Determining our level of complicity with evolving structures of white supremacy is a critical step in designing our path of repair. 

If our families arrived in the 1600s, we may have very specific areas of harm, such as enslavement and plantations, to account for in our plans of repair.  If we arrived later and gradually helped to solidify existing systems of white supremacy, our level of complicity will be different.  Or we may have a mixed heritage that includes ancestors that arrived in waves at various times.  

Research your heritage as far back as you can, to determine the necessary scale of repair that is due.

1620 - 1849
Colonizer class
Perpetrator
Architect of structures of white supremacy
Slaveholders, capitalists, industrialists

1850 to 1949
Assimilator class
Participant - Bystander
Solidifies and benefits from structures of white supremacy
Farmers, tradesmen, capitalists, industrialists

1950s to present
Recent Immigrant class
Beneficiary
Benefits from modern structures of white supremacy
Any

Study the state-by-state history of slavery and institutional racism in parallel with researching your ancestry; make note of harm your ancestors may have participated in, actively or passively.

Write and rewrite your family prosperity narrative

What is the narrative you grew up hearing about your family?

What messages did you receive about hard work, meritocracy and the bootstrap argument?

What messages did you hear about people of other races?

Write down your family's "origin story" - who were the first ancestor to arrive and what were their lives like?

Now, consider what their lives would have been like had they been Black.

Example:

"My widowed Norwegian great-great-grandmother arrived here in 1850 with just a washtub;

her 4 children were tied together with clothesline, so they wouldn't get separated as they exited the ship. 

She found work as a washer women and supported the children until she met my great-great-grandfather. 

They started with nothing and worked hard to achieve the American dream!"

Revised:

"My widowed Norwegian great-great-grandmother arrived here with just a washtub;

her 4 children were tied together with clothesline, so they wouldn't get separated as they exited the ship.

If she had been Black, she would not have been allowed on the steamer ship. 

If she had been Black, she would not have found work as a washer women or supported the children until she met my great-great-grandfather. 

If she had been Black, she would likely have been captured and enslaved, her children sold.

She started with nothing and was able to work hard to achieve the American dream because she was white"

What is the primary way you express your skills, talents and aspirations? In which area are you strongest?  Your fundamental nature informs your natural first steps toward repair.

In which area are you weakest? Choose reparations learning opportunities such as workshops and cohorts in these areas to balance your approach to repair.

Heart

Community building
Trauma healing
The creative arts

Mind

Study and research
Teaching and mentoring
Writing
Organizing
Lobbying

Body

Embodied service, physical labor
Building
Protesting

Spirit

Contemplative healing
Faith community leadership and outreach

Your agency, time and resources may all be applied toward repair.  Not everyone has time or resources to offer, but all people can work to change their impact to our communities.

Agency

Changing your family justice footprint
How you behave in your neighborhood
How you vote
How you make decisions in community

Time

Volunteering
Mentoring
Lobbying
Fundraising

Resources

Investing in people, communities and projects
Disengaging from white supremacist institutions

The longer our families have lived in this country, the longer is our list of harms perpetrated against African Americans. 

This harm is embedded in America's racial wealth gap. 

To begin to make amends, we must inventory the individual and collective harms our families have committed and seek specific remedies of repair.

Taking An Inventory of Vocational Harm

How have you earned your living?
How did your parents earn their livings?
How did your grandparents earn their livings?
Go as far back as you can to determine family patterns of endeavor

Next, assemble a list of the 4 or 5 main career trends you have found
What are the historic harms associated with each trade?
Are there any specific harms your family perpetrated?
What geographic areas were impacted? How?

These are the areas you must repair.

Study  Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap  and Modern Vectors of Economic Racism

to add specificity to your understanding of economic harm.

The longer our families have lived in this country, the longer is our list of harms perpetrated against African Americans. 

This harm is embedded in America's racial wealth gap. 

To begin to make amends, we must inventory the individual and collective harms our families have committed and seek specific remedies of repair.

Taking An Inventory of Philanthropic Harm

How have you engaged in philanthropy?
How have your parents engaged in philanthropy?
How have your grandparents engaged in philanthropy?
Go as far back as you can to determine family patterns of giving

Next, assemble a list of the 4 or 5 main giving trends you have found
What are the historic harms associated with each philanthropic mission?
Are there any specific harms your family perpetrated through philanthropy?
What geographic areas were impacted? How?

These are the areas you must repair.

Write Your Family Origin Story

Edit your story to reflect your understanding of erased history and your family's role in the establishment of white supremacy culture and institutions

Outline your family's impact over time 

Describe the areas and types of harm committed

Clarify which resources you will apply toward repair; commit to a clear goal and set a timeframe.

Craft an apology to injured parties

Work within an African American Reparations Tribunal setting to develop the specific terms of personal partial atonement.

Our first steps toward repair will always be performative, because performance is a hallmark of white supremacy. 

Go to church, check the box. 

Make a donation, check the box.

This is not a judgement; these are our fist steps along the path of repair.

As we begin to shift power and resources to those we've harmed, our work moves from being performative to being transformative.

Performative

You control decisions regarding your impact, time and resources
You decide which projects to donate labor and resources to

Living in a white bubble:
Most of your day to day contact is with white people

Test:

If you married today, who would attend your wedding?

Of your ten best friends and colleagues, how many are African American?

If you died today, who would attend your funeral?

Transformative

You are guided by the African American community
In best uses for your available resources for repair; you are also participating in African American-led mutual aid networks

You are beginning to change the places you frequent and shop, the groups and social circles you move in

to increase exposure to those outside your white community

Living in Community:
Much of your day to day contact is with with people who are not white

Test:

If you married today, who would attend your wedding?

Of your ten best friends and colleagues, how many are African American?

If you died today, who would attend your funeral?

Family narrative

This is the narrative I grew up with:

"No matter what happens, always remember that you are descended from the finest New England blue blood" 

Level of historic complicity

Most ancestors arrived in the 1600s; the majority of my family is of the colonizer class with a few ancestors arriving in the 1850s.

I do have a line of Quaker abolitionists in my family tree as well.

Primary mode for engaging in repair?

My primary mode for engaging in repair is mind - I am good at organizing, writing and teaching.

Primary mode for reparative learning?

My primary modes for reparative learning are heart and body - I hope to develop reparative empathy

Resources to apply toward repair

Impact - I commit to changing my impact in my community

Time - I will allocate 10 hours weekly toward reparative work to heal myself and support our communities

Resources - I have $200,000 to allocate to reverse the harm my family has perpetrated against African Americans over 400 years.

Family and ancestral vocations and entitlements, with locations

Land grants (Virginia, Mississippi, Colorado, Maryland)

Farming - planters and farmers (Virginia, Mississippi, Colorado, Maryland)

Government - governors, mayors, burgesses, senators (Virginia, Mississippi, Colorado, Maryland)

Medicine - physicians, psychologists (Alabama, California)

Law - attorneys (Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana)

Art - Filmmaking (California)

Finance (California, Colorado)

Harm associated with ancestral vocations and entitlements

Land grants - land theft from Native Americans

Farming - the enslavement of African Americans, sharecropping contracts

Government - laws passed to enact and uphold slavery and white supremacy

Medicine - medical experimentation, medical bias, unequal care, lack of access to care

Law - laws passed to enact and uphold slavery and white supremacy

Art - Intellectual property theft, unequal pay, lack of access

Finance - lack of access to capital, predatory lending

Family and ancestral philanthropic giving

The arts - opera, theatre, music, museums

Education - scholarships

Environment - conservation, the outdoors

Medicine - research, care 

Harm associated with ancestral philanthropic giving

Art - Intellectual property theft, unequal pay, lack of access

Education - lack of access, lack of resources

Environment - environmental racism, lack of access to outdoor programs 

Medicine - medical experimentation, medical bias, unequal care, lack of access to care

Assessment of Trajectory

We are starting at the performative stage; we do not have contact with African Americans in our everyday lives

Family statement of apology to harmed peoples

Selection of African American Reparations Council for Allocation of Reparational Resources

National Reparations Giving Council

Plan Co-Developed with Council:

Impact:

• I will research my family's history and look for ways to reverse harm wherever I find it.
• I will repatriate family slavery-era documents to Black-led ancestry groups
• I will study the history of slavery and institutional racism as well as modern vectors of economic racism in each area my family lived to better understand historic harms
• I will engage in anti-racism work in my spheres of influence 
• I will begin the process of disengaging from corporations, programs, and institutions that have perpetrated historic harm to African Americans
• I will meet my African American neighbors and work toward equitable solutions to community challenges
• I will consult African American organizations before I consider how I will vote
• I will consult African American organizations before I take action at my children's school

Time:

• I will apply my best mind-skills toward repair
• I will engage in reparative learning to strengthen my body and heart-skills
• Because I worked in finance, I will mentor African American students in financial literacy and strategic planning
• Because I worked in education, I will tutor African American students in reading
• Because I have organizational skills, I will volunteer with a local racial justice non-profit to organize meetings
• I will serve on my church's racial justice and repair committee

Resources:

• Because my family received land grants, I will contribute funds to the harmed tribes' reparative rent funds
• Because my family enslaved African Americans and later cheated them in sharecropping contracts, I will contribute funds to a Black Land Trust in Mississippi
• Because my ancestor's plantation is still standing, I will fund restoration of the burial site of the enslaved 
• Because my ancestor was involved in a Reconstruction-era insurrection in Louisiana, I will contribute to an Equal Justice Initiative monument to memorialize it.
• Because my family funded education for white students, I will establish scholarships for African Americans in law, political science and medicine, the areas my ancestors worked in.
• Because my family funded the arts, I will fund programs in music, film and theatre for African Americans, who have historically been cheated in these areas.
• Because my family snubbed the poor, I will contribute to feeding and clothing poor African Americans
• Because my family created environmental damage through mining but later supported white-led nature organizations, I will contribute to Black-led environmental advocacy organizations