City of Marshall Considering Reparations & Slavery Education
The subject of reparations for descendants of African slaves in America continues to be a hot button topic some 400 plus years after the practice was ended. There have been several cities across the country that have begun the discussion of reparations including a city in East Texas which is preparing to discuss the topic soon.
According to our news partners at KLTV, Marshall City Councilman Marvin Bonner plans to present a resolution to the Marshall City Council that would have the city formally apologize for the institution of slavery and declare slavery a crime, and provisions including a "reparations ordinance".
A member of the Marshall City Council is proposing a resolution which would, among other things, have the city formally...
Posted by KLTV 7 on Wednesday, April 7, 2021
The resolution will also call for K-12 education of slavery, negotiations with Harrison County on the removal of Confederate statues and the preservation of slave records.
The following will be my personal opinion on the topic:
I have a lot of questions about this resolution and chief among them is, Is this resolution something that can be real and tangible or just for "show"? While I hope this will bring about real change, pardon me for being a skeptic because we seen these kind of things before and they end up being just "talk". Slavery may have been the root of the issue but the tree of "systemic racism" in American grew from those roots and that continues to be the issue in America.
Its still unclear what a "reparations ordinance" would entail. Would it mean the city would pay money to slave descendants or provide access to programs and things that have long been systemically unfair to Black people?
What are your thoughts?