End notEs
36 For studies which survey the evolution
and creation of white privilege and
economic advantage, see Ira Katznelson,
When Afrmative Action Was White: An
Untold History of Racial Inequality in
20th Century America (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2005); Joe R. Feagin, Racist
America: Roots, Realities, and Future
Reparations (New York: Routledge,
2000); and David R. Roediger, Working
toward Whiteness: How America's
Immigrants Became White: the Strange
Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs
(New York: Basic Books, 2005).
to exclude African Americans
from union membership. This
legislation granted legal protections
and recognitions to labor unions
not previously enjoyed and gave
many working class whites access to
higher wages and benefts. However,
because the act also allowed unions
to exclude blacks from union
membership and its benefts, it
legally protected white laborers
from competition in the job market,
creating economic opportunities
reserved for whites, and further
maintaining the existence of a lower
paid, exploited labor pool.
The failure of the Federal Housing
Administration (1940s and 1950s)
to grant loans to even minimally
integrated neighborhoods. This
agency provided lowcost governmentguaranteed loans to working class
families, enabling mass home
ownership and the accumulation
of wealth that could be passed on
to children. Ninety-eight percent
of these loans were given to whites;
blacks were granted less than two
percent. The refusal to grant loans
to integrated neighborhoods was a
practice known as "redlining."
Many more historical examples
can be cited. These suffce in
demonstrating how white privilege
was deliberately created and often
state-sanctioned. It also resulted in
"unjust impoverishment" for groups
of color and "unjust enrichment" for
white Americans. "Unjust enrichment
•
and unjust impoverishment are critical
concepts for understanding [our
nation's] past and present" economic
realities and the link between racism
and poverty.42
The pernicious effects of this
deliberate and state-sanctioned "unjust
impoverishment" endure to this day.
This creates a serious obligation to
repair the economic injuries and
material deprivation that has been
inficted upon communities of color.
Therefore, we support conscious efforts
to correct past injustices with proactive
deeds. The responsibility to repair the
harm or injury done to another is long
recognized in Catholic moral theology.
Traditional moral teaching speaks of
the duty of restitution, based on the
principle that "when injustice is done
it must be repaired."43 The Holy See
recently has applied this teaching to the
specifc issue of racial grievances and the
question of reparations. This teaching
recognizes that various forms of racial
reparation are possible, including
monetary
compensation,
formal
apologies and statements of regret, and
symbolic gestures (such as monuments
and memorials to the victims of an
injustice).44 As an organization, Catholic
Charities USA is not yet prepared to
endorse either a particular mode of
reparation or any concrete proposal that
is under current discussion. Instead, we
call for a responsible national study and
resolution of this complex question that
respects the principle that "social harm
calls for social relief."45 u
37 Joe R. Feagin, Systemic Racism: A Theory
of Oppression (New York: Routledge,
2006) 13.
38 See U.S. Department of State, "Indian
Treaties and the Removal Act of 1830,"
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/
dwe/16338. htm (accessed August 19,
2007); and PBS, "Indian Removal 18141858," http:// www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/
part4/4p2959.html (accessed August 19,
2007). 39 See John Hope Franklin and
Alfred A. Moss, From Slavery to Freedom:
A History of African Americans, 9th
Edition (New York: Knopf, 2000).
40 "Not All Caucasians are White: The
Supreme Court Rejects Citizenship for
Asian Indians," http://historymatters.
gmu.edu/d/5076 (accessed August 19,
2007). See also Ronald Takaki, Strangers
from a Diferent Shore: A History of Asian
Americans (1989).
41 The discussion of this and the following
two items is indebted to Ira Katznelson's
study, When Afrmative Action Was
White (see note 36).
42 Feagin, Systemic Racism, 18.
43 Among others, see Henry Davis, S.J.,
Moral and Pastoral Theology, Seventh
Edition, vol. 2 (New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1958) 316.
44 Pontifcal Council for Justice and Peace,
"Contribution to World Conference
against Racism," #12. Available at www.
vatican. va/roman_curia/pontifcal_
councils/austpeace/ documents.
45 NCCB, Economic Justice for All, #73.
To read the entire brief, Poverty
and Racism: Overlapping Threats
to the Common Good, go to
www.CatholicCharitiesUSA.org
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