Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair

by Duke L. Kwon

Some, for example, view racism personally, as a form of personal prejudice whose remedy is personal repentance. Others view it socially, as a form of relational estrangement that requires racial reconciliation. Still others view it institutionally, in terms of discrete institutional injustice whose redress lies in institutional reform. Each of these accounts holds important truths about the nature of racism and what it means to respond faithfully to it. Even so, we believe that none of these capture the whole truth, that still another view of racism is required. Our conviction is that racism is best understood culturally, as a force that shapes the entire ecosystem of meanings, values, ideas, institutions, and practices of American culture. Seeing racism in this way—as embedded in an entire cultural order—is important not only because it reminds us that each of us, simply by virtue of living in this culture, is implicated in and affected by the reality of American racism but also because it reminds us just how expansive the work of repairing racism ultimately will be.