New York Times columnist David Brooks is endorsing reparations, compensation to descendants of slaves and victims of discriminatory government policies.
In a Thursday column, Brooks admitted that nearly five years ago he disagreed with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article in the Atlantic on “The Case for Reparations.” But Brooks, who came to the Times in 2003 as a conservative columnist, wrote he sees reparations as necessary to make amends for past and ongoing discrimination.
“Slavery and the continuing pattern of discrimination aren’t only an attempt to steal labor; they are an attempt to cover over a person’s soul, a whole people’s soul,” Brooks wrote.
“That injury shows up today as geographic segregation, the gigantic wealth gap, the lack of a financial safety net, but also the lack of the psychological and moral safety net that comes when society has a history of affirming: You belong. You are us. You are equal,” he continued.
The issue of reparations has already played a small part in the newly launched Democratic presidential primary contest, with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro claiming they support some version of reparations.
Brooks, who considers himself a moderate Republican, said he changed his mind on the issue after traveling the country and speaking with people, including an elderly African-American woman who said children in her neighborhood are in a worse position than she was as a child in 1953.
[Related: David Brooks says Kamala Harris could be Democrats’ best choice]
Healing fragmentation in American life requires “direct action, a concrete gesture of respect that makes possible the beginning of a new chapter in our common life,” he wrote.
Brooks acknowledged the difficulty in executing such compensation.
“Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story,” he concluded.
[Also read: 2020 Democrats avoid saying ‘reparations’]
