HR 40, also known as the Commision to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, is a bill that has been thrown about the Senate floors for years. It was initially proposed by John Conyers JR and he has been fighting for over 25 years for these reparations to happen. Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about the ideas that Coyner had for this reparation bill and just how it wasn’t going to work. There has been much discussion about the bill and what it stands for. Coyner, and Coates, want the black people of America to get something in return for the horrible treatment they have faced since the start of America. Yet, there is something more that Coates thinks is the issue with reparations. He says, “suggests that our concerns are rooted not in the impracticality of reparations but in something more existential.” (page 21). This idea that Coates has is that reparations will not be achievable unless we do something to change the American government. This country was founded directly upon racisms and racists ideas, people we were owning people of colour when our country started and these ideas that anyone who is not white if inferreiour is still something that we are struggling with today. We still live with the racist ideas of government, and if that doesn’t change then we will never be able to repay the black people for the trauma and hurt they have been put through for generations.
Carol Dweck talks about this idea of a growth mindset, and what you can do if you teach students a way to create a deeper understanding of knowledge they will become better versions of themselves. When she finally gave children, who usually didn’t get the opportunity to think at a deeper level, the tools to understand knowledge and thinking you can see the difference in their attitude and test scores. “So let’s talk about equality. In our country, there are groups of students who chronically underperform, for example, children in inner cities, or children on Native American reservations. And they’ve done so poorly for so long that many people think it’s inevitable. But when educators create growth mindset classrooms steeped in yet, equality happens” Dweck then goes on to describe this change in their performance in the classroom and the change is unbelievable. Giving students these types of opportunities is something that everyone should deserve. And this idea that Dweck has is something that Coates talks about in his essay. The idea that if you give people of colour a chance to talk to have things that many white families and students get, you will be changing the narrative. Coates believes that students of color can do just as well, if not better, than white students.
In Scheuer’s article about critical thinking he talks about what critical thinking is and how it gets developed. He says “The advanced skills that form that bridge include thinking independently, an almost self-evident intellectual virtue but a vague one (and no mind is an island); thinking outside the box (likewise crucial but unspecific); grasping the different forms and divisions of knowledge and how they are acquired (but the forms of knowledge and ways of acquiring them evolve); seeing distinctions and connections beyond the obvious; distinguishing reality from appearance; and engaging with complexity, but not for its own sake”(page 5). Scheuer is talking about thinking outside of the box and seeing outside of yourself as a way to think critically, to have an understanding of something that someone else may be going through. And this idea of critical thinking can tie right into Coates idea of reparation. The second and third paragraph on the 21st page talk about reparations and exactly what HR 40 is. But Coates believes that reparations won’t happen due to America being founded directly on the ideas of racism. He thinks that it won’t happened because those who were harmed by slavery are all dead and those who owned slaves are also dead so there is no point in paying back these people who never experienced these hardships. But with Scheuers idea of thinking outside the box and truly seeing outside of ourselves, putting yourself in their shoes could be what changes politicians’ view on reparations. If we use Scheuer’s knowledge on critical thinking and just immerse ourselves in the understanding of what has happened to these people, we will be more willing to help them and give them a second chance.
