Kerry Whigham | Source | Co-Director of Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Bingham...

Reparations to Black Americans for slavery have been gaining traction in recent years. Kerry Whigham, co-director of the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University, State University of New York, believes that reparations are always about more than money.

When reparations measures aren’t met with initiatives responding to the structural causes of violence, they can be perceived as “blood money,” as victims believe accepting the payment means giving up their right to justice, says Whigham.

"It may also cause victims to question their own right to redress. But when accompanied by efforts to seek justice and reform the institutions that violated victims’ rights, I argue, reparations can be a starting point for rebuilding trust and community."

The modern history of reparations is only a few decades old, but it already demonstrates that reparations are always about more than the money, says Whigham.

"If the process includes compensation, but ignores complementarity and consultation, the effort may fail to truly answer for the past. But when all three principles are central, reparations can mean far more than money in someone’s pocket. They can contribute to repairing the social fabric that has been torn apart by mass violence."

Genocide is a process, not an event

Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin first coined the term genocide in 1944. Specifically, the Genocide Convention protects racial, ethnic, religious and national identities.

Although this destruction often happens through mass murder, it can take other forms. It can mean taking children of one group away from their parents and transferring them to another group, for example.

Genocides are not events that happen overnight. They are long-term social and political processes that begin long before mass killing.

For instance, the Nazis did not build death camps immediately when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933. The Holocaust began with smaller steps, like preventing Jewish people from holding certain jobs, then preventing Jews and non-Jews from marrying each other.

It was not until the late-1930s that the Nazis transitioned to their Final Solution, which called for the destruction of all Jewish people. And the Nazis did not construct the first death camps until 1941. But all these steps over the years constituted what we now call the Holocaust.