The Reckoning: Tracing Ancestral Debt and Embracing Reparative Action
摘要
This chapter turns to the paths white people travel as they begin to examine the wages and structural sins of whiteness—not only in their own ancestral history but in their present lives. From speaking with many people on this journey and being involved in multiple groups pursuing this work, the author describes some of the typical challenges and tasks for white people that arise on the path to racial reparations and a fuller abolition. The tasks of the recovery of historical memory, conscientization, deideologization, and prophetic imagination that liberation psychology engages with those suffering oppression are also essential for white people to engage as they dispel ignorance and turn toward repair. This return opens possibilities for mutual accompaniment and solidarity for the sake of justice and peace. Like those who risked their lives to become fugitives from slavery—creating maroon communities, and accompanying others to freedom—white people have their own challenges to becoming fugitives to the systems that have harmed so many racialized others, meanwhile deforming ourselves in the process.