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dkatreads's review
5.0
Their main thesis: white supremacy has participated in the theft of truth, power, and wealth of Black Americans. And American Christians are responsible for, accomplice to, and silent bystanders of this theft. As such, they are required to work for its repair.
They start by walking through the history of white supremacy in the US (good but I'd supplement with works like "Stamped from the Beginning" and "Color of Compromise"), then move to Biblical exegesis of the requirement of repair in the life of the Christian. This is where they shine. They close with building a framework for what this repair might look like—largely theoretical over prescriptive.
I'd recommend this to every American Christian, but especially those grappling with what it means to bear responsibility for and repair the harms of racism, even when you may feel as though you haven't "participated" in them personally. If this book were read by even 10% of American Christians, it would fundamentally reshape this nation. May it be so.
lisasabella82's review
5.0
adamrshields's review
5.0
This is a second reading (original post) of Reparations. This reading was with a book discussion group. I first read Reparations almost a year ago, and much of my thoughts are similar in this second reading.
I appreciate the careful definitions and the narrow focus on reparations for an evangelical Christian audience by looking at only the case for reparations for Black Americans. Kwon and Thompson are calling for reparations for "...the threefold theft wrought by White supremacy: not only the theft of wealth (as is generally understood) but the theft of truth and the theft of power as well." (p18). However, while this generally argues the case for a large-scale reparations project, I think it is easier to make a case for reparations on an even narrower basis. For instance, reparations for the denial of Black soldiers and sailors' access to the GI Bill after WWII. I believe in the case for a large conception of theft of White supremacy that is made in this book. But I also think that part of the resistance to reparations is the intangibility of that theft. It is easier to point to particular people and say, "you were denied the educational or housing support you were due."
The lack of shared history is part of the greatest need. For example, many people falsely believe that affirmative action is a reparations program because they believe that Black students receive free education. As detailed by Angela Parker in her book If God Still Breathes, another professor accused her of taking his job at a professional conference. He thought that the job should have been his and that she only got the job because she was black and a woman. Her response, I think, details part of the disconnect between reality and perception.
When the gentleman told me I took his job, I replied, “Oh, really? Tell me what you teach.” My interlocutor began to regale me with courses that are strictly historical-critical or in the vein of “White male biblical scholar.” I proceeded to ask him if he taught Womanist or feminist interpretations of the Bible, to which he responded in the negative. I also asked if, perhaps, he integrated critical social theories into his biblical interpretations. Again, he answered negatively. At that juncture I responded that I teach and engage those modalities, and therefore I did not take his job, since my institution needed those classes, that training, for its students. (p68)
In case you think this is a unique case, it is not. Many Black or other racial minorities (or women) tell me how they have had similar cases of people (primarily white men) accusing them of stealing their job or academic position or internship, etc. These accusations of theft (often using that language) does not address the previous theft of benefits (GI Bill) or opportunity (redlining, school segregation), or labor (slavery and segregated job markets), not to mention the cultural reality of White Supremacy (in the senses of a cultural belief in the hierarchy of racial groups).
I think that many would benefit from reading Reparations in conversation with Dear White Christians because they are both trying to orient the conversation toward reparations, albeit with different audiences. Dear White Christians is trying to convince Mainline Protestants of the importance of reparations as an organizing principle for racial reconciliation, and Reparations is trying to ground a similar argument for Evangelicals. Unfortunately, both are working in an uphill battle because the reality of the problem is that many people they are trying to convince cannot see the problem because of the reality of white supremacy in the world we live in.
It is about an hour (including the Q&A), but I want to commend Greg Thompson's talk at last year's Center for Pastoral Theologians on the role of memorialization in addressing racial problems in the church. Memorialization is one of the areas that Kwon and Thompson believe is an integral part of reparations. But I think that the narrow topic of the talk and the Q&A after helps give context to this larger work.
My last reading of Reparations was not on my kindle, so I have a whole additional set of highlights. I also will include about 25 pages of handwritten notes that I took so that I could be prepared to discuss the book in the book group. Unfortunately, I had not found a good study guide for the book, so these were my notes as I led the group through the book's discussion.
___________
First Reading Summary: A call for reparations in the context of US slavery, largely making a case for an American Christian audience.
There are few things less popular than the concept of reparations. According to two general polls, 26% of the US supports reparations. It is much less popular among White Evangelicals, around 4%, according to sociologist Samuel Perry. I do not think that Kwon and Thompson believe that this is going to be an easy case to make. And I want to commend Brazos Press for publishing the book because I can't imagine that an explicitly Christian case for reparations, something that is only supported by 4% of White Evangelicals, is going to become a best seller.
The center point of the claim for Reparations is that "White supremacy's most enduring effect, indeed its very essence is theft." They use white supremacy here and throughout the book in the sense of a racial hierarchy with a cultural belief in white racial superiority. The sense of theft here is also broad but nuanced, "...theft is best understood not merely in terms of wealth but also in the more comprehensive terms of truth and power."
One of the complaints about the book that I predict is that Kwon and Thompson frequently use language that is associated in the minds of many with Critical Race Theory and Social Justice. The complaints will be about the method of argument more than the content of the argument and the reality of the harm done, or the need theologically for repair because of that harm. One of the book's strengths is that Kwon and Thompson attempt to define what they mean all through the book clearly. It is hard for me to adequately evaluate how well they accomplish this for readers that are new to these concepts since I am not new to this discussion. But the concept of whiteness and the social construction of race do matter significantly to the case that Kwon and Thompson are trying to make.
The process of this expanded meaning of Whiteness mirrored the expanding of Blackness; as Blackness took on new meaning, Whiteness took on its opposite. Where Blackness signified inferior personal capacity, Whiteness signified superior personal capacity. Where Blackness signified inferior moral deficiency, Whiteness signified superior moral virtue. Where Blackness signified the margins of society, Whiteness signified a rightful claim to the center. To be White came to mean not only having lighter skin, but also possessing elevated personal capacity, inherent moral virtue, and an assumed place at the center of the social order. And, as with Blackness, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the presence of this newly invented notion of Whiteness was clearly visible in American cultural life."
Reparations are not a new concept, even if there has been renewed interested. John Hepburn, in 1715, wrote a pamphlet, The American Defence of the Christian Golden Rule, which called explicitly for reparation using Christian theology before the US was founded as a country.
"I am of Opinion, that such Sins cannot be repented of without Restitution made to them that they have wronged; for until the Cause be removed, I know not how the Effect should cease. But they that live and dye without making Restitution to them that they have wronged, how they can expect the Forgiveness of God..."
Reparations were also clearly known about and understood during and after the Civil War. Union slave owners and some confederate slave owners were given reparations for the loss of their 'property.' But the 40 acres and mule that General Sherman ordered in Field Order 15 were not given to most slaves. Those few who initially got 40 acres and a mule had the rule overturned and their land and property confiscated. (Note that in 1862 with the Homestead Act, the federal government gave land to any citizen that claimed it, but Freedmen before the end of slavery and former slaves after the Civil War were not eligible because they were not legally citizens until the 14th Amendment.)
In 1969, James Forman interrupted the 11 AM service at Riverside Church to read the Black Manifesto, a 2500 word statement calling for reparations. (Riverside Church was the same church Martin Luther King, Jr. announced his opposition to the Vietnam war less than two years earlier). The statement was specifically calling for Christian white churches and Jewish synagogues to give $500,000,000 in reparations, $15 per Black citizen at the time. Most notably today, HR 40 is a bill to create a study commission to investigate the feasibility of reparations. HR40 has been introduced every year since 1989.
The center of Kwon and Thompson's book explores the concepts of reparations in the bible, a broader look at justice, and an in-depth look at Zacchaeus and the parable of the Good Samaritan about reparations as biblical principles. It is here that there is real value to this book. Other books like From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century explore the economic impact and potential methods of reparations. While the last chapter explores some practical steps for reparations, the book's main point is the biblical basis for the concept and the need that gives rise to the discussion.
Reparations in a secular sense are about justice, rightness, or economics. But for Kwon and Thompson, reparations are primarily about the repair.
"Reparations as an actuarial calculations simply will not do. The work of restoration demands, in the end, the giving not of a check but of one's soul--the giving of one's very self."
And again,
"...the call of reparations is not merely for a check to be written or for a debt to be repaid but for a world to be repaired."
And even clearer,
"The parable of the good Samaritan, set againsts the backdrop of multigenerational cultural theft of White supremacy, make a crucial contribution to a Christian account of reparations. It reminds us that the work of restoring all that was unjustly taken from our neighbors is the calling not only of the culpable but of all who seek to live a life of love in the world. Because of this, the church in America, a community whose very purpose is love, must own the ethic of restoration and give itself to this work of healing. Indeed, it is the church's vocation both to dress wounds and to redress wrongs."
Reparations are the first book that I read with my Supernote A5X and its digest feature. It allows me to highlight text and take digital notes and export them. I made 91 notes or highlights, and you can see a PDF of them here.
brandonc985's review
5.0
gjones19's review
5.0
horacelamb's review
5.0
lingfish7's review
5.0
I was very impressed with the thorough research, expansive and detailed history, and insightful examples of what reparations look like in our country today.
I especially loved the deep dive into the story of Zacchaeus and the parable of the Good Samaritan. They nearly spent an entire chapter on each and explaining how the Bible views both reparations and the call to love our neighbor.
Note: Don’t skip the introduction! They lay out important information like how this book is simply a primer to reparations. They do not have the time to dive into all the history and all the questions, but I do think they achieved the most important start to this large topic, namely that reparations starts with the gospel of love rooted in our hearts to see the problems in our society and then do something about it. We cannot do this important work apart from the Holy Spirit because it is so antithetical to our sin nature.
ejoym's review
5.0
“If readers have only viewed American history with rose-colored glasses, they will be helped to see the uncomfortable truth that racism in America has been far too pervasive and that the White church—with some noble exceptions mentioned in the book—has far too often been part of the problem instead of the solution. The authors have plenty of criticism for White Americans and for the White church in America, but they want to persuade not merely scold. To that end, they have put forward the most compact and most learned Christian defense of reparations to date. Well written and thoughtfully presented, this is an important book that deserves to be taken seriously.”
It is a worthwhile read and long overdue.
ben_smitty's review
4.0
A sensible defense of reparations for a Christian audience, making the case for how black wealth, culture, and heritage have been stolen throughout the history of slavery in the U.S.. What's refreshing about Kwon and Thompson's case is how rooted their arguments are in the Biblical story. Drawing from many examples throughout Scripture, Kwon and Thompson illustrate the way in which repentance is almost always paired with repayment (and in the New Testament, restoration) especially when it comes to human-human relationships. Repentance alone isn't sufficient if what has been stolen is not returned. Though we'd like to be cleared of this responsibility, the passage of time does not erase this debt, even after saying "we're sorry."
In a gentle and understanding manner, Kwon and Thompson patiently spend many of the book's chapters answering common misconceptions, questions, and pushback: "Slavery has been abolished. Why do I owe anyone anything?" "Who owes what? How can we quantify what needs to be repaid?" "What about immigrants from other countries who also face cultural theft?" Those interested in exploring these questions ought to read this short but helpful book, but as the authors themselves have said, let us not pretend we are off the hook just because we don't know the details of how reparations should be done.
Part of the appeal in Kwon and Thompson's defense is their willingness to hand the responsibility back to the church to generate creative and reparative solutions, an incarnational model that refuses a "one size fits all" proposal for the entire country. Those looking for a quick fix from Reparations will be disappointed as it is not Kwon and Thompson's intended purpose. However, I wholehearted recommend this to anyone looking to be convinced of the necessity of reparations from a Christian perspective or those looking for an accessible book to convince others.