David Inoue
This past week was a historic rally in support of national reparations. While the mood at the rally was one of optimism and energy, we are facing an unfortunate reality and challenges in the movement to bring about reparations. The administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion demonstrate a 180-degree reversal of over 60 years of civil rights law enforcement. Claiming that civil rights laws are supportive of only a select few, and not for all, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon have been peddling the narrative that groups that have been historically protected by civil rights laws are somehow gaining an unfair advantage, and to the harm of others, specifically white men and Christians.
Under Bondi, the Department of Justice is being drastically restructured, and staff are being eliminated to weaken its role in enforcing civil rights laws and actually refocus those civil rights defenses to remake Christian morality as the basis to our laws. Rather than protect LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination, we are moving toward a justice department that supports such discrimination as a right of religious freedom. This is not only the decision to not protect groups under the law, but actively using the law to persecute the people it had been intended to protect.
Congress for now is not taking any action. The Republican majority is largely supportive, and the Democrat minority is too fearful to speak out on issues of racism right now, believing they will lose the working class white vote, a very specific segment of the voting population, but by no means the most powerful voting bloc.
What we must recognize is that this is all connected. While attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion are not reparations in what we fully seek, they are part of what this country has done to reverse the legacy of slavery and years of ensuing discrimination post Civil War. Reparations is part of recognizing that the police brutality that everyone rallied against after the high-profile killings of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and so many others is also part of why we seek reparations.
Unfortunately, many in our Asian American community have bought into the arguments against reparations and broader social justice. Given the odds against admittance to Ivy League schools, it is not hard to find an example of an aggrieved applicant who thinks they should have been accepted over the few who are accepted, but also the thousands more who were also rejected. This has led to members of our community being part of the efforts to roll back programs that increase the chances for some to have an opportunity, but contrary to the false narrative, do not have any better chance at a job or college admission than anyone else who faces a five percent acceptance rate to college.
Efforts to eliminate programs such as affirmative action and corporate diversity programs will typically do little to increase the opponent’s chances of admittance or employment but will drastically limit the ability of colleges and employers to reach minority candidates to even be considered.
Reparations is not just about affirmative action, but the fight against affirmative action illustrates how a misunderstanding of programs such as diversity, equity and inclusion programs operate and ensure everyone has a shot at opportunities that have been so long closed off.
JACL needs to do a better job at educating our membership and the public about why we need programs to not only address unequal access but also when there is overt discrimination. Right now, there is some reticence about pushing too hard for reparations. Will it be divisive? Will it affect midterm elections?
The reality is that now, more than ever, we should be making the case for reparations, for enforcement of civil rights laws, for making sure everyone does have fair and equal opportunity.
These are all interrelated, and we cannot argue one without the other. White Japanese Americans have largely focused our argument around the experience of redress, that we achieved redress, we are not always as good at making the fundamental arguments for why we need to promote reparations as a justice issue. When we argue that Black Lives Matter, we must also argue that reparations are due, otherwise we are not actually saying that their lives do matter.
We need to be making the case now for economic justice, environmental justice, criminal justice, health equity justice and racial justice both as important to us as a nation even as Congress passes a budget resolution that will attack all these pillars of what are important to JACL, but also serve as pillars to the reparations movement. Not only are these issues important, but they are related to one another and our fight for reparations.
Even as we are focused on recalling the injustices of the Alien Enemies Act, affirming the importance of birthright citizenship, we must recognize that the racism that targets these issues is the same racism attacking other communities. Together, we can fight back all of these, but not if we don’t recognize that it must be together.
David Inoue is executive director of the JACL. He is based in the organization’s Washington, D.C., office. Click here to read past columns.
