Now Is The Time To Learn About Reparations and What a Reparations Framework Might Mean For Yoga

Trigger warning: slavery, economic exploitation of Black communities

Resources

The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Movement for Black Lives Reparations Platform

Reparations resources & reading list

Brookings Institution on Reparations

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee overview of HR 40

Coverage of the fight for reparations at Georgetown University

Vocabulary 

Sometimes I use African-American, sometimes BIPOC, sometimes Black. These terms are both descriptive and political. I try to be specific about why I use one instead of the other in any particular context - if you have questions about that, ask me.

Caveat

I am one person. I am not THE expert and I am not even AN expert. I am writing these blogs as an introduction to provide a way into your own learning. I can't cover all the relevant topics - this is just meant as an orientation that can help you decide how you will further your own understanding. Send me questions or comments and I'll do my best to respond. 

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It’s an auspicious week to learn about reparations and why American institutions owe them to Black Americans and the communities descended from freed African slaves.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth, celebrated as the day the last enslaved people in American learned of the emancipation proclamation, ending their period of enslavement. What a powerful and hopeful moment that must have been. The end of the civil war signaled new possibilities that were only partially realized. We owe reparations, in part, because of the tremendous, brutal loss that slavery inflicted. And because of the economic impact of slavery, which created wealth for the entire US, including white communities and white people who never actually owned slaves or participated directly in the slave economy.

We are also living through the anniversary of riots that destroyed Black communities and Black wealth, known as the red summer of 1919. There’s a whole history of white people marauding in African American neighborhoods, destroying their homes and businesses and erasing whatever wealth they’ve managed to create. Red summer stretched across at least 26 cities; it was enacted not by KKK or white supremacist mobs, but by everyday, ordinary white people. Elected officials largely abdicated responsibility to address the violence. The riot in Tulsa was especially powerful because Tulsa at that time was home to Black Wall Street; freed Black slaves had found a haven in Oklahoma generally, and many had settled in  Tulsa and built up wealth and businesses.

So let’s take this moment seriously, and learn more about the movement for reparations and what it might mean for yoga.

The case for reparations is based on:

1)    the systematic and brutal inhumanity of slavery;

2)    the systematic transfer of wealth from Black Africans to white Americans via the institution of slavery; and

3)    the systematic way that institutions have continued to limit any ability for the communities descended from Black African slaves to accumulate wealth.

First, the brutality of slavery is well documented. Let us dwell on that, and acknowledge how powerfully the enslavement of Black Africans changed the world. It robbed African communities of their most valuable resource. It treated humans as disposable and discarded anyone who couldn’t work or produce economic value. It violated every norm and every principle that we claim we hold dear in terms of the inherent value of humans and human rights.

But even families and communities that didn’t participate actively in the practice of enslavement benefited from it. Cotton production fueled the growth of this country in the 1800s. No part of our economy was untouched by the economic impact of cotton, which was almost exclusively farmed using enslaved labor. What would be different today if Black communities had any right to the fruits of their labor? How would those communities look different now if the resources they created benefited their own families? These are the questions the movement for reparations forces us to address.

Since the end of slavery, these patterns have continued. Many of us probably learned in school that after the civil war freed African slaves were give 40 acres and a mule – a down payment on their new life. In fact, few actually received that promise. Instead, plantation owners were offered reparations after the war because of the loss of economic value they suffered when their slaves were freed. And, as I wrote last week in the discussion of policing, soon after the civil war the dynamics of slavery were recreated with Jim Crow, convict leasing, debt peonage and the like.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has written one of the most compelling and powerful explanations of why we owe reparations to the communities descended from Black African slaves. If  you read one thing about reparations, read this. He details the inhumanity and economic impact of slavery and its aftermath, and how those patterns were reinforced even long after slavery was ended, through racist policies that continued to steal wealth from Black people. He talks about housing policy – and how predatory loan practices and racist housing segregation made it almost impossible for Black families to use home ownership as a pathway into the middle class, a common practice for white families. He talks about how few Black workers got access to social security; how few Black veterans have been able to access the benefits of the GI bill. Many of us white people grew up poor, without generational wealth, but benefited from public systems that helped us find a foothold in the middle class economy. Whatever forms of public support we have benefited from have been deliberately placed out of reach for Black communities.

So reparations are a mechanism for redressing that.

We’re nowhere near establishing the right to reparations in the public conversation in the US. HR 40 is a resolution to establish a study committee that would determine what reparations are owed and how payment might be funded and structured. That resolution – first sponsored by now-deceased Congressman John Conyers, now sponsored by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee – has never even had a hearing in Congress. One of the arguments for that resolution focuses on the importance of our country having a thorough reckoning with the enduring impact of slavery and racism – we need our own truth commission to fully understand how these practices have affected the people we love and care about.

I’ve cited above some resources where you can learn more about the movement for reparations.

But what does this mean for yoga?

We are part of this pattern, and we also need to participate in redress.

Our studios really only exist because we make up front investment – in our training, in space and props – with the hopes of making ends meet down the road. If you’re white and you found resources to make that investment – the history of white supremacy in this country is one reason you could. For African-Americans who might want to take yoga, become a teacher, open a studio – lack of access to resources is a fundamental barrier. Let’s get real. In the community where I live, Milwaukee, Black household incomes are 40% less than white households. Across the country, the average Black household has a net worth $800,000 less than the average white household. The ongoing and systematic siphoning of resources away from Black communities and into white communities forms barriers to Black people accessing yoga classes or enrolling in teacher training.

But we are also implicated because we have relied on the free Black labor – it is institutionalized as a practice in our society. The whole foundation for jobs where people rely on tips for income is rooted in racism – employers and customers didn’t think they should have to pay Black workers for their labor, so they created a system where Black workers would have to hope for the generosity of a customer to make a living. That’s how institutionalized the assumption of free Black labor is entrenched in our country. It happens in yoga too – we expected teachers and students of color, for example, to educate us for free. We also do harm to people in our studios because of our unexamined biases.

Reparations sets up a completely different framework than the framework of charity, and it’s important to understand the distinction. When we give individual scholarships to students who ask for them – that’s great. But think about what it takes for a student to get an individual, unadvertised scholarship to allow them to take yoga classes or enroll in teacher training – they have to find their way to our studio, they have to get enough classes at the advertised rate to form a relationship with the teacher or owner, they have to think that a scholarship is even a legit and available thing, they have to ask for it, and then rely on the goodwill of the teacher to provide it. Think of how many people never come to the studio, can’t afford even a few classes, wouldn’t think to ask for a scholarship, etc.

Similarly, when we give money to non-profits – which I do, and I recommend everyone else do – it makes resources available to people who fit the narrowly defined profile of who that non-profit can serve. They have to find their way to the organization. They have to meet eligibility criteria. They have to have the exact problem that organization is designed to serve.

So charity is great and we should all be charitable, but it can’t come close to addressing the systematic way that Black families and communities have been impoverished by the very programs and policies and practices that have helped white communities become better off.

What’s the answer?

Well, first, we have to take this seriously. We have to commit ourselves to redress. We have to be educated on the larger institutional proposals for reparations and think creatively about how they might be replicated inside our studios and our communities. We have to be willing to do things that feel scary or unfamiliar – like offering sliding scale classes so poorer students and Black students are more likely to be able to come to class in the first place.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how I, a white yoga teacher, get more systematic about how to connect yoga and social justice in service of making change. One thing I keep coming back to – we need more teachers of color in our tradition. That is the start of everything. So how could we use a reparations framework to make that possible.

I need more thought-partners, which is why I’m doing this writing. I can’t answer these questions on my own, but I think that if more of us in Iyengar yoga land were educated on the fundamental questions, we could find more answers together. I hope you will join me in this effort.

Today, I have focused on reparations to the communities descended from freed Black African slaves, in part because of the direct connection to the slave economy. But there are also arguments for reparations to Native communities, and other communities of color and I support those too. 

With love, gratitude and solidarity forever.