Over at Demos, there's an interview with Duke economist Sandy Darity, whose been researching and making the case for reparations long before I got the notion. Professor Darity is not alone in this. My argument for reparations stands on mountain of research produced by people whose labor does not always get the accolades it deserves. Frankly, it often gets ignored. I think there many reasons for that—JSTOR, the lack of incentive within the academy, the low level of curiosity among many journalists etc.
But whatever the reasons, there is something I must make absolutely clear: this piece would not exist without the work of economists like Professor Darity, of historians like Barbara Fields and Tony Judt, of sociologists like William Massey and Devah Pager, of law professors like Kim Forde-Mazrui and Eric J Miller. And so on. Without them, this blog, and all my writing, is significantly poorer. Without the academy, we are not talking right now.
I have no desire to be anybody's Head Negro—that goes for reparations and beyond. I just hope to write hard. In my own blogging, I've worked to link back to books, papers and studies that have influenced my thinking. I've really, really hoped—perhaps naively—that people would not stop with a blog post, or magazine article, that they click through the hyperlinks, and then form questions of their own.
