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“[…] To be sure, reparative justice advocacy must also include an honest self-assessment by Africa and the African diaspora about their role in perpetuating continued underdevelopment.
“[…] That process would entail seriously confronting well-documented issues, such as corruption, nepotism, and political maladministration, that continue to subvert their attempts at achieving sustainable economic development…”
The following Letter to the Editor on balancing reparations with responsibility and reform was submitted to Wired868 by attorney-at-law, Amanda Janell DeAmor Quest:
Reparative justice for the transatlantic slave trade and the centuries of oppression, exploitation, and violence it has enabled is both morally appropriate and historically imperative.
For hundreds of years, millions of African lives were lost, families destroyed, cultures interrupted and nations robbed of their precious resources. Without question, the transatlantic slave trade facilitated one of the most egregious moral catastrophes known to humankind.
Its legacy of oppression is instantiated by the institutionalised racism, persistent intergenerational poverty and economic inequities that continue to disproportionately affect African and African-descended peoples worldwide.
Given this enduring impact, the necessity of reparative justice for the transatlantic slave trade and the systematised carnage it occasioned for over 400 years cannot be overstated.
In his groundbreaking treatise, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, published by Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, the Guyanese scholar-activist Walter Rodney underscored the outsized role of European colonial regimes in effectively underdeveloping Africa while simultaneously developing Europe.
As a consequence, he challenged the conventional wisdom which favoured Eurocentric and historically revisionist narratives regarding the root causes of Africa’s enduring developmental challenges.
While Rodney’s work offers valuable moral and historical grounding for reparative justice, we should be careful to avoid overcentralising it as the sole moral anchor of the reparative justice advocacy movement.
To be sure, reparative justice advocacy must also include an honest self-assessment by Africa and the African diaspora about their role in perpetuating continued underdevelopment.
That process would entail seriously confronting well-documented issues, such as corruption, nepotism, and political maladministration, that continue to subvert their attempts at achieving sustainable economic development.
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash. Free to use.
This difficult but indispensable introspection must then be supported by reform aimed at addressing those longstanding issues effectively.
Such an approach is not only morally upright but practically necessary to ensure that any reparations received are applied transparently, justly, and equitably for the holistic betterment of African and African-descended peoples globally.
Programmes intended to promote educational advancement, social welfare, infrastructural development, and job creation would certainly benefit from the application of reparations.
Still, reparations should not be reduced to a mere financial settlement, as this narrow conception obscures their potential as a site for reimagining what empowerment can look like for Africa and the African diaspora.
Instead, reparations should be understood as an important avenue through which the predatory underdevelopment of Africa by Europe can be incrementally redressed.
Given its symbolic and practical significance, the pursuit of reparations, as a central pillar of reparative justice, must centre responsibility and reform as an ethical imperative.
Only through responsibility and reform can we ensure that reparations advance, rather than undermine, the project of healing, empowering and unifying African and African-descended peoples.
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I like Shashi Tharoor’s idea of reparations, as he made at Oxford some years ago—not because it demands vast sums, but because it reframes reparations as a matter of moral justice, not monetary arithmetic. Tharoor wasn’t calling for Britain to write cheques it can’t cash. He was calling for truth-telling, redress, and responsibility. At the core is a demand for a formal apology—not vague regret, but clear, accountable acknowledgment of the violence, theft, and devastation inflicted by empire. He also argued for symbolic reparations: returning stolen artefacts, offering scholarships to the formerly colonised, and overhauling global institutions like the IMF and World Bank, which still reflect colonial-era power imbalances. Most powerfully, he called for a historical reckoning: to stop sanitising empire in British classrooms and face its brutal legacy. As he quipped, “a pound a year for 200 years” would suffice—because the real debt is owed in truth, not cash.
Amanda thank you for the clarification, but I still feel there’s an important risk in how the message may be received — and why that matters. You say your letter doesn’t demand “internal perfection” before reparations, and I accept that. But when internal reform is so strongly emphasized alongside calls for justice, it can unintentionally reinforce the idea — often used by opponents — that African and diaspora communities must first “fix themselves” before being deemed worthy of redress.
That’s a dangerous slope because it offers yet another reason for delay, even if that’s not your intent. Perhaps this is why, as you say, the point is “not spoken of enough” — not because people don’t want honest introspection, but because history shows how quickly valid critique can be weaponized to justify inaction.
There’s room in this movement for both self-accountability and external demands, but we must be cautious that our framing doesn’t give more cover to those already inclined to deny justice. Reparations are owed not because we are perfect, but because a profound wrong was committed — and that fact alone should be enough to start.
This letter raises many truths that resonate deeply with me, especially the call for reparations as both a moral obligation and a practical necessity. But after centuries of injustice and decades of asking, what frustrates me most is how easily the conversation gets stalled — not because the case is weak, but because we keep hearing why the time still “isn’t right.”
We’re now being told reparations must be perfect. But what justice process ever is? Japanese-Americans, Holocaust survivors, and some Indigenous communities have received reparations or state-sponsored compensation. Those efforts weren’t flawless, but they were started. And many of those communities are better off today because they had something to build on — something we’re still being denied.
I also agree with the letter’s point that reparative justice must involve an honest self-assessment. Corruption, nepotism, and political dysfunction have undermined progress across parts of Africa and the diaspora. We can’t deny that. But let’s be clear: these issues don’t erase the case for reparations — they strengthen it. Many of these governance challenges are themselves legacies of colonial disruption and underdevelopment.
So yes, we must hold ourselves accountable. We must reform institutions and ensure that any reparations received benefit the people, not just the political elite. But demanding internal perfection as a condition for external justice is unfair — and dangerously convenient for those who already don’t want to pay.
We’re not asking for charity. We’re not even asking for perfection. We’re asking for progress. Some justice is better than none. Some resources, properly managed, can fund education, healthcare, housing, and opportunity.
So must we wait another 400 years while we try to fix everything at once — or can we finally begin?
Reparations must be modern, strategic, and honest. But most of all, they must start. We can build better systems and institutions while also demanding what is owed. One does not cancel out the other.
We’re not waiting because we’re not ready. We’re still waiting because too many are still comfortable saying no.
My letter in no way demands “internal perfection” as some condition or prerequisite for reparations. In fact, it never says or otherwise suggests that Africa and the African diaspora ought not to receive reparations until things are perfect as I will readily concede that they will never truly be. On the contrary, my letter merely highlights, among other things, the necessity of honest self-assessment and internal reform as a central pillar of reparative justice advocacy efforts. That dimension of reparative justice advocacy is not spoken of enough, mainly because it is unpopular and prone to being misunderstood and misconceived by many. Reading to understand is and will always be fundamental.
Thanks for your contribution, Amanda. It shouldn’t be your last.