If you go What:
- ‘Reparations in action: Uniting for change,’ a free and public event to discuss action steps toward reparations.
Who:
- Hosted by the Champaign-Urbana Reparations Coalition, the event will feature guest speaker Robin Rue Simmons, chair of the city of Evanston’s reparations committee and founder of the nonprofit FirstRepair, and state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana.
When:
- 7 p.m. Thursday.
Where: New Covenant Fellowship, 124 W. White St., Champaign.
Imagine you are a young family looking to buy a home in a nice area so your kids can enjoy their childhood, be safe and take advantage of all the perks a good neighborhood brings. You apply for a loan; you have good credit and employment and start searching. You find the house of your dreams and pursue the purchase — only to be told that you are not allowed to live in that neighborhood.
Because according to “Injustice sheltered: Race relations at the University of Illinois and Champaign-Urbana, 1945-1962,” a doctoral dissertation written in 1990 by UI graduate student Carrie Franke, in Champaign County, “of all the constrictive methods used by gatekeepers to segregate blacks, the racially restrictive covenant was the most egregious.”
Franke’s dissertation notes that between 1941 and 1950, 18 racially restrictive covenants were written into new subdivision deeds in Champaign County, and “the total number of … parcels defined by these covenants was 774, with 65 in Rantoul, 50 near Savoy and 587 in Champaign-Urbana.”
Most importantly, “all of the racially restrictive covenants in Champaign County except one (in Rantoul) were worded exactly as follows: ‘No part thereof will be sold or leased, either in whole or in part, to or permitted to be occupied as owner, or tenant by any person or persons not of the Caucasian race.’”
I mulled over the numerous approaches for stating this brief case for reparations in Champaign County. Start with statistics showing stark disparities between Black and White people in myriad life arenas such as housing, health care, education, etc. Or recap the history of reparations being provided to different groups of people from biblical times to today. Or connect the dots between the United States being the wealthiest nation in the world and its use of slavery to produce and deliver goods, specifically cotton, around the world at lower prices than any competitor.
Finally, I settled on starting with the heart, mind and soul of every person reading this “letter” to my Champaign County neighbors.
I believe that racial justice and any resulting byproduct of it, like reparations, must start with belief and conviction. In my work as a researcher, I studied vaccine hesitancy among African Americans and discovered something fascinating: Many people, when asked to take a deep dive in their beliefs, often do not have a clear answer to why they believe certain information. They often do not consider the reliability of their sources — whatever they are.
Default thinking is when the first belief we adopt about something becomes an anchor for our mind, so that we sometimes develop strong beliefs based on unknown and unproven foundations. I do not blame anyone for believing in something based on insufficient knowledge; none of us can know all the details on any issue, but we can keep learning.
So where does this leave us? To believe nothing? Starting with an awareness of our informational attainment shortcomings is how we begin to live with true conviction. When we understand this, we can create a more reliable foundation of beliefs and evoke a deep desire to act on those beliefs. Therefore, I invite us to embrace this strategy: 1) Be led by good, and 2) Increase our knowledge from a variety of reliable sources.
Therefore, let me appeal to the good in you and provide information to explain why reparations to African Americans in Champaign County should be embraced by all.
Anytime we see pain, suffering, injustice, wrong, etc., we sympathize and empathize with those suffering. This is no new concept, as any religious doctrine or moral compass prefers this path over not caring about the suffering of others. The following are a couple of examples of pain and suffering backed by reliable sources of information.
The discriminatory housing practices of redlining in Champaign County negatively affected Black families in a multitude of ways. When looking at a topographical map of Champaign-Urbana overlaid with a mapping of race, the effects of these practices are apparent and leave an ongoing legacy. Examples of the suffering resulting from this discrimination include the presence of predatory lenders, food deserts and higher crime rates.
As in other parts of the country, African Americans in Champaign County are disproportionately suffering from myriad health issues, such as infant mortality and various cancers. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, Champaign County leads the state in infant mortality (rate of 9.4), surpassing Chicago (6.3) and East St. Louis (9.3). The infant-mortality rate among African American women is 11.4 compared with 5.5 for Caucasian women; there is a vast health care gap between Champaign County residents by race at the very beginning of life.
These and many other reasons are why reparations for African Americans should be supported by everyone. After all, healing the wounded part of the body heals the whole body. Let us together be led by the good for our whole community, repairing injustices that will strengthen our community for the future.