As other Black Americans are intimately aware of, the Black experience is one riddled with broken promises, false hopes and dreams, violence, trauma, and systems and institutions that seek to benefit from the exploitation of our individual and collective anguish.

Black communities across this country are suffering exponentially more because of COVID-19, a stalled economy, and a defective criminal justice system. Except, we’re not only risking health, eviction, homelessness and joblessness; Black families are risking body and life to keep the exhaust of our nation’s engine away from our collective consciousness. Black Americans across this country are forced to send their children to failing school systems, are relegated to minimum wage jobs, and are forced to live in decaying neighborhoods to support the American dream of others.

Therefore, the debt owed to my Black brothers and sisters not only stems from historical transgressions against our freedom, but accumulates to this day because of the underclass conditions we are forced to live in and told to be grateful for.

We don’t need to look too far back to find examples of discriminative governmental polices. There are plenty of inequitable systems today that desperately need our attention and energy.

With two years left in our terms, I believe the right initiative to undertake would be a Crisis Mitigation Plan for Black Communities in light of COVID-19 and every other modern-day inequality my community has to endure and disproportionately suffer from.

While I agree that we as a society are overdue for tough conversations about our past, that conversation doesn’t necessarily have to be tied to restitution.

The word “reparations” is a special word, and like a well, elected officials should refrain from using it so much or risk diminishing its worth. For when I think of reparations, I think of a restitution that is intrinsically connected, dollar for dollar, to the value of the uncompensated services provided by generations of Black slaves. I think of the compensation owed to us for our physical, mental, and emotional trauma that we experienced when our families were torn apart at auction blocks and cotton fields: trauma that haunts our community to this day.

Therefore, when I think of what is due to the Black community when we utter the word “reparations” I’m thinking of a remedy so thoughtful, holistic, and valuable as to be able to make a dent in the debt owed to my community. Whatever the reparation is better be capable of generationally shifting the plight of an entire community.

While down payment assistance programs, and tax abatement programs for our Black communities are initiatives worthy of exploration, they do not meet the criteria that is collectively conjured when we think of what is owed to these families.

I look forward to conversations about these very important matters and applaud the Mayor for providing a forum for doing so.

Yet, 2020 is definitely not the year to overpromise and underdeliver. My people have been through enough.

Mary Kay Harris, Deputy Majority Leader
Providence City Council
Councilwoman – Ward 11