government has settled a few lawsuits brought by American Indian tribes for mismanaging natural resources and other tribal assets. This has been a very slow process and many recognize that this has not accounted fully for the economic damage done in those communities. Clearly there is much more work to be done.
There is also a growing chorus of voices, across race and ethnicity, who are saying that reparations must not simply be transactional, they must be transformative in process, relationship and outcome.
We invite you to look through the resource links above, as well as this guide from Coming to the Table that includes a variety of ways to engage in the work of reparations.
02 ReflectWhat comes up for you as you read these resources and solutions related to reparations? How are you already, or how might you be, engaged in reparations through your food systems work, studies or community activity? Are reparations possible or enough? If not, what more or what else?
03 Act
- Bring the guide from Coming to the Table and/or the 10 Point Reparations Plan from the National African American Reparations Commission to your organization, business, school, community or place of worship. Decide on ways that you can collectively align with any of the points in that plan
- Consult this list of Indigenous Principles of Just Transition and/or this toolkit – Land Reparations and Indigenous Solidarity Action Guide (on the page see the case studies, examples and actions near the bottom). Bring these ideas to your organization, business, school, community, or place of worship. Consider taking some of these steps together.
04 Digging Deeper, Time Permitting…
- For more on the case for reparations, you can watch this interview (approx 14 minutes) with Ta Nehisi Coates or read his article in The Atlantic.
- Read this piece on what reparations might look like.
- Read about “The case for interpersonal reparations” that move from transactional to transformational exchanges
- You can also consider some of the work toward “decolonizing wealth” (for example, Edgar Villanueva’s writings and principles).
[2020 ARCHIVE] Daily Prompts and Discussion Forum 