From the Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture at USC:
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Please join us for “Black + Japanese American Reparations,” a special virtual events series and book club.
Many Black reparations advocates have pointed directly to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 granting reparations to Japanese Americans interned during World War II as a precedent that can inform the case for restorative justice for African Americans. Indeed, as Ta-Nehisi Coates has argued, reparations is more than a recompense of past injustices, but a national reckoning “that would lead to spiritual renewal.”
The USC Ito Center series and book club is thus predicated on a serious examination of the deeper meaning of “reparations.” The reparations-themed book club, which meets every third Tuesday from January to July at 4 p.m. PST, kicks off with an “Introduction to Black + Japanese American Reparations Book Club” on Jan. 19. RSVP: https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_01DvvCMtmAv6dmJ
We look forward to connecting with anyone concerned with racial justice and repairing America’s racial karma. Please see dates below and RSVP for each meeting for the Zoom link. Zoom meeting information will be sent closer to the event.
Other events in the series include “From Japanese American Redress to Black Reparations: A Conversation with John Tateishi and William Darity/A. Kirsten Mullen” and “Reparations Past and Present: A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates.” See the full series flyer here.
Partnering organizations: Densho, Japanese American National Museum, and Tsuru for Solidarity
Feb. 16: Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” (Random House, 2020).
March 16: Eric Yamamoto, “Racial Reparations: Japanese American Redress and African American Reparation” (BC Third World Law Journal, 1998); Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” (The Atlantic, 2014); David Frum, “The Impossibility of Reparations” (The Atlantic, 2014); Patrisse Cullors – “Abolition and Reparations: Histories of Resistance, Transformative Justice, and Accountability” (Harvard Law Review, April 2019)
April 20: Resmaa Menakem, “My Grandmother’s Hands” (Central Recovery Press, 2017)
May 18: William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen, “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century” (University of North Carolina Press, 2020)
June 15: Katherine Franke, “Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition” (Haymarket Books, 2017)
July 20: John Tateishi, “Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations” (Heyday, 2020)
To RSVP for each event and for links to some of the articles, click here.