First, I think this would be a great SAC deliberation. Last month's Atlantic Monthly had an article titled, "The Case for Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I went to the lecture by Sandra Perl on her latest book about teaching children of Nazis. She told us a story about going to meet a colleague's parents who were perpetrators and Nazis. The mother seemed open to dialogue with possibly the first Jew she's dialogued with but the father seemed less inclined. As I read the article in The Atlantic Monthly I came across some interesting facts (I'd give a link to the article but I subscribe and can't share):
"In 1952, when West Germany began the process of making amends for the Holocaust, it did so under conditions that should be instructive to us. Resistance was violent. Very few Germans believed that Jews were entitled to anything. Only 5 percent of West Germans surveyed reported feeling guilty about the Holocaust, and only 29 percent believed that Jews were owed restitution from the German people."
These facts shocked me.
On another note, today in the seminar we discussed at length about the fickle nature of taking on one model of instruction over another. And I wanted to say that in the end, it is students of color who suffer the most in the system based on dropout rates, quality of schools and instruction, etc.
Thanks for sharing this reference and your reaction. I wonder what levels of support for reparations there would be in Germany today?
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