with. and those are the things that i like the best. the wonderful landscapes we have in this country, especially out here in the west, but also the wonderful people we have all over the country in every corner. i visit every state in the union, and i always find wonderful people to visit with. >> what a great question, what it means to be an american. i'm assuming there's been a lot of answers to that, but for me, it's pride. it's pride and it's also opportunity. i'm very new to the area where i'm at right now and moved from another area from another state. i have now more opportunity to do what i want to do, and i would only have these opportunities in america. so i'm very proud to be an american citizen. i have traveled the world, and i consider myself a proud american. >> voices from the road on c-span. joining us from duke

university is sandy derity, a public policy professor. we're here to talk about reparations and the role they're having in the 2020 elections. professor, thanks for giving us your time. >> thank you for having me. >> everybody, i suppose, has a certain kind of definition of reparations. could you give us yours? >> reparations is a program of compensation to individuals or communities that have been subjected to grievous injustices. from my perspective, reparations has three objectives. the first is acknowledgment of the injustices on the part of the perpetrators. second is redress, which is restitution for the effects of the injustices. and third is closure, which is a mutual recognition on the part of the victimized community as well as the perpetrators that

the debt has been paid. >> when it comes then to the specifics, how do you calculate something like that? >> well, it depends on the particular set of injustices one is concerned about. in the context of the united states, the experience of black americans as potential recipients of a reparations program, i would say that what you'd have to do is calculate the full economic effects of the long-term consequences of slavery, of the jim crow period, of legal segregation in the united states, which lasted for klo close to a century, as well as ongoing effects of racism that are manifest in the forms of mass incarceration, police killings of unarmed blacks, as well as and perhaps most significantly the racial wealth gap that is so large and so persistent in the united states. >> if we're talking, looking at the united states history,

particularly when it comes to reparations, under that model who would qualify or at least what would have to be done to qualify? so i would identify black descendents of folks who had been enslaved in the united states as the appropriate recipients of reparations. and in work that i've done in a number of venues, i've argued that there should be two criteria for eligibility for reparations. the first is an individual needs to demonstrate that he or she has an ancestor who was enslaved in the united states. secondly, that individual needs to establish that he or she up to ten years prior to the onset or at least ten years prior to the onset of the reparations program self-identified as black

or african-american or some equivalent category. >> professor, this conversation or at least this topic has gone on for many a year with various people in administrations, including different presidents of the united states. why do you think it's never gained traction? >> i think there's been a tremendous resistance to it gaining traction in large measure because of the way in which we have crafted our understanding of american history. i think a disproportionate amount of american history has been devoted to mythologizing the case for the confederacy, leading to hero worship of individuals who actually were traders to the united states of america. in that process, i think there's been a denigration of black americans, which has led people to think that there's no just case for compensation when quite

the contrary there is an enormous just case for compensation, and we have to rewrite our narrative of american history, particularly with respect to the nature of the confederacy and a cause that was established for the purposes of maintaining slavery in the united states. >> if you want to join in the conversation, 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. professor, one of the reasons we brought you on is because this topic suddenly re-emerges d or least emerged in the 2020 presidential campaign. i want to play some comments from elizabeth warren. >> america was founded on principles of liberty and freedom and on the backs of slave labor. this is a stain on america.

and we're not going to fix that, we're not going to change that until we address it head on directly. [ applause ] and make no mistake, it's not just the original founding. it's what's happened generation after generation, the impact of discrimination handed down from one to the next means that today in america, because of housing discrimination, because of employment discrimination, we live in a world where for the average white family has a hundred dollars, the average black family has about $5. so i believe it's time to start the national, full-blown conversation about reparations in this country. [ applause ] and that means i support the

bill in the house to appoint a congressional panel of experts, people who are studying this, who talk about different ways we may be able to do it, and to make a report back to congress so that we can as a nation do what's right and begin to heal. >> professor, what did you think about these comments just being made in the first place? >> so i think that there are two i d dimensions of her statement, which i view as courageous. the first dimension of her statement that i'd like to highlight is her emphasis on the magnitude of the wealth gap where she indicated that with respect to net worth, the typical white family in the united states has $100 relative to $5 that is held by the typical black family. so that's critical. that's a major indicator of the long-term and cumulative consequences of this historical path of racial injustice.

and then the second thing i'd like to emphasize is her focus on house resolution 40 and the necessity of passing a bill that would create a commission that would have the responsibility for outlining the long-term history of racial injustice in the united states and designing a program of reparations. i would add that as a prelude to the reparations program that was inaugurated for japanese victims of mass incarceration in the united states during the course of world war ii, japanese-americans, there was a commission that was formed. i believe it was called the commission on wartime relocation and japanese internment. that commission had the responsibility for sketching the case for reparations for japanese-americans as well as designing an initial program of

restitution. so i think in parallel fashion, we need a similar type of commission to address the question of reparations for black americans. >> first call for you, professor, comes from david. he's in los angeles on our incompetent line. you're on with sandy derity of duke university. david, go ahead. >> caller: well, good morning, brother. i must admit that this is a topic and a subject that is way, way long overdue that we deal with in a serious manner by which you're dealing with it this morning. now, with the senator approaching the topic the way she did, i agree with you, was much a noble thing to do. now, watch this, my brother, as this program progresses. people will call in and say, my parents -- i just got here, you know. i'm second generation, and my

people came from wherever. we didn't have nothing to do with slavery, right? and you also get the garden variety racists who will always give the confederate line about, you know, that slavery was actually a noble enterprise. so brother, i think you got your finger on the pulse of the direction by which we must go. i'm just saying be aware of how it is these oppositions will try to muddy the water. >> that's david from los angeles. professor, go ahead. >> well, let me comment. i've already commented on the necessity of changing the way in which we view the american historical record.

but the observation -- the other important observation the caller made is frequently critics of reparations say that they are such recent immigrants to the united states that they don't bear any personal responsibility for slavery, for example. they may even have arrived so recently that they've come after the jim crow period ended. i have a couple of responses to that type of perspective. the first is if an individual migrates to a country, they migrate to its history and to its national obligations. and the national obligation is what's in question here. it's not a matter of personal responsibility or individual responsibility. it's a national obligation that's based on the historical experiences that the united

states of america has undergone. i would also add that i presume people who have chosen to migrate to the united states have chosen to do so based on the opportunity structure that exists now, which is also a product of the level of affluence that the united states as a country, as a whole has achieved. and that level of affluence was built on the backs of black american coerced labor that went on for upwards of three to four generations in the united states after the formation of the republic. >> from maggie in new york, republican line, go ahead, please. >> caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. my problem with this is that, okay, slavery was a horrible thing, and the entire country, i'm sure, regrets it.

but what about the soldiers who died to free the slaves? do their families get reparations? >> professor? >> i don't know the answer to that. i invite the caller to craft a case if she would so desire on behalf of the individuals who fought to end slavery. i have been working on a case that is specific to the historical experience of black americans. i would also add that there was a significant degree of participation in the union army after the emancipation proclamation took place of black soldiers, and a case can be made that the union would not have won the war without the participation of black frotroop and the support from the black community that was based on the

various outpost that the union army had throughout the united states. so i would argue that black americans themselves contributed directly to their own liberation from slavery. so as a consequence, we need to factor that into the reparations bill as well. but i invite the caller to do the research and to do the estimates of what the damages might have been to nonblack participants in the union army as a consequence of the civil war. that's a separate case. it's not the case i'm working on. >> professor, someone else makes the case on twitter saying, don't forget about the german-americans that were incarcerated on east coast, maybe the irish-americans that were indentured servants after the potato famine. >> and again, i invite these

callers to design and develop their own case. i will say that one of the anchoring factors that distinguishes the black american experience from the experience of most of the others is that to some degree or to some extent, the other communities constitute descendents of people who voluntarily migrated to the united states. there is no question that the initial american sin of slavery was associated with forced migration to this part of the world. and i think that that's the foundation for distinguishing between the black american experience and the experiences of other communities in the united states. >> let's hear from jerry in ohio. go ahead. jerry in ohio, go ahead, please. >> caller: hello? >> you're on. go ahead, please. >> caller: oh, no. i didn't go through the

screener. this is joe from michigan. >> you're on. good. >> caller: okay. i come from a unique situation, from a very unique family. i had a grandfather, not great, but a grandfather who fought and was wounded in the civil war. i'm 83 years old. i tell my brother, you and i are probably the only people who can directly connect to the civil war with an ancestor. i'm from ohio. he fought in the fifth ohio company. anyway, good luck in your quest for reparations. personally, i don't think it will ever happen. i'm even more unique in another way. i thought i was black for 75 years. we did dna and i'm actually scotch-irish, yet i suffered all the indignities of having to ride in the back of a bus. i suffered everything. i didn't know. i wish i had known then. hell, i'd have carried my papers with me. this is in the '50s i'm talking about. maybe i'm rambling a little bit.

>> got you, caller. got your point. professor, if you want to respond. >> yeah, so i do want to re-emphasize that the criteria for eligibility that i mentioned earlier have nothing to do with dna tests or skin shade or appearance. so if this individual has an ancestor who was enslaved in the united states and this individual has self-identified as black at some point in time, then they're perfectly eligible for reparations. if they suffered indignities that were associated with the way in which others perceive them racially, then that would be entirely consistent with the claim for reparations. i think it's very interesting that this particular caller has a grandfather who fought in the civil war.

i think that is actually not an entirely unique case. there is at least one individual that we know, my wife and i have worked on a book on reparations, which is forthcoming called "from here to equality." in the book, we talk about the case of a doctor who was the first black faculty member at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. her father was a slave, and she is still living. she is in her 90s. but her father was born into slavery. to the notion that it happened so very long ago really is not altogether accurate from a generational perspective. we're really talking about the fifth generation of black americans from slavery on average, but there are clearly exceptions. mrs. mcclinton is the first generation out of slavery. >> so professor, for this idea of reparations program, where

would the funding come from? >> so any program of reparations that's established at the national legislative level, whether it's germany providing reparations for the victims of the nazi holocaust or it's the united states providing reparations for japanese-americans, the payments or the responsibility for p payments would come from the u.s. government itself. it's a bill that goes to the united states treasury. there are ways in which this could be done that would minimize or eliminate any additional tax burden on the national population, but that's in the final chapter of our book. i dare not divulge that in advance without risking the wrath of my co-author. >> from bob in massachusetts, go

ahead. >> caller: good morning, mr. darity. i got something i'd really like to run by you. i understand that c-span is doing a show about the presidents. they're going to rate them from best to worst, i guess. i believe that lincoln was the worst president. the only reason i say that is because in our constitution, there's a line that says all men are created equal. for some reason, the black people didn't make that state, right? and when lincoln had the war to free the slaves, did he say, okay, all of you people can now vote, all of you people can now own land, all of you people have the exact same rights as white people? that's what should have happened. >> okay. caller, thanks. >> actually, i absolutely agree that that's what should have happened. my understanding is that approximately two days before he was assassinated, lincoln gave a

speech where he said that he was going to make sure that black americans had the vote. well, at the time it would have been black male americans because only men were eligible to vote at the point of the end of the civil war. but he gave a speech saying that he was going to be fully committed to giving black folks the vote, and john wilks booth was in the audience. my understanding is it was at that point that booth made it definite to himself and to his compatriots that he was going to kill the president. the second thing is land was mentioned. it was definitely in progress -- there definitely was a procedure under way to provide the formerly enslaved black americans with land.

this is the vaunted 40 acres and a mule promise, which was never delivered ultimately. and the process of trying to provide the formerly enslaved folks can land began under lincoln's presidency with a special order that was issued by general sherman in savannah, georgia, where he was going to actually allot plots of land to the formerly owned slave. that allotment actually got under way, but it was reversed by president andrew johnson, lincoln's successor. and i would argue that it's andrew johnson who was the worst president in the history of the united states. >> one more call for our guest. this is from north carolina. we'll hear from jeff on our republican line. >> caller: hello. >> you're on. go ahead, please. >> caller: yes, sir. i think reparations is another

division attempt. at some point we have to -- you know, every single person, no matter what color they are, can go back and blame somebody for something. it's time to stop teaching incessantly in our public school systems about slavery. it's over a hundred and, what, years old. you cannot keep charging people that had nothing to do with slavery for the guilt of being slave owners. it's time for us -- many white people have suffered injustice. we just have to move on. >> thanks, caller. >> so i think i emphasized at the outset that i think that the

case for reparations is not predicated exclusively on slavery, that it's critical that we take into account in our calibrations the long-term effects of the jim crow period, and i also indicated that there are ongoing damages that need to be considered, and i would highlight among these, again, mass incarceration, police killings of unarmed blacks, and the immense magnitude of the racial wealth gap. so it's not just a question of addressing the harms of slavery. i think that as i've said a number of times, if people believe there are other communities or groups that are deserving of some form of compensation, they need to make that case. but this is a case that's specific to the experience of native black americans. and this experience is one in which i'm trying to take into

account the long and cumulative trajectory of injustices that have been imposed upon this community, starting with slavery but continuing through nearly a century of jim crow as well as ongoing forms of racism that are still persistent to this day. it is not a question of personal responsibility on the part of any individual. what distinguishes this case is the fact that slavery and jim crow were embedded explicitly into the legal structure in the united states and were enacted or acted upon on that basis. if there are other types of injustices that have occurred, we frequently have certain types of legal remedies for those. but there was no legal remedy for being enslaved. there was no legal remedy for being subjected to segregation or apartheid in the united

states because those were things that were written directly into the nation's laws. >> sandy darity of duke university serves as a public policy professor. thanks for your time, sir. >> thank you for having me. we have more live programming coming up shortly. we'll bring you a discussion on private property rights, public land, and imminent domain. a group new america is the host of this event. live coverage starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3, also online at c-span.org, and you can listen with the free c-span radio app. secretary of state mike pompeo, senate minority leader chuck schumer, and house minority leader kevin mccarthy are among the speakers at the american israel public affairs committee annual conference here in washington. you can see our live coverage today starting at 4:30 eastern here on c-span3. also, be with us tomorrow when general joseph dunford and

patrick shanahan will testify about next year's budget for the pentagon. they will be answering questions before the house armed services committee. live coverage tomorrow starts at 10:00 a.m. eastern, also here on c-span3. tonight on the communicators, from capitol hill, democratic senator edward markey of massachusetts and republican congressman greg walden of oregon join us to talk about net neutrality, privacy, mergers, and big tech companies. >> if you want us to pre-empt california, how strong is the privacy law for all 50 states that you're willing to put on the books? that's the debate which we're going to have in the congress this year. from my opinion, if it's not the strongest possible privacy protection, then there's no point in pre-empting the states that want to give strong privacy protection to their citizens. >> if you think about the internet, it is like the super highway we drive down. but what really happens is

eventually you need to take an off-ramp to get into the neighborhood where you want to go. the off-ramps are your search engines, your social media. you think about facebook, google, and some of the other providers really have enormous control over what we see, when we access it, how we access it, and so i think this is ripe for the public square for a debate. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. once tv was simply three giant networks and a government supported service called pbs. then in 1979 a small network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea. let viewers decide all on their own what was important to them. c-span opened the doors to washington policymaking for all to see, bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. in the age of power to the