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HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS THE GLOBE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for 30 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, it is always important to have an opportunity to speak to our colleagues and as well the American people. Tonight, I will dwell on questions of human rights, challenges to those human rights and the legacy of the undermining of human rights even in America that will include aspects of such indignities around the world.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) who will start with a discussion on a longstanding and well-known historic violations of human rights.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congresswoman for yielding. I appreciate it very much.
I want to speak today about the 47th anniversary of the Turkish invasion and occupation of the tiny island of Cyprus. For the last 47 years, Turkish troops have occupied the north of that island which is a direct violation of human rights. They have taken that opportunity to engage in disruption and desecration of cultural and religious sites.
Today, President Erdogan of Turkey visited Cyprus on this day, the 47th anniversary of the Turkish occupation.
Why did he come?
Was it to negotiate in good faith for a solution to the division of the island?
No.
Did he come to apologize for the continued occupation of the island?
No.
He came to announce the reopening of the beach town of Varosha in direct contravention of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 550 which ``considers attempts to settle any part of Varosha by people other than its inhabitants as inadmissible.''
Varosha was a once-bustling resort town. It was an international tourist destination in the Famagusta district of the Republic of Cyprus. But with the advance of Turkey's invading forces to the town in August of 1974, Varosha's native Greek Cypriot population fled for their lives.
Erdogan's visit is a cynical and shameful act designed to mock the rightful inhabitants of Varosha and to advance Turkey's agenda of dividing Cypress into two separate states instead of pursuing a bizonal, bicommunal federation that all parties of good faith have endorsed.
I urge the Biden administration to use all means at its disposal to resist Turkey's creeping partition of Cyprus and to bring international condemnation to these outrageous steps that President Erdogan is taking which disrespect and violate the rights and human dignity of the refugees of Varosha.
One day Cyprus will be reunited, but that can only come with the forceful leadership of the American Government, deployed consistently, morally, and with an abiding sense of justice.
I want to thank the Congresswoman for yielding to me so I could address an important issue of human rights, and I want to thank her for her incredible work over decades and certainly during her service here in Congress to make sure that in this country we are recognizing human rights and the dignity of every individual. I want to thank her for her leadership on H.R. 40, this very, very important commission, and thank her for being part of the conscience of this Congress.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership. We must always remember that human rights are equal to human dignity.
So it is my privilege tonight to stand to discuss the value of recognizing human dignity. As I do so, let me add to an earlier discussion that reflects on giving our children human dignity.
Isn't it amazing how children have suffered in the course of the most recent history depredation of wealth, and so they have been ensconced in poverty, they have been hungry, and they have been without a good education? These are children in America. We can speak about children around the world. They have had little access to broadband technology, and they have suffered in their housing provisions, if you will.
So I am very proud to just start out by, again, applauding the American Rescue Act and also the life-changing impact of the child tax credit. I don't think we can do that enough. And children of color have been at the front of the line and we are able to help with food and childcare, diapers, healthcare, clothing, taxes.
Poor, working, and middle class families are able to receive the same amount. You will see, Mr. Speaker, where I am going on this because we don't do this in anger. We don't do this because we are mad. We do this because it is righting the wrong, as one of my colleagues said.
This will provide $250 per month, per child and $300 per month for every young child. That means children under 5. All families in my district will be able to feel more secure. Let me run through these numbers because they are stunning.
The 18th Congressional District in Houston, Texas, Mr. Speaker, 91.7 percent of children in my district will gain from the expanded and improved child tax credit. I know that because I have been immersed in childcare education events.
We have been in a church, we have been at my Federal building, we have been up and down on the radio, we have been everywhere we could be to ensure that we did it with humor, with seriousness, with compassion, being out on the street corners along with trying to encourage people to get vaccinated. We have been saying: Get ready for the child tax credit President Biden and the Democratic Congress worked so hard on.
Mr. Speaker, 91.7 percent of the children will gain in my district. That is 202,800 children.
I have schools in my district that are 100 percent at risk, and they eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is no shame to helping children. Behind those children are parents who are suffering. These dollars will help these parents have dignity, their children have dignity, and their children have resources.
The average benefit for 56,700 households in my district--Houston, I hope you are listening--is $3,500.
If you have not filed your taxes in the 2019 year, you can immediately get help from my office at 713-655-0050 or the IRS tax advocacy team, also in my building of 1919 Smith Street in Houston, Texas.
Don't miss the opportunity for your own human dignity. It is not a handout. It is a hand up. The expanded and improved child tax credit lifts 21,800 children in my district out of poverty. Because of the larger benefits for the youngest, 8,400 kids under the age of 6 are raised out of poverty. That has expanded across America where millions of children face a new day.
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Families with children in poverty receive $5,300 on average, and they are getting some 6,500 children in my district out of deep poverty. We know now that we are engaged in the appropriations process. I thank Chairwoman DeLauro and all of the appropriators for their work. We know how important it is if you are going to do something in life, this year, 2021, in the aftermath of COVID-19, this is the year to do it with the appropriations bill. This is the year to do it. Again, my theme: a sense of dignity.
And where does that take me now? Well, I must deviate for a moment, Mr. Speaker, to just indicate that I think the Biden-Harris team has brought to America a sense of compassion. It has turned anger and ugly words into reaching out to people where they are. That could mean people who oppose them. But they reach out to them where they are, and they reach them with a sense of understanding and acceptance that they must cast leadership for all of America, even if people disagree with them.
So my good friend was here on the floor--I am sorry that he has left--but I want to emphasize that Vice President Kamala Harris is doing an excellent job on some very tough issues. She is meeting on voting rights and meeting with any number of persons. I want to remind America that Texas Democratic State representatives who had some medical mishaps here or medical circumstances with COVID-19--no one is immune--are still here fighting so that we can have voting rights.
She has met with all of them. She is deeply engaged in making sure that we work together as a Congress to get voting rights done along with the Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Beatty and all of us as Members who are standing ready. So she is doing an excellent job. And I will tell you, living on the border myself, living in Texas, in the region, having gone to the border over and over again, she is doing a job that should be done that others are not doing, getting into the weeds and understanding what the President's path should be as we go forward on immigration reform.
She has been to the Northern Triangle. That is the heart of where the issues start, and they are working to discern how they can best stop the massive flow of migrants, immigrants, who are in fear of their lives living in the countries that they are living in. These are tough issues, and I just want to say thank you to Vice President Kamala Harris, because some people misunderstand and think that it is just an easy thing to do.
My word from Texas on her trip was excellent, and that people were receptive to her intellect, her compassion, and her willingness to get the job done. And the job will be done.
So as I say that, I indicated this will be a night about human rights. And so I want to give you a little education about legislation that we are so pleased about. Can you imagine, H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans having nearly 200 sponsors, cosponsors of individuals who have come from many parts of the country. And so I am speaking to my colleagues who happen to be Republicans, and I want to give them the opportunity to realize just what this bill is.
I heard someone say ``restoration,'' and I heard someone say
``repair,'' and they are right. My good friend, the Honorable Barbara Lee, we are working in tandem together, working in tandem on H. Res. 19, which is reconciliation and restoration, and then the bill, H.R. 40, legislation to create a commission that would study effectively slavery, and as well then develop reparation proposals. Again, restoration, repair.
Let us remove ourselves from any sort of shackle on the question of reparations. Let us be understanding of someone else's pain, someone else's history; that is, in fact, American history. So I hold up this bill, because I said I would do show and tell, H.R. 40. Look at the pile of Members here as original cosponsors, and they have been coming on and on, and I want to just say thank you to my friends and colleagues who have thoughtfully felt the need to say how do we heal America's systemic racism; and how do we heal institutional racism; how do we ignore what is, in fact, truth.
Now, I think most of you know I could not stand here without saying thank you to the 415 Members of Congress who voted along with the United States Senate on Juneteenth. Do you realize that Juneteenth is the first time America has acknowledged the history of slavery? In 1865, those of us west of the Mississippi just got the word from the Union soldiers with General Granger that we were free by General Order No. 3.
Juneteenth is a commemoration of that. And I want everyone to know that, frankly, 47 States have already been celebrating in their own way Juneteenth. After 38 years, we have a new Federal holiday called Juneteenth, which gives America and little schoolchildren the opportunity to ask their dad or their teacher: What is Juneteenth? That was holding people in bondage, but it was setting them free.
After the bloodiest war, brothers against brothers, the Civil War, where Abraham Lincoln so emotionally indicated: ``A house divided cannot stand,'' but General Granger came and Sam Collins held a magnificent celebration on June 19 in Houston, in Galveston, in that region where I represent, and the mural was unveiled by a magnificent artistic team led by Reginald Adams out of Third Ward, Texas, which is Houston, which is where my congressional district is, and it told the story of the freedom of these slaves. And we repeated General Order No. 3 which says, ``equality of personal rights'' but the biggest thing it said was, ``the slaves are free.'' And that we insist upon equality of rights. That is all that H.R. 40 is about.
Are we to deny equality of rights? That was in General Order No. 3. That is what the President, unfortunately, being assassinated, President Abraham Lincoln sent General Granger down to read to the slaves who had worked and been beaten for 2\1/2\ more years.
It is important that we not ignore what slavery was all about. This is the whelped and beaten back and scarred back of a slave. Let us be clear. Bondage, we are the only group of Americans that have been held in bondage in this Nation, and we have been held or were held in bondage longer than this country has been a nation. For 246 years, we were held in bondage, and we only celebrated our 245th birthday.
So I am here to be able to, very briefly, run you through a brief history. Let me do this. Let me first of all talk about the words of Gary Abernathy, who proudly says that he is a conservative.
And Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining, please?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 14 minutes remaining.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate it, only to make sure that I can now flow with the concept of the time.
But the headline reads: ``Why I support reparations--and all conservatives should.''
I know my friends are listening here on the other side. Gary Abernathy. And I will take some excerpts from this. He acknowledges that he is a conservative. And I can venture to say that his credentials can be documented.
But he says, in spite of the bill that I have offered--has an apology--he takes note of that, he even indicates that he may not be that enthusiastic about that. But he says, ``In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy,'' meaning that the notion of reparations is worth discussing because he says,
``In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits the conservative philosophy.''
He goes on to say, ``But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefited from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and--crucially--will continue to do so for generations to come.''
None of this is said with anger. It is only setting forth facts. When slavery was abolished after a bloody Civil War, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them.
``Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts.''
Remember, this is a group of people in the millions who simply were set free. Freedom is precious. We cannot deny how precious freedom was, how sweet it was, but they were given nothing; nothing to start their lives, and they came into the hostility of people who really didn't want them to be free. That was the bulk of the South, and many parts of the North. ``The government even reneged on its `40 acres and a mule' pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.''
Be reminded of the whipped back of this Black man, this slave. And there were whipped backs of women and children. They lived through this through no fault of their own. They worked and toiled in the fields. They made cotton king. They built the economic engine of this Nation. They created a transatlantic slave trade. They sent millions of dollars from the South to the Wall Street banks, and we built America.
They built this place where I stand, the United States Capitol, with their bare hands, and they built the White House. What else could they have built?
And so when slavery was abolished, there was silence. It has been represented that there is a gap of $17,600 shows the median Black household net worth, to a $174,000 wage of the average American or White family.
When parents offered gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their lifetimes. I think we just saw a very unique occasion today regarding space. I would not in any way say anything but congratulations, but one of those persons paid $27 million to be on that historic moment. Calculate that. It is a personal payment. It wasn't government.
And, again, I celebrate the occasion, but juxtapose that against where we are or where African Americans are. Randall Robinson made the point that even affirmative action would never close the economic gap.
``Blacks, even middle-class Blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they're only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs . . . ''
And many times the ravages of discrimination and segregation are intertwined in law, and they may lose their jobs.
And so this conservative author believes in reparations. And he believes that this can be done with a fair amount of dollars, but there is more to it, as you will hear me say, because it is not about money.
He concludes by saying: ``It is a tenet of conservatism that a level playing field is all we should guarantee. But that's meaningless if one team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even begins.''
I think LBJ said: If you want to tell people about a fair race, meaning a running race, and one fellow or lady has shackles around their ankles and the whistle blows, get ready, go, it is not a fair race because one runner is freed and has all of the elements of freedom, and the ability to do great things, and one is running with leg irons on.
So as we look at how we can as a nation, a community come together, I don't know how many times I want to raise the question that we are not doing this in anger. H.R. 40, first introduced by John Conyers, is an international concept. It just means repair. It means doing the right thing, healing, dealing with injustices. It will not be painful.
But let me tell you why this legislation is not painful, because it is a study that will give us a roadmap and it will be done with academicians and those who are appointed by government leaders, and they will be balanced and they will be responsible and they will be thorough.
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Why do we think we need it?
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the article from Gary Abernathy, Washington Post contributing columnist.
Opinion: Why I Support Reparations--and All Conservatives Should
(By Gary Abernathy, Contributing columnist)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is among the progressive lawmakers whose blunt, liberal outspokenness regularly annoys me. Recently, she particularly upset me while discussing the latest congressional study of reparations for descendants of enslaved people, when she said, ``If you through your history benefited from that wrong that was done, then you must be willing to commit yourself to righting that wrong.'' Only this time I was bothered because her comments hit home. Like most conservatives, I've scoffed at the idea of reparations or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why would I support my government using my tax dollars for reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why are Black people today owed anything more than the same freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?
I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy. We'll come back to that. But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and--crucially--will continue to do so for generations to come.
When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The government even reneged on its ``40 acres and a mule'' pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.
The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of ``From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,'' data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances showed that median Black household net worth averaged $17,600--a little more than one-tenth of median White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, ``white parents, on average, can provide their children with wealth-related intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their own lifetimes.''
Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that even laws such as those on affirmative action ``will never close the economic gap. This gap is structural. . . . blacks, even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they're only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs, because . . . they've had nothing to hand down from generation to generation because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, which were based in law until recently.''
In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy generational associations in the business world, where who you know often counts more than what you know--a reality based not so much on overt racism as on employment and promotion patterns within old-school networks that Blacks lack the traditional contacts to consistently intersect.
For now, support for reparations is anemic. A House Judiciary Committee bill creating a commission to merely study the idea was opposed last week by 17 Republicans, though all 25 Democrats on the committee voted for it; and just 1 in 5 respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last June agreed that the United States should use tax dollars for reparations--not shocking, when a price tag of $10 trillion has been suggested.
The cost can be debated, along with the mechanics of a compensation package. But in the current drunken haze of government spending, appropriating trillions for the noble purpose of bringing Black Americans who remain economically penalized by the enslavement of their ancestors closer to the fiscal universe of White citizens surely seems less objectionable than some recent spending proposals.
It is a tenent of conservatism that a level playing field is all we should guarantee. But that's meaningless if one team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even begins.
It's not necessary to experience ``White guilt'' or buy into the notion of ``White privilege,'' a pejorative that to me suggests Whites possess something they should lose, when in fact such benefits should extend to all. Supporting reparations simply requires a universal agreement to work toward, as Jayapal said, ``righting that wrong.''
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Washington Post article, ``U.N. rights chief: Reparations needed for people facing racism.''
UN Rights Chief: Reparations Needed for People Facing Racism
(By Jamey Keaten)
Geneva (AP)--The U.N. human rights chief, in a landmark report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to help end discrimination, violence and ) systemic racism against people of African descent and ``make amends'' to them--including through reparations.
The report from Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human rights, offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic slave trade. It seeks a ``transformative'' approach to address its continued impact today.
The report, a year in the making, hopes to build on momentum around the recent, intensified scrutiny worldwide about the blight of racism and its impact on people of African descent as epitomized by the high-profile killings of unarmed Black people in the United States and elsewhere.
``There is today a momentous opportunity to achieve a turning point for racial equality and justice,'' the report said.
The report aims to speed up action by countries to end racial injustice; end impunity for rights violations by police; ensure that people of African descent and those who speak out against racism are heard; and face up to past wrongs through accountability and redress.
I am calling on all states to stop denying--and start dismantling--racism; to end impunity and build trust; to listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to confront past legacies and deliver redress,'' Bachelet said in a video statement.
While broaching the issue of reparation in her most explicit way yet, Bachelet suggested that monetary compensation alone is not enough and would be part of an array of measures to help rectify or make up for the injustices.
``Reparations should not only be equated with financial compensation,'' she wrote, adding that it should include restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgement of injustices, apologies, memorialization, educational reforms and
``guarantees'' that such injustices won't happen again.
Bachelet, a former president of Chile, hailed the efforts of advocacy groups like the Black Lives Matter movement, saying they helped provide ``grassroots leadership through listening to communities'' and that they should receive
``funding, public recognition and support.''
The U.N.-backed Human Rights Council commissioned the report during a special session last year following the murder of Floyd, a Black American who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was sentenced to 22-1/ 2 years in prison last week.
Protests erupted after excruciating bystander video showed how Floyd gasped repeatedly, ``I can't breathe!'' as onlookers yelled at Chauvin to stop pressing his knee on Floyd's neck.
The report was based on discussions with over 340 people--mostly of African descent--and experts; more than 100 contributions in writing, including from governments; and review of public material, the rights office said.
It analyzed 190 deaths, mostly in the U.S., to show how law enforcement officers are rarely held accountable for rights violations and crimes against people of African descent, and it noted similar patterns of mistreatment by police across many countries.
The report ultimately aims to transform those opportunities into a more systemic response by governments to address racism, and not just in the United States--although the injustices and legacy of slavery, racism and violence faced by African Americans was clearly a major theme.
The report also laid out cases, concerns and the situation in roughly 60 countries including Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Colombia and France among others.
``We could not find a single example of a state that has fully reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for the impacts of the lives of people of African descent today,'' Mona Rishmawi, who heads a unit on non-discrimination in Bachelet's office. ``Our message, therefore, is that this situation is untenable.''
Compensation should be considered at the ``collective and the individual level,'' Rishmawi said, while adding that any such process ``starts with acknowledgment'' of past wrongs and ``it's not one-size-fits-all.'' She said countries must look at their own pasts and practices to assess how to proceed.
Rishmawi said Bachelet's team found ``a main part of the problem is that many people believe the misconceptions that the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade and colonialism have removed the racially discriminatory structures built by those practices.
``We found that this is not true,'' said Rishmawi, also denouncing an idea among some ``associating blackness with criminality . . . there is a need to address this.''
The report called on countries to ``make amends for centuries of violence and, discrimination'' such as through
``formal acknowledgment and apologies, truth-telling processes and reparations in various forms.''
It also decried the ``dehumanization of people of African descent'' that was ``rooted in false social constructions of race'' in the past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes and harmful practices as well as tolerance for racial discrimination, inequality and violence.
People of African descent face inequalities and ``stark socioeconomic and political marginalization'' in many countries, the report said, including unfair access to education, health care, jobs, housing and clean water.
``We believe very strongly that we only touched the tip of the iceberg,'' Rishmawi said, referring to the report. ``We really believe that there is a lot more work that needs to be done.''
Ms. JACKSON LEE. This report came from the United Nations because reparations is a universal concept of repair, repairing, and human rights. This report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is big stuff. It ``offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic slave trade.''
Does that sound familiar? Back and forth across the ocean.
``It seeks a `transformative' approach to address its continued impact today.''
In its report, it says: ``I am calling on all states to stop denying, and start dismantling, racism; to end impunity and build trust; to listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to confront past legacies and deliver redress.''
This is what this report from the United Nations has said.
It goes on to say: ``Reparations should not only be equated with financial compensation.''
This is what I have been saying. I say that when I go on the floor and ask for my colleagues to support it. Thank goodness we understand it. We get it. I am looking for my Republican friends to join us.
``Adding that it should include restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgment of injustices, apologies, memorialization, education reforms, and `guarantees' that such injustices won't happen again.''
Does that sound unfair?
``We could not find a single example of a state that has fully reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for the impacts on the lives of people of African descent.''
This individual, who was head of the unit on nondiscrimination, said:
``Our message, therefore, is that this situation is untenable.''
This is the report from the U.N.
``A main part of the problem is that many people believe the misconceptions that the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade, and colonialism have removed the racially discriminatory structures built by those practices.''
Absolutely wrong. The report found that this is not true, ``also denouncing an idea among some `associating blackness with criminality.''' That has gone on in many places around the world, including the United States.
This report also ``decried the `dehumanization of people of African descent' that was `rooted in false social constructions of race' in the past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes, and harmful practices as well as tolerance for racial discrimination, inequality, and violence.''
Do we realize that that hurts all of our children? Children who are White and non-White are hurt by the definitions of color and Africans and people of African descent.
We face inequalities, meaning those of African descent, and ``'stark socioeconomic and political marginalization' in many countries, the report said, including unfair access to education, healthcare, jobs, housing, and clean water.''
What the commission could do is to give peace and understanding of the very fact of what would be a positive response to this question of discrimination.
I want to add some real scientific evidence that I am not here on the floor complaining. I am giving an opportunity, along with the infrastructure bill, along with the budget reconciliation, because I am on the Budget Committee, along with voting rights, after 30-some years when this bill was first introduced in 1989, after the Japanese received reparations in 1988, of which we supported.
Thank you to the Japanese American Association. They are strong supporters of H.R. 40. They got reparations for their false and unfair internment in the 1940s during World War II. We celebrated it. We worked with them and helped them construct that, those who were in Congress at that time.
John Conyers filed this bill shortly after 1989, and I am honored to have been given this challenge and opportunity by him upon his retirement. I will not let the Nation down. I say the Nation because a definitive study is worthy. It I might show you that the idea of reparations is to suggest a continued, systemic impact, a continued, systemic impact that is going on, even in this moment.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this article that is part of the Harvard Medical School's continuing coverage of medicine, and you would not believe it.
Anti-Racist Epidemiology--Research Suggests Reparations for Slavery
Could Have Reduced COVID-19 Infections and Deaths in U.S.
(By Jake Miller)
This article is part of Harvard Medical School's continuing coverage of medicine, biomedical research, medical education and policy related to the SARS-Co V-2 pandemic and the disease COVID-19.
Civil rights activists have long called for monetary reparations to the Black descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States as a financial, moral, and ethical form of restitution for the injustices of slavery.
Now, a study led by Harvard Medical School researchers suggests reparations could also have surprising public health benefits for Black individuals and the entire nation.
To estimate the impact of structura inequities between Black and white individuals, the researchers set out to capture the effect of reparation payments on the Black-white wealth gap in the state of Louisiana.
Their analysis, published online on Feb. 9 in Social Science & Medicine. suggests that if reparations had teen made before the COVID-19 pandemic, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the state's overall population could have been reduced by anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent.
The work was done in collaboration with the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.
``While there are compelling moral and historical arguments for racial-injustice interventions such as reparations, our study demonstrates that repairing the damage caused by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow racism would have enormous benefits to the entire population of tbe United States,'' said study senior author Eugene Richardson. assistant professor of global health and social medicine in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.
The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on racial minorities--Black individuals in particular--have been well documented. Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one and a half times higher than that of white people, are hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the disease, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The greater disease burden among Black people has caused tremendous loss of life and unspeakable suffering across these already vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Notably, these effects have also spilled over and are driving transmission rates of the virus in the overall population, the study authors said.
Addressing the structural inequalities at the roots of this disparity through monetary reparations would not only radically decrease the impact of COVID-19 among the people who received reparations, tbe authors said, but would reduce the overall toll of the disease on a broader scale, benefiting the entire population. The findings, the researchers said, powerfully underscores the truly global nature of the pandemic and the notion that a society is only as strong as its most vulnerable members.
``If we extrapolate these results to the entire United States, we can imagine that tens or hundreds of thousands of lives would have been spared, and the entire nation would have been saved much of the hardship it has endured in the last year,'' said Richardson, who is also the chair of the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.
For their analysis, tbe researchers paired sophisticated data analytics and computational tools with commonly used epidemiologic modeling methods to calculate the impact of structural racism on infection rates among Black and white populations in Louisiana. They chose Louisiana as an exemplar of the impacts of structural racism in the U.S. because it was one of the few states that reported infection rates by race in the early stages of the pandemic. For a control group, the researchers chose the relatively egalitarian population of South Korea.
The researchers noted that although modeling is used to understand many factors in the spread of an infectious disease, such as differences in infection risk based on whether passengers on a train sit with windows open or closed or individual variations in mask-wearinq habits, it has rarely been used to capture the effects of social factors that can create vast disparities between populations, such as those seen between Blacks and whites in the U.S.
Richardson's recent book Epidemic illusions explores the ways conventional epidemiology is constrained from proposing solutions that address the root causes of health disparities derived from the combined weight of centuries of racism, imperialism, neoliberal politics, and economic exploitation. One of the goals of the paper is to challenge the narrow ways people who work in medicine and public health measure and think about problems and solutions and to broaden the public imagination, thus opening new conversations about what challenges and opportunities are worth considering in global health and social science, Richardson said.
The study examined the initial period of the outbreak, before infection control measures were implemented, so any differences in infection rates between populations at that time would have been driven mainly by differences in the social structures, the researchers said.
For example, Louisiana has a population heavily segregated by race, with Black people having higher levels of overcrowded housing and working jobs that are more likely to expose them to SARS-CoV-2 than white people. In comparison, South Korea has a more homogenous population with far less segregation.
To probe how such structural inequities impact transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the researchers examined infection rates over time for the first two months of the epidemic in each location. During the initial phase of the outbreak in Louisiana, each infected person spread the virus to 13 to 2.5 more people than an infected individual durinq the same phase of the outbreak in South Korea, the analysis showed. The study also showed it took Louisiana more than twice as long to bring the early wave of the epidemic under control as South Korea.
Next, the researchers used next-generation matrices to gauge how overcrowding, segregation, and the wealth gap between Blacks and whites in Louisiana could have driven higher infection rates and how monetary reparations would affect viral transmission.
The model showed that greater equity between Blacks and whites might have reduced infection transmission rates by anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent for every person in the state.
This research comes at a time when many Americans are already thinking about the larger societal costs of structural racism, the researchers said. They noted, for example, that the nationwide movement to protest police brutality against Black people has been fueled by many of the inequitable outcomes exemplified so painfully by the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.
``This moment has made it possible for a lot of people who had no reason to think about these inequalities to be very aware of them,'' said study co-author and Lancet reparations commissioner Kirsten Mullen, who was a member of concept development team for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Anti-racism in action
Richardson said that the research was designed to explore how reparations payments might have altered the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and how a different response to the disease could have helped mitigate the disparities fueled by social conditions that are vestiges of slavery. Such conditions, Richardson noted, include ongoing discrimination and structural racism in the form of redlining, overcrowding, over-incarceration, and the heightened use of lethal force in policing experienced by Black people.
Richardson said that historian and anti-racist scholar Ibram X. Kendi's description of the differences between racism and anti-racism were helpful in designing the study. According to Kendi, a racist policy is any policy that produces or sustains inequality or promotes the power of one racial group over another, whereas an anti-racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains equity between racial groups.
Richardson said that one important goal of the project was to attempt to harness the power of mathematical modeling for an anti-racist response to the coronavirus and beyond.
``When you look at a formula for transmissibility, it looks like an objective calculation,'' he said. ``But where is lethal policing in that formula?''
Richardson noted that it was important to call attention to the systemic and structural elements of racism that can get lost in simplified models of disease.
What are reparations?
Mullen and study co-author William Darity, who recently published a book on reparations and have written in the press about the case for using reparation payments to fight COVID-19, defined reparations as a program of acknowledgement, redress, and closure for a grievous injustice. In this case, Mullen said, the atrocities are associated with periods of enslavement, legal segregation and white terrorism during the Jim Crow era, and racial strife and violence of the post-Civil Rights Act era, including ongoing inequities in the form of over-policing, police executions of unarmed Black people, ongoing discrimination in regard to incarceration, access to housing, and, possibly most important, the Black-white gulf in wealth.
Successful reparations programs include three elements: admission of culpability on behalf of the perpetrators of the atrocity; redress, in the form of an act of restitution; and closure, wherein the victims agree that the debt is paid and no further claims are to be made unless new harms are inflicted.
In this case, Mullen said, reparations would take the form of financial restitution for living Black individuals who can show that they are descended from at least one ancestor who was enslaved in the U.S. and that they self-identified as Black on a legal document at some point during the 12 years prior.
The financial restitution is designed to help close the Black-white wealth gap. Darity noted that it is important to distinguish wealth from income. Wealth is how much you own, and income is how much you earn. Greater wealth translates to greater stability for individuals and families across time. Greater wealth is also more strongly associated with greater well-being than greater income, Darity said, and disparities in wealth manifest as health disparities.
Wealth is more strongly associated with familial or individual well-being,'' said Darity, who is the Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke University and a Lancet reparations commissioner. He noted that, according to the Federal Reserve Board 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, the average Black household had a net worth $800,000 lower than the average white household, and that Black people, who represent 13 percent of the U.S. population, only own 3 percent of the nation's wealth.
``This dramatically restricts the ability of Black Americans to survive and thrive,'' Darity said.
To assess the effect of reparation payments on the trajectory of the pandemic, the researchers based their calculations on a model that would pay $250,000 per person or
$800,000 per household to descendants of enslaved individuals--one of several proposed reparation models.
Every transmission is a social transmission
``Every transmission has a social cause,'' said study co-author and Lancet reparations commissioner James Jones, associate professor of Earth System Science and a senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
For a brief moment when AIDS was in the spotlight during the late 80s and early 90s, people interested in social behavior became interested in mathematical modeling of disease, Jones said. While that interest largely waned, the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need to think about social science, inequality, social structure, behavior patterns, and behavior change, as well as how they fit together with how we understand and respond to epidemics, Jones said.
Even the simplest model must account for a rudimentary social structure, Jones said. At its most basic, this can be represented with a generalized estimate of how likely an infected person is to come into contact with a susceptible person. He explained that this number, R0 or ``R-naught,'' is the average number of people an infected individual transmits the virus to. When R0 is less than one, no epidemic is possible because the number of people infected decreases. When R0 is greater than 1 an epidemic is possible. R0 also determines the total number of people who could potentially become infected or how many people would need to be vaccinated to end the epidemic. It can also be used to calculate the so-called endemic equilibrium--which determines whether a disease will continue to exist within a population, simmering constantly in the background or bubbling up seasonally, like influenza.
``That's the theory of infectious disease control in a single parameter,'' Jones said.
That seeming simplicity can make it hard to focus on the complex ways that infectious diseases move through the real world, the researchers said.
``It's important to highlight that R0 is not simply a function of the pathogen,'' Jones said. ``It's a function of the society.'' Social and environmental factors like mobility, segregation, and the nature of the built environment help determine rates of infection, he said.
This is one important reason that diseases don't hit all people the same. Global R0 is an average of very different R0s for different groups of people. Some groups are more likely to interact only with members of their own group, some groups are more likely to come in contact with infected people, and some are more susceptible to the disease for other reasons, Jones said.
In this case, the researchers used mathematical models to help understand the differences in R0 for Black people and white people in Louisiana and to help think about how things would change if racism were less prevalent in America.
Absent those interventions, the researchers noted that Black Americans remain at an elevated and inequitable risk of becoming infected and dying during the COVID-19 pandemic and that this inequity will continue to fuel the pandemic for all Americans.
``Increasing equality would have huge benefits on infection rates for everyone,'' said co-author Momin Malik, who was a data science postdoctoral fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University at the time the study was conducted.
This research was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (grant R01 GM130900), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grant K08 AI139361), National Institute of Minority Health Disparities (grant R01 MD011606), National Science Foundation Division of Social and Economic Sciences
(grant 1851845), Institute of Education Sciences (grant R305A190484), and the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. It states: ``Civil rights activists have long called for monetary reparations,'' this report opens up. This is a scientific, vetted report from the Harvard University Medical School. It is titled
``Anti-Racist Epidemiology: Research suggests reparations for slavery could have reduced COVID-19 infections and deaths in the U.S.'' This was published online on February 10.
It says: ``To estimate the impact of structural inequities between Black and White individuals, the researchers set out to capture the effect of reparation payments on the Black-White wealth gap in the State of Louisiana.'' This is an important report.
``The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on racial minorities--
Black individuals in particular--have been well documented. Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one-and-a-half times higher than that of White people, are hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are three times as likely to die from the disease, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
``The greater disease burden among Black people has caused tremendous loss of life and unspeakable suffering across these already vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Notably, these effects have also spilled over and are driving transmission rates of the virus in the overall population.''
They did their study in many places, but I will read a portion. ``The study examined the initial period of the outbreak, before infection control measures were implemented, so any differences in infection rates between populations at the time would have been driven mainly by differences in the social structures.''
``Louisiana has a population heavily segregated by race, with Black people having higher levels of overcrowded housing and working jobs that are more likely to expose them,'' and they found that if reparations had been given, they would have done better.
I conclude, Mr. Speaker, by just saying that you see a picture of the Tulsa race riot. That is why I stand here today to say that Tulsa Greenwood needs reparation. H.R. 40 needs to pass. Why don't we do it together?
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 127
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