discuss the latest issues and government, politics, and public policy. from washington and across the country. coming up friday morning, you top republican governor discusses his disagree better initiative and talk agenda items at this week's gathering of governors. then terry schilling on campaign 2024. the role of social conservatives and this week's annual cpac conference. khalil gibran mohammed talks about the teaching of race and racism in american higher education. join in the conversation live at 7:00 on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> jason hill is a philosophy professor at depaul university. jason hill is a philosophy

professor at depaul university joining us as part of our series looking at black history month. he wrote a book "what to white americans owe black people: racial justice in the age of post-oppression." how did you answer that question? >> i answered it by making the claim that reparations have already been paid. restitution to those that have been wronged by making financial restitution. my argument is reparations, by and large, have already been made to black americans through the 1960's civil rights act and through affirmative action programs, through cultural reparations have been made through black studies programs. basically the employment act.

that a free society can go no further in making restitution to a group of people who might have been suffering from the residual effects of slavery. host: are those financial reparations? guest: those are not financial reparations. there is no one living today who was a slave. i was basing my notion of reparations on president reagan's civil liberties act of 1988, in which the state made an apology for the japanese-americans who were interred through world war ii and made a payment of $20,000 to each former detainee still alive when the act was passed. because there are no slaves still alive today, there can be no, going by the logic of the civil liberties act of 1988, there can be no financial compensation.

we can make the assumption under jim crow and racism that continues after jim crow when america was a systemically racist country, when white supremacy did reign supreme come that restitution was due to black americans. i make the case in my book that the 1964 act was a form of reparations and affirmative action programs that followed were meant as forms of making amends to a group of people who are suffering from the residual effects of slavery. host: earlier this week the university of texas plenty old know joseph -- pelinial joseph was on our program and made an argument for financial

reparations. take a listen to what he had to say. >> until 2020 many people would do not -- did not understand slavery and the way black labor built the wealth in united states and built global capitalism. there are extraordinary books about this, including the harvard slaver report, including empire of cotton. greg wilder's every and iv. there are so -- ebony and ivory. there are so many interesting books. when we think about slavery. it is not just the labor of enslaved black people that produces the wealth. we were used as collateral, we were used as mortgage securities, we were used to provide global investment for everything from harvard university to banks and

businesses. black people created the first financial instruments that lead to private equity and hedge funds and venture capital. not just in the united states but around the world. this is demonstrably proved with reams of evidence. first of all is the fact we do not want to talk about that. we do not want to talk about that. once you talk about that you open up a pandora's box. it should not be a pandora's box that is negative. there has been reparations for other groups in the past, including reparations for the holocaust, those things were correct. those were the morally correct choice. jason -- host: jason hill? guest: he is right but he is talking about our ancestors. unfortunately the time has passed for that type of

reparations. when you're talking about the holocaust and japanese, you're talking about people where you can point to the damage. there have been families in mississippi whose properties were confiscated from them and they could show through the unfair laws that were part of the jim crow system that their lands were confiscated. they were entitled to reparations. that is the form of reparations i respect and i'm an advocate for. the sort of far-reaching collectivist notion that our ancestors were the individuals who built america in this broad reaching language, and therefore we the descendants are now due payments, i do not think has any sort of status in a free society.

the time for reparations for those individuals has passed because they are dead. host: when you delved into this and he looked at the civil rights act, would you say is reparations, what evidence do you point to in your book? guest: i made a very startling claim in the book where i said the 1964 civil rights act was the greatest form of moral eugenics in america in the sense that it did violate property rights. i made a defense for why it was the proper violation of property rights, because it said to whites you cannot use your property as an extension of your home or living room and you cannot say i will use my property to discriminate against blacks. even the collusion between the states and whites and given the way in which the state had played a significant role in creating race -- the 1964 civil

rights act said it is not just you cannot use your property to discriminate against blacks, we will make you into nonracist. we will re-socialize your sensibilities and make you into proper nonracist individuals. we will tweak your sensibilities and make you good moral citizens in your approach to blacks. that was a pivotal moment in american history because it was a moment when the state took it upon itself to make moral agents out of whites cap even the grotesque history that existed between blacks and whites. i think it was a heavy-handed approach but i think it was proper because civil rights is not a gift. it was something that was due to blacks. it was a moral form of reparations. i call it a eugenic will moment in history because it sought to resocialize white people to

radically different types of people, to making them into nonracist by telling them how they could and cannot use their property. today racism is an evil. if there any forms of racism committed against blacks, those claims can be brought before courts of law. financial compensation can be administered to the victims of racism. host: as a philosopher, what is your thought on that effort in 1964 to change white people sensibilities? guest: it was heavy-handed but it was proper. i am an independent conservative who belongs to no particular party. i reject the conservative claim that america was never a white supremacist country, that we never had an ideology of white supremacy and america was never a racist country. that is a bunch of malarkey.

it is an insult to black people who have suffered tremendously at the hands of white supremacist and racist law that singled out blacks because of their race. i think it was heavy-handed. given the construct and the norms that were codified, laws that prevented races from intermarrying, as a philosopher i think when you collude with whites and when you create racists -- there were white people wanted to deal with blacks on a strictly commercial basis. on a basis of interpersonal exchanges, but states forbade them with interstate commerce laws. they made racists out of white people. the biggest enemy against blacks were not individual whites, but also the states. walter williams the great

economist pointed this out in his book, "the state against black." i think that heavy headedness was a repair moment in american history. the work is still ongoing. i do not agree with dei initiatives because they are too ideological, but i was and remain in advocate for affirmative action programs they were originally conceived. that is my defense as a philosopher. as heavy-handed as the social eugenic moment of the civil rights act were, they were necessary to correct the harmful wrongs created by the state in maintaining the practice of slavery and in continuing the norms and codifying those racist norms into law. host: diane is in tennessee.

our first caller. welcome to the conversation. caller: i've been trying to get in. i am glad to be on this. when they are talking about reparations for black people, i don't like the word black. i am a light-skinned colored woman compared to whites. all of our races are different colors. i hate the word black. black is a color of a shoe. i don't like the term. i'm looking at him right now on tv. he has a trace of whiteness in his blood like i do. the majority of my relatives are light compared to whites. we do not have as many dark people in our family. talking about reparations. i want stuff done right now. look at black on black killing

each other. buying drugs from the white man, buying guns from the white man. i remember when all of this hit the united states when reagan was in there. how come our black people are afraid to speak up about that? how the drugs are getting in her neighborhood. how old are black people have worked back through the years and some just get $500 a month on social security and will not get food stamps. why don't you address what is happening to us right now. none of you are getting up there talking about that. host: let's give jason hill a chance. guest: i'm not sure what she means by reparations because of drugs. my response would be why would african-americans or people of color, whatever term she is comfortable with using, why have they relinquished control of their communities to these folks?

there are communities of color. i will use the word african-american or black because that is the terminology used in this country that have taken their communities back, that have taken responsibility for their communities. 74% of black children born in this country are born to single mothers, the majority of whom are born into poverty. why are we not talking about the fact that the state, through the welfare program, has played a role in descent devising parents , fathers from being fathers, from being married by rewarding single parenthood by glamorizing single households, which is a great predictor for crime committed by black men. i'm not sure how reparations would remedy the gang problem, the proliferation of black on black crime. there is nothing reparations can do.

a lot of what we need to do is talk about the breakdown of the black family, the decentralization of marriage that exists in this culture. even among whites. the breakdown of the nuclear family is a colossal failure in this country. there is a wider conversation that needs to be had. i'm not sure how reparations would remedy any of the phenomenon she is talking about. host: intranet in philadelphia. -- antoinette in philadelphia. caller: i have been a foundational black american all my life. reparations is the law. i will not get into this thing about black-and-white. when we were slaves there was no such thing. it is cause and effect. it is the scale of justice. we are human beings.

black people are not being treated as such because each and every one of the people that were owed reparations have gotten reparations. you can try to speak for me and you are not even from this country, you are not even part of the cause and effect of slavery. a lot of our problems stem from slavery. we've never had an opportunity, equally. we have never had a chance. we had inventions stolen. we have our language that was stolen. everything was stolen from us and now what we are doing is demanding what is owed to us. if you cannot understand that, you do not need to be up there trying to speak as a philosopher

for me, walking history that was spat on in the 1960's, that was called a nigger. you do not know what that feels like. it is cause and effect. host: we will get a response. guest: i not speaking on behalf of you. you have no business telling me what i have or have not experienced in this country. i came to america in this country when i was 20 years old and lived in the deep south and i have lived here 38 years. i've experienced as a black man in america. if you want to talk about what was stolen from you, which most people do not want to talk about which a professor at harvard university and many black historians have talked about, 90% of the slave trade was initiated by africans.

90% of the slave trade was initiated by africans and arabs who kidnapped other africans, auctioned them, and sold them to europeans. if you want to talk about reparations, you need to talk about looking to nigeria and ghana, and all of the other countries that were complicit in african transatlantic slave trade, which had the health of african chiefs and kings who kidnapped -- they did not see other africans as their own people because they were tribal people -- who kidnapped under -- who kidnapped other africans. this is the dirty secret no one want to talk about. everyone talks as if there were europeans who landed on the shores. there was collusion among

african tribes and europeans. if you want reparations, start calling the nigerians and other sub-saharan countries and talk about reparations from those countries. i reject the claim that i've never experienced racism in this country. you are not in a position -- listening to you i'm becoming a statistician. you do not know what i've gone through in this country. i just do not make myself a victim out of whatever experiences of racism i might've gone through. i transcend them and deal with them and i not become part of the cult of victim ologies you seem to belong to. host: james from mississippi. caller: how are you all doing? host: good morning. caller: i want to let this man know, hello? host: we are listening.

caller: you can say what you want to say about africans, about black folks rounding up american -- african people. you can make that stipulation. over here it is different. slavery started when they went over there, and whatever they did to get those tribes to do what they did, they do not have a right to do it, and they brought them over here and they became slaves. not only slaves, but jim crow. segregation. they could sing, they could dance, but they cannot buy homes and houses because of slavery. you can sit up here and play these games just like they're playing the game with the debt.

african-american debt is $16,000. you need to add a $16 trillion on the debt. until this country pays that debt, you will never get out of this debt. you know it for yourself. you have the audacity to try to blame what these people did over here. you're tried to put it back over there. i can say that about vladimir putin. this is america. you know it. you can smile all you want. host: let's give professor hill the chance to respond. guest: i'm trying to make sense out of his incoherent ramblings. america was a white supremacist country. i have talked about jim crow in my book. i have talked about the

sufferings of blacks in this country. no one can deny that. i said i am not part of the phalanx of thinkers on the right who believe america was never racist. i would never deny that. i'm not placing the blame on african-americans today. whatever he thinks i am doing, flipping the switch by placing the blame on victims. i will say this. reparations -- the arguments for reparations are based on a collectivist premise. that is ancestral blame is to be placed on a group of people had nothing to do with slavery. the majority of whites living today, their ancestors came after the civil war. there is no one today who is

living who is a slave. i will say this. there are no laws that single out blacks as candidates for punishment based solely on their race. there are disparities, there will always be disparities among different groups of people for different reasons. i do not believe in this mono causal attribution of pointing to every disparity among races to racism. sometimes it is racism. i have said the 1964 civil rights act makes racism illegal. if you can show you're the victim of racism that your case belongs in a court of law. if you can show that damage has been done to you and the terms of property confiscation, even something like redlining, then you are properly dude

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