Mari J. Matsuda is a law professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii. Matsuda has spoken throughout the United States from the perspective of Critical Race Theory. Matsuda defends reparations for people of color but opposes reparations for white people who have equally suffered under government overreach. For example, she excludes the white people who suffered under the Norman Conquest from being due reparations. She says that reparations require “the ability to identify a victim class that continues to suffer a stigmatized position enhanced or promoted by the wrongful act in question. Thus, in a European context, the Norman Conquest would not be compensable because those victims no longer constitute an identifiable and disadvantaged class”[1] (italics added).
Her definition ignores the suffering and loss of these enslaved white people, whereas, in her arguments and presentations, she does not ignore the financial losses of the blacks in slavery and post-slavery because of slavery. Moreover, that there remains no “disadvantaged class” from white suffering in servitude under the Normans seems to demonstrate reparations are not necessary for once enslaved people to prosper and escape being a “disadvantaged class.” I think black people are equally capable, as history demonstrates with all the successful blacks in America today. Consider the book Entrepreneurship and Self-Help among Black Americans: A Reconsideration of Race and Economics by John Sibley Butler.
See my article in which I challenge Matsuda’s argument for demanding reparations for blacks but not for whites under the Norman Conquest. I have also written an article entitled Reparations: Unjust, Indefensible, and Racist explaining why slave reparations are not only wrong but are even impossible to accomplish justly. Both of these articles are relevant to this one.
Sometimes, people point to a previous situation and the resulting reparations, such as those paid to the interned Japanese during World War II, to justify reparations for the ancestors of slaves. But that was significantly different than the call for reparations for slavery. These victims were easily identifiable. They were all of Japanese descent (not based just on skin color), the injustice took place over a short period (1942–1945), the perpetrator was known (the current US government), and reparations began in 1948 when victims were still alive. The reparations ended in 1988 when over half the victims were still alive, and most were easily identifiable through official records.
Also, following the war, Japan paid reparations to the US.[2] “The losing countries in a war often must pay damages to the victors for the economic harm that the losing countries inflicted during wartime. These damages are commonly called military reparations.”[3] Thus, all the reparations regarding Japan and the Japanese were of a wartime nature.
Some Christians offer Egypt as a precedent for reparations for ancestors of slaves. First, these were not reparations willfully paid by the government. Instead, God demanded the wealth to give his people a start in a new land; to wit, Egypt did not want to provide the wealth God demanded from the Egyptians, but that was a better option than annihilation. Also, the people who enslaved paid the very people who were enslaved instead of some potential distant ancestors, or ancestors who may have actually enslaved others, as is the case with slavery in America.[4]
Others offer Ezra 6 to support prescribing reparations, but this seems to fail on at least two accounts. First, Ezra 6 describes an event with God’s covenant people, which does not necessarily demonstrate that all reparations to descendants or any specific reparation is just. Ezra 6 is descriptive Scripture and, therefore, does not carry the directive weight of prescriptive Scripture like “you shall not steal” (Exod 20:15). Second, rather than Ezra’s situation being a tutorial on reparations, it is actually a specific event regarding God’s fulfillment of his promises to his covenant people Israel. Using circumstances and actions related to God’s fulfillment of prophecy as justification to label other acts as just is tenuous at best.[5]
Regarding the practice of reparations, we must also ask where it ends and what types of injustices we will include and exclude. It seems no past injustice suffered by others can ever be off-limits. For example, Egyptian journalist Ahmad al-Gamal calls on Israel to pay reparations for damage caused by the Ten Plagues. In addition, he wants “reparations from Turkey for damage caused by the Ottoman Empire during its invasion of Egypt in the 16th century, and from France for Napoleon’s invasion in 1798. He also wants Britain to pay for 72 years of occupation.”[6]
Are we going to demand that the people who rioted in the 1960s pay reparations to the government and people whose property and livelihood they destroyed? Now, will the rioters of the 2020 riots have to pay billions in reparations to innocents who lost lives, livelihoods, and property?[7] What about reparations to taxpayers who paid for the public monuments they destroyed? What about in two hundred years? Will our ancestors have to pay reparations to people who have ancestors that were aborted? Where does it end, and for what mistreatment or harm to victims? The truth is that if we live in the past, it will never end.
We are told that white people who never owned slaves and decry slavery need to repent and pay reparations. But we hear little, if anything, about the need for forgiveness. And if one thing distinguishes Christianity from every other religion and ideology, it is the call to forgive those who wrong us. This same application pertains to forgiving our ancestors for things they may have done.
Unlike social justice, God’s impartial justice guides us to obey the government (Rom 13:1–7), not to focus on retaliation (1 Pet 2:23) or reparations or punishment for wrongs done in the past by others to our ancestors (1 Cor 13:5). Instead, we are to focus on loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:39), praying for our enemies (Matt 5:10–12, 44), forgiving those who wrong us (Matt 6:12–15), and developing Christ’s character in us (2 Pet 1:5–7) so we can share with all (Matt:19:19).
A just society does not require our present or future generations to pay for every evil suffered in the past, but only that we must learn from our past and work toward a more just and perfect union.
[1] Mari Matsuda, “Looking to the Bottom: Critical Legal Studies and Reparations,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, et. al. (New York: New Press, 1995), 73.
[2] Treaty of Peace with Japan (with two declarations). Signed at San Francisco, September 8, 1951, chapter 5, CLAIMS AND PROPERTY Article 14, https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%20136/volume-136-i-1832-english.pdf.
[3] Law Library – American Law and Legal Information, s.v. “reparation,” accessed October 21, 2020, https://law.jrank.org/pages/9778/Reparation.html.
[4] The maximum length of the enslavement of Jews in Egypt was for the previous 116 years. Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld, “Duration of Slavery in Egypt,” Aish, accessed February 8, 2021, https://www.aish.com/atr/Duration-of-Slavery-in-Egypt.html.
[5] Ryan Martin, “Reparations and Ezra 6,” The Reformed Conservative, accessed October 21, 2020, https://thereformedconservative.org/reparations-and-ezra-6/.
[6] Aron Donzis, “Israel to pay for 10 Plagues?” March 31, 2014, accessed October 21, 2020, Times of Israel, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-pay-up-for-10-plagues/.
[7] Brad Polumbo, “George Floyd Riots Caused Record-Setting $2 Billion in Damage, New Report Says. Here’s Why the True Cost Is Even Higher,” September 16, 2020, accessed February 8, 2021,Foundation for Economic Forum, https://fee.org/articles/george-floyd-riots-caused-record-setting-2-billion-in-damage-new-report-says-here-s-why-the-true-cost-is-even-higher/#:~:text=Stories-,George%20Floyd%20Riots%20Caused%20Record%2DSetting%20%242,in%20Damage%2C%20New%20Report%20Says.
