GLC@Lunch: Makini Chisolm-Straker, “Structural reparations for U.S. Blacks: Decolonizing for the 7th generation”

Makini Chisolm-Straker is the 2023-2024 Argiro Fellow for the Study of Modern Slavery and Visiting Associate Professor, Gilder Lehrman Center

Financial reparations have been repeatedly proposed for the enslavement of African and African-descendant people in the colonies and what would become the United States. Structural reparations are necessary to resolve the continued “badges of slavery.” Dr. Chisolm-Straker explores the major contributors to structural precarity in the U.S., and which policies may be highest-yield for White citizens to get in right relationship with Black citizens. Further, Dr. Chisolm-Straker explores decolonization’s relationship with structural reparations and as a challenge to the existing U.S. wealth paradigm, to envision a nation of abundance for all people.