Event debates racial reparation demands

By Dena Elbayoumy
Daily Bruin Contributor

UCLA’s ethnic studies centers collaborated to host a
conference Friday and Saturday to debate the issue of racial
reparations.

The symposium, hosted by the African American, American Indian,
Chicana/o and Asian American Studies Centers, looked to stress
reparation demands on the national as well as the international
level.

The event is one of the first sponsored endeavors to address
reparations under the UC Slavery Colloquium Bill, which was signed
by Gov. Gray Davis in Sept. 2000.

The bill promotes research and publicity on reparations by
University of California campuses.

Audience members flocked from all corners of the country to hear
panelists address topics such as the Armenian Genocide, the
Holocaust, mistreatment of Pilipino migrant workers, and the
plight of Palestinians and Native Americans.

“The stories are very different but the common denominator
is the uphill struggle for justice,” said Elazar Barkan of
the critical studies department at Claremont Graduate University
and author of “The Guilt of Nations.”

The struggle for recognition and restitution was a unifying
theme for the panels ““ all were seeking resolutions to the
historical and the current oppression they face.

The “ethnic cleansing” of 1 million Armenians by the
Turkish government, the genocide of 6 million Jews, gypsies and
others by the Nazi government of Germany, the forced occupation of
the indigenous peoples of Hawaii and Palestine by the U.S. and
Israeli governments, and the deaths of more than half a million
Iraqis as a result of U.S. sanctions were among the atrocities
panelists discussed.

“There are a whole lot of issues of people who were either
dispossessed, or enslaved, or put in concentration and internment
camps,” said Naseer Aruri, a panelist and professor of
political science at the University of Massachusetts.

“Now, their descendants are coming out to ask for redress,
restitution and compensation to right the wrongs” he
continued.

The issue of reparations has been ongoing among many minority
groups, but has recently made national headlines due to a
controversial ad sent by David Horowitz to college newspapers,
denouncing reparations for African Americans.

Horowitz is a conservative columnist who opposes the idea of
reparations for African Americans. He says the public encourages
victimization through reparations, which will hinder progress.

One of his ideas, namely that “reparations to African
Americans have already been paid” ““ not only for
African Americans, but for other minority groups in and out of the
U.S. as well ““ was addressed by the panel.

Within the struggle for reparations, there was debate as to what
reparations should entail, whether it be monetary compensation,
acknowledgement of wrongdoings, or both.

“There is no doubt that we have suffered and no doubt that
reparations are due,” said Richard Hovannisian, an Armenian
studies professor. “It’s not so much the money, but the
acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.”

The Turkish government still denies that an organized massacre
ever took place.

Proponents of monetary compensation by the U.S. government to
African Americans, for instance, feel otherwise.

Aruri said some seek monetary compensation because the U.S.
government allowed for the collection of life insurance by slave
owners for their slaves during the Pre-Civil War period.

A second bill signed by Davis allows California’s
insurance commissioner to request slave insurance policies from
insurers in the state to rectify past problems.

Other issues pertinent to California included the reliance poor
communities have on unreliable public transportation.

One audience member, a New York native, stepped up to the
microphone and said he came to Los Angeles with intentions of
taking the bus to “see the different kinds of
people.”

He said he soon noticed many of the passengers were from low
socio-economic communities ““ and were often left behind when
buses failed to arrive. As he left one bus to catch another,
minutes, then hours clocked by. The bus never came.

“I’m still waiting for that bus,” he said.

Speaker Robert Bullard, sociology professor of Clark Atlanta
University, said these problems are inherent nationwide. Many
oppressed peoples remain oppressed because of a lack of
information, he continued.

“The reason we have an environmental justice movement is
because the national mainstream has failed us,” Bullard said.
“It’s not just an L.A. problem.”

Nearby in Arizona, mothers are delivering stillborn or
developmentally impaired infants. Their water source has been
contaminated by uranium mining, a fatal affliction the government
is solving with IOU’s, said Jenny Joe, a panelist from the
department of family and community medicine at the University of
Arizona.

The problem is that community members lack the resources to seek
help, she said. With the promotion of research and public
awareness, she said the reparations for such problems may be
paid.

With the diversity of social ills spanning such a broad
spectrum, some audience members felt the address of reparations
should be based on each group’s duration of suffering.

In response to these concerns, the panel reinforced that the
event was geared toward promoting reparations and cautioned against
the creation of “hierarchies of suffering.”

This initiated a reminder by Hovannisian
that”victimization of all people is reprehensible.”

“We should be united and not separated,” he
said.

With reports from Marcelle Richards, Daily Bruin Senior
Staff.