Joe Singer on Reparations
Harvard Law School professor Joseph Singer was
a panelist at a Facing History and Ourselves 1997 conference entitled,
"Collective Violence and Memory: Judgement, Reconciliation, Education."
In this video clip from the conference, Singer discusses the topic of
Reparations.
Transcript:
"The topic of reparations...has three different
possible meanings. One meaning for reparations is money, damages,
compensation. We've seen this occur in the world in terms of
reparations by Germany to Israel and to survivors of the Holocaust,
[and] recent Japanese-American reparations in this country.
"Another example is takings not only for personal injuries but for real property. That also was part of the Holocaust reparations and also for American Indian land claims. It is not widely known in this country that in 1946 the United States Congress established an Indian Claims Commission which heard claims from tribes in the United States for wrongful takings of land. Many, many tribes brought claims before the Commission, and millions and millions and millions of dollars of damages were paid for wrongful takings of land. People seem not to be aware of this. There were a lot of land claims that were not allowed to go forward in that Commission that probably should have been allowed to go forward, but nonetheless this was something that was quite extraordinary and important in this country. There's a reparations bill in South Africa, as you heard.
"Another meaning for reparations is not reparations for compensation or money for personal injury or takings of property, but actual restitution....So the first two meanings are compensation in terms of money, the second is restitution in terms of land or stolen objects. The third one is reparation, singular, in the broad sense of repair. It may be that reparations in the form of either money or property is either inadequate, or insulting, or insufficient to actually remedy the problem and reparation may require something else like recognizing tribal sovereignty in the United States or other things."
"Another example is takings not only for personal injuries but for real property. That also was part of the Holocaust reparations and also for American Indian land claims. It is not widely known in this country that in 1946 the United States Congress established an Indian Claims Commission which heard claims from tribes in the United States for wrongful takings of land. Many, many tribes brought claims before the Commission, and millions and millions and millions of dollars of damages were paid for wrongful takings of land. People seem not to be aware of this. There were a lot of land claims that were not allowed to go forward in that Commission that probably should have been allowed to go forward, but nonetheless this was something that was quite extraordinary and important in this country. There's a reparations bill in South Africa, as you heard.
"Another meaning for reparations is not reparations for compensation or money for personal injury or takings of property, but actual restitution....So the first two meanings are compensation in terms of money, the second is restitution in terms of land or stolen objects. The third one is reparation, singular, in the broad sense of repair. It may be that reparations in the form of either money or property is either inadequate, or insulting, or insufficient to actually remedy the problem and reparation may require something else like recognizing tribal sovereignty in the United States or other things."
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Video length:
02 min 03 sec
Date filmed:
Apr 10 1997 
