[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 127 (Tuesday, July 20, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H3745-H3751]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HUMAN RIGHTS ACROSS THE GLOBE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson Lee) for 30 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, it is always important to have an 
opportunity to speak to our colleagues and as well the American people. 
Tonight, I will dwell on questions of human rights, challenges to those 
human

[[Page H3746]]

rights and the legacy of the undermining of human rights even in 
America that will include aspects of such indignities around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) 
who will start with a discussion on a longstanding and well-known 
historic violations of human rights.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congresswoman for yielding. I 
appreciate it very much.
  I want to speak today about the 47th anniversary of the Turkish 
invasion and occupation of the tiny island of Cyprus. For the last 47 
years, Turkish troops have occupied the north of that island which is a 
direct violation of human rights. They have taken that opportunity to 
engage in disruption and desecration of cultural and religious sites.
  Today, President Erdogan of Turkey visited Cyprus on this day, the 
47th anniversary of the Turkish occupation.
  Why did he come?
  Was it to negotiate in good faith for a solution to the division of 
the island?
  No.
  Did he come to apologize for the continued occupation of the island?
  No.
  He came to announce the reopening of the beach town of Varosha in 
direct contravention of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 
550 which ``considers attempts to settle any part of Varosha by people 
other than its inhabitants as inadmissible.''
  Varosha was a once-bustling resort town. It was an international 
tourist destination in the Famagusta district of the Republic of 
Cyprus. But with the advance of Turkey's invading forces to the town in 
August of 1974, Varosha's native Greek Cypriot population fled for 
their lives.
  Erdogan's visit is a cynical and shameful act designed to mock the 
rightful inhabitants of Varosha and to advance Turkey's agenda of 
dividing Cypress into two separate states instead of pursuing a 
bizonal, bicommunal federation that all parties of good faith have 
endorsed.
  I urge the Biden administration to use all means at its disposal to 
resist Turkey's creeping partition of Cyprus and to bring international 
condemnation to these outrageous steps that President Erdogan is taking 
which disrespect and violate the rights and human dignity of the 
refugees of Varosha.
  One day Cyprus will be reunited, but that can only come with the 
forceful leadership of the American Government, deployed consistently, 
morally, and with an abiding sense of justice.
  I want to thank the Congresswoman for yielding to me so I could 
address an important issue of human rights, and I want to thank her for 
her incredible work over decades and certainly during her service here 
in Congress to make sure that in this country we are recognizing human 
rights and the dignity of every individual. I want to thank her for her 
leadership on H.R. 40, this very, very important commission, and thank 
her for being part of the conscience of this Congress.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership. We must always remember that human rights are equal to 
human dignity.
  So it is my privilege tonight to stand to discuss the value of 
recognizing human dignity. As I do so, let me add to an earlier 
discussion that reflects on giving our children human dignity.
  Isn't it amazing how children have suffered in the course of the most 
recent history depredation of wealth, and so they have been ensconced 
in poverty, they have been hungry, and they have been without a good 
education? These are children in America. We can speak about children 
around the world. They have had little access to broadband technology, 
and they have suffered in their housing provisions, if you will.
  So I am very proud to just start out by, again, applauding the 
American Rescue Act and also the life-changing impact of the child tax 
credit. I don't think we can do that enough. And children of color have 
been at the front of the line and we are able to help with food and 
childcare, diapers, healthcare, clothing, taxes.
  Poor, working, and middle class families are able to receive the same 
amount. You will see, Mr. Speaker, where I am going on this because we 
don't do this in anger. We don't do this because we are mad. We do this 
because it is righting the wrong, as one of my colleagues said.
  This will provide $250 per month, per child and $300 per month for 
every young child. That means children under 5. All families in my 
district will be able to feel more secure. Let me run through these 
numbers because they are stunning.
  The 18th Congressional District in Houston, Texas, Mr. Speaker, 91.7 
percent of children in my district will gain from the expanded and 
improved child tax credit. I know that because I have been immersed in 
childcare education events.
  We have been in a church, we have been at my Federal building, we 
have been up and down on the radio, we have been everywhere we could be 
to ensure that we did it with humor, with seriousness, with compassion, 
being out on the street corners along with trying to encourage people 
to get vaccinated. We have been saying: Get ready for the child tax 
credit President Biden and the Democratic Congress worked so hard on.
  Mr. Speaker, 91.7 percent of the children will gain in my district. 
That is 202,800 children.
  I have schools in my district that are 100 percent at risk, and they 
eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is no shame to helping 
children. Behind those children are parents who are suffering. These 
dollars will help these parents have dignity, their children have 
dignity, and their children have resources.
  The average benefit for 56,700 households in my district--Houston, I 
hope you are listening--is $3,500.
  If you have not filed your taxes in the 2019 year, you can 
immediately get help from my office at 713-655-0050 or the IRS tax 
advocacy team, also in my building of 1919 Smith Street in Houston, 
Texas.
  Don't miss the opportunity for your own human dignity. It is not a 
handout. It is a hand up. The expanded and improved child tax credit 
lifts 21,800 children in my district out of poverty. Because of the 
larger benefits for the youngest, 8,400 kids under the age of 6 are 
raised out of poverty. That has expanded across America where millions 
of children face a new day.

                              {time}  1945

  Families with children in poverty receive $5,300 on average, and they 
are getting some 6,500 children in my district out of deep poverty. We 
know now that we are engaged in the appropriations process. I thank 
Chairwoman DeLauro and all of the appropriators for their work. We know 
how important it is if you are going to do something in life, this 
year, 2021, in the aftermath of COVID-19, this is the year to do it 
with the appropriations bill. This is the year to do it. Again, my 
theme: a sense of dignity.
  And where does that take me now? Well, I must deviate for a moment, 
Mr. Speaker, to just indicate that I think the Biden-Harris team has 
brought to America a sense of compassion. It has turned anger and ugly 
words into reaching out to people where they are. That could mean 
people who oppose them. But they reach out to them where they are, and 
they reach them with a sense of understanding and acceptance that they 
must cast leadership for all of America, even if people disagree with 
them.
  So my good friend was here on the floor--I am sorry that he has 
left--but I want to emphasize that Vice President Kamala Harris is 
doing an excellent job on some very tough issues. She is meeting on 
voting rights and meeting with any number of persons. I want to remind 
America that Texas Democratic State representatives who had some 
medical mishaps here or medical circumstances with COVID-19--no one is 
immune--are still here fighting so that we can have voting rights.
  She has met with all of them. She is deeply engaged in making sure 
that we work together as a Congress to get voting rights done along 
with the Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Beatty and all of us as 
Members who are standing ready. So she is doing an excellent job. And I 
will tell you, living on the border myself, living in Texas, in the 
region, having gone to the border over and over again, she is doing a 
job that should be done that others are not doing, getting into the 
weeds and understanding what the President's

[[Page H3747]]

path should be as we go forward on immigration reform.
  She has been to the Northern Triangle. That is the heart of where the 
issues start, and they are working to discern how they can best stop 
the massive flow of migrants, immigrants, who are in fear of their 
lives living in the countries that they are living in. These are tough 
issues, and I just want to say thank you to Vice President Kamala 
Harris, because some people misunderstand and think that it is just an 
easy thing to do.
  My word from Texas on her trip was excellent, and that people were 
receptive to her intellect, her compassion, and her willingness to get 
the job done. And the job will be done.
  So as I say that, I indicated this will be a night about human 
rights. And so I want to give you a little education about legislation 
that we are so pleased about. Can you imagine, H.R. 40, the Commission 
to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans having 
nearly 200 sponsors, cosponsors of individuals who have come from many 
parts of the country. And so I am speaking to my colleagues who happen 
to be Republicans, and I want to give them the opportunity to realize 
just what this bill is.
  I heard someone say ``restoration,'' and I heard someone say 
``repair,'' and they are right. My good friend, the Honorable Barbara 
Lee, we are working in tandem together, working in tandem on H. Res. 
19, which is reconciliation and restoration, and then the bill, H.R. 
40, legislation to create a commission that would study effectively 
slavery, and as well then develop reparation proposals. Again, 
restoration, repair.
  Let us remove ourselves from any sort of shackle on the question of 
reparations. Let us be understanding of someone else's pain, someone 
else's history; that is, in fact, American history. So I hold up this 
bill, because I said I would do show and tell, H.R. 40. Look at the 
pile of Members here as original cosponsors, and they have been coming 
on and on, and I want to just say thank you to my friends and 
colleagues who have thoughtfully felt the need to say how do we heal 
America's systemic racism; and how do we heal institutional racism; how 
do we ignore what is, in fact, truth.
  Now, I think most of you know I could not stand here without saying 
thank you to the 415 Members of Congress who voted along with the 
United States Senate on Juneteenth. Do you realize that Juneteenth is 
the first time America has acknowledged the history of slavery? In 
1865, those of us west of the Mississippi just got the word from the 
Union soldiers with General Granger that we were free by General Order 
No. 3.
  Juneteenth is a commemoration of that. And I want everyone to know 
that, frankly, 47 States have already been celebrating in their own way 
Juneteenth. After 38 years, we have a new Federal holiday called 
Juneteenth, which gives America and little schoolchildren the 
opportunity to ask their dad or their teacher: What is Juneteenth? That 
was holding people in bondage, but it was setting them free.
  After the bloodiest war, brothers against brothers, the Civil War, 
where Abraham Lincoln so emotionally indicated: ``A house divided 
cannot stand,'' but General Granger came and Sam Collins held a 
magnificent celebration on June 19 in Houston, in Galveston, in that 
region where I represent, and the mural was unveiled by a magnificent 
artistic team led by Reginald Adams out of Third Ward, Texas, which is 
Houston, which is where my congressional district is, and it told the 
story of the freedom of these slaves. And we repeated General Order No. 
3 which says, ``equality of personal rights'' but the biggest thing it 
said was, ``the slaves are free.'' And that we insist upon equality of 
rights. That is all that H.R. 40 is about.
  Are we to deny equality of rights? That was in General Order No. 3. 
That is what the President, unfortunately, being assassinated, 
President Abraham Lincoln sent General Granger down to read to the 
slaves who had worked and been beaten for 2\1/2\ more years.
  It is important that we not ignore what slavery was all about. This 
is the whelped and beaten back and scarred back of a slave. Let us be 
clear. Bondage, we are the only group of Americans that have been held 
in bondage in this Nation, and we have been held or were held in 
bondage longer than this country has been a nation. For 246 years, we 
were held in bondage, and we only celebrated our 245th birthday.

  So I am here to be able to, very briefly, run you through a brief 
history. Let me do this. Let me first of all talk about the words of 
Gary Abernathy, who proudly says that he is a conservative.
  And Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining, please?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 14 minutes remaining.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate it, only to make sure that 
I can now flow with the concept of the time.
  But the headline reads: ``Why I support reparations--and all 
conservatives should.''
  I know my friends are listening here on the other side. Gary 
Abernathy. And I will take some excerpts from this. He acknowledges 
that he is a conservative. And I can venture to say that his 
credentials can be documented.
  But he says, in spite of the bill that I have offered--has an 
apology--he takes note of that, he even indicates that he may not be 
that enthusiastic about that. But he says, ``In fact, it could be 
argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy,'' meaning 
that the notion of reparations is worth discussing because he says, 
``In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits the conservative 
philosophy.''
  He goes on to say, ``But it is undeniable that White people have 
disproportionately benefited from both the labor and the legacy of 
slavery, and--crucially--will continue to do so for generations to 
come.''
  None of this is said with anger. It is only setting forth facts. When 
slavery was abolished after a bloody Civil War, African Americans were 
dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. 
``Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern 
Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only 
in fits and starts.''
  Remember, this is a group of people in the millions who simply were 
set free. Freedom is precious. We cannot deny how precious freedom was, 
how sweet it was, but they were given nothing; nothing to start their 
lives, and they came into the hostility of people who really didn't 
want them to be free. That was the bulk of the South, and many parts of 
the North. ``The government even reneged on its `40 acres and a mule' 
pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel 
social and economic disparity.''
  Be reminded of the whipped back of this Black man, this slave. And 
there were whipped backs of women and children. They lived through this 
through no fault of their own. They worked and toiled in the fields. 
They made cotton king. They built the economic engine of this Nation. 
They created a transatlantic slave trade. They sent millions of dollars 
from the South to the Wall Street banks, and we built America.
  They built this place where I stand, the United States Capitol, with 
their bare hands, and they built the White House. What else could they 
have built?
  And so when slavery was abolished, there was silence. It has been 
represented that there is a gap of $17,600 shows the median Black 
household net worth, to a $174,000 wage of the average American or 
White family.
  When parents offered gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student 
debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and 
build on their wealth over their lifetimes. I think we just saw a very 
unique occasion today regarding space. I would not in any way say 
anything but congratulations, but one of those persons paid $27 million 
to be on that historic moment. Calculate that. It is a personal 
payment. It wasn't government.
  And, again, I celebrate the occasion, but juxtapose that against 
where we are or where African Americans are. Randall Robinson made the 
point that even affirmative action would never close the economic gap. 
``Blacks, even middle-class Blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. 
They may be salaried, but they're only a few months away from poverty 
if they should lose those jobs . . . ''
  And many times the ravages of discrimination and segregation are 
intertwined in law, and they may lose their jobs.

[[Page H3748]]

  And so this conservative author believes in reparations. And he 
believes that this can be done with a fair amount of dollars, but there 
is more to it, as you will hear me say, because it is not about money.
  He concludes by saying: ``It is a tenet of conservatism that a level 
playing field is all we should guarantee. But that's meaningless if one 
team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even begins.''
  I think LBJ said: If you want to tell people about a fair race, 
meaning a running race, and one fellow or lady has shackles around 
their ankles and the whistle blows, get ready, go, it is not a fair 
race because one runner is freed and has all of the elements of 
freedom, and the ability to do great things, and one is running with 
leg irons on.
  So as we look at how we can as a nation, a community come together, I 
don't know how many times I want to raise the question that we are not 
doing this in anger. H.R. 40, first introduced by John Conyers, is an 
international concept. It just means repair. It means doing the right 
thing, healing, dealing with injustices. It will not be painful.
  But let me tell you why this legislation is not painful, because it 
is a study that will give us a roadmap and it will be done with 
academicians and those who are appointed by government leaders, and 
they will be balanced and they will be responsible and they will be 
thorough.

                              {time}  2000

  Why do we think we need it?
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the article from Gary Abernathy, 
Washington Post contributing columnist.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 22, 2021]

    Opinion: Why I Support Reparations--and All Conservatives Should

              (By Gary Abernathy, Contributing columnist)

       Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is among the progressive 
     lawmakers whose blunt, liberal outspokenness regularly annoys 
     me. Recently, she particularly upset me while discussing the 
     latest congressional study of reparations for descendants of 
     enslaved people, when she said, ``If you through your history 
     benefited from that wrong that was done, then you must be 
     willing to commit yourself to righting that wrong.'' Only 
     this time I was bothered because her comments hit home. Like 
     most conservatives, I've scoffed at the idea of reparations 
     or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why 
     would I support my government using my tax dollars for 
     reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the 
     United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why 
     are Black people today owed anything more than the same 
     freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?
       I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real 
     value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is 
     worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea 
     fits within the conservative philosophy. We'll come back to 
     that. But it is undeniable that White people have 
     disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the 
     legacy of slavery, and--crucially--will continue to do so for 
     generations to come.
       When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, 
     African Americans were dispersed into a world that was 
     overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly 
     resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and 
     employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The 
     government even reneged on its ``40 acres and a mule'' 
     pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued 
     to fuel social and economic disparity.
       The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten 
     Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of ``From Here 
     to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-
     First Century,'' data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer 
     Finances showed that median Black household net worth 
     averaged $17,600--a little more than one-tenth of median 
     White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, ``white parents, 
     on average, can provide their children with wealth-related 
     intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than 
     black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy 
     a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those 
     children are more able to retain and build on their wealth 
     over their own lifetimes.''
       Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that 
     even laws such as those on affirmative action ``will never 
     close the economic gap. This gap is structural. . . . blacks, 
     even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. 
     They may be salaried, but they're only a few months away from 
     poverty if they should lose those jobs, because . . . they've 
     had nothing to hand down from generation to generation 
     because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, 
     which were based in law until recently.''
       In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even 
     conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy 
     generational associations in the business world, where who 
     you know often counts more than what you know--a reality 
     based not so much on overt racism as on employment and 
     promotion patterns within old-school networks that Blacks 
     lack the traditional contacts to consistently intersect.
       For now, support for reparations is anemic. A House 
     Judiciary Committee bill creating a commission to merely 
     study the idea was opposed last week by 17 Republicans, 
     though all 25 Democrats on the committee voted for it; and 
     just 1 in 5 respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last June 
     agreed that the United States should use tax dollars for 
     reparations--not shocking, when a price tag of $10 trillion 
     has been suggested.
       The cost can be debated, along with the mechanics of a 
     compensation package. But in the current drunken haze of 
     government spending, appropriating trillions for the noble 
     purpose of bringing Black Americans who remain economically 
     penalized by the enslavement of their ancestors closer to the 
     fiscal universe of White citizens surely seems less 
     objectionable than some recent spending proposals.
       It is a tenent of conservatism that a level playing field 
     is all we should guarantee. But that's meaningless if one 
     team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even 
     begins.
       It's not necessary to experience ``White guilt'' or buy 
     into the notion of ``White privilege,'' a pejorative that to 
     me suggests Whites possess something they should lose, when 
     in fact such benefits should extend to all. Supporting 
     reparations simply requires a universal agreement to work 
     toward, as Jayapal said, ``righting that wrong.''

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Washington 
Post article, ``U.N. rights chief: Reparations needed for people facing 
racism.''

               [From the Washington Post, June 28, 2021]

      UN Rights Chief: Reparations Needed for People Facing Racism

                           (By Jamey Keaten)

       Geneva (AP)--The U.N. human rights chief, in a landmark 
     report launched after the killing of George Floyd in the 
     United States, is urging countries worldwide to do more to 
     help end discrimination, violence and ) systemic racism 
     against people of African descent and ``make amends'' to 
     them--including through reparations.
       The report from Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High 
     Commissioner for Human rights, offers a sweeping look at the 
     roots of centuries of mistreatment faced by Africans and 
     people of African descent, notably from the transatlantic 
     slave trade. It seeks a ``transformative'' approach to 
     address its continued impact today.
       The report, a year in the making, hopes to build on 
     momentum around the recent, intensified scrutiny worldwide 
     about the blight of racism and its impact on people of 
     African descent as epitomized by the high-profile killings of 
     unarmed Black people in the United States and elsewhere.
       ``There is today a momentous opportunity to achieve a 
     turning point for racial equality and justice,'' the report 
     said.
       The report aims to speed up action by countries to end 
     racial injustice; end impunity for rights violations by 
     police; ensure that people of African descent and those who 
     speak out against racism are heard; and face up to past 
     wrongs through accountability and redress.
       I am calling on all states to stop denying--and start 
     dismantling--racism; to end impunity and build trust; to 
     listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to 
     confront past legacies and deliver redress,'' Bachelet said 
     in a video statement.
       While broaching the issue of reparation in her most 
     explicit way yet, Bachelet suggested that monetary 
     compensation alone is not enough and would be part of an 
     array of measures to help rectify or make up for the 
     injustices.
       ``Reparations should not only be equated with financial 
     compensation,'' she wrote, adding that it should include 
     restitution, rehabilitation, acknowledgement of injustices, 
     apologies, memorialization, educational reforms and 
     ``guarantees'' that such injustices won't happen again.
       Bachelet, a former president of Chile, hailed the efforts 
     of advocacy groups like the Black Lives Matter movement, 
     saying they helped provide ``grassroots leadership through 
     listening to communities'' and that they should receive 
     ``funding, public recognition and support.''
       The U.N.-backed Human Rights Council commissioned the 
     report during a special session last year following the 
     murder of Floyd, a Black American who was killed by a white 
     police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020. The officer, Derek 
     Chauvin, was sentenced to 22-1/ 2 years in prison last week.
       Protests erupted after excruciating bystander video showed 
     how Floyd gasped repeatedly, ``I can't breathe!'' as 
     onlookers yelled at Chauvin to stop pressing his knee on 
     Floyd's neck.
       The report was based on discussions with over 340 people--
     mostly of African descent--and experts; more than 100 
     contributions in writing, including from governments; and 
     review of public material, the rights office said.
       It analyzed 190 deaths, mostly in the U.S., to show how law 
     enforcement officers are

[[Page H3749]]

     rarely held accountable for rights violations and crimes 
     against people of African descent, and it noted similar 
     patterns of mistreatment by police across many countries.
       The report ultimately aims to transform those opportunities 
     into a more systemic response by governments to address 
     racism, and not just in the United States--although the 
     injustices and legacy of slavery, racism and violence faced 
     by African Americans was clearly a major theme.
       The report also laid out cases, concerns and the situation 
     in roughly 60 countries including Belgium, Brazil, Britain, 
     Canada, Colombia and France among others.
       ``We could not find a single example of a state that has 
     fully reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for 
     the impacts of the lives of people of African descent 
     today,'' Mona Rishmawi, who heads a unit on non-
     discrimination in Bachelet's office. ``Our message, 
     therefore, is that this situation is untenable.''
       Compensation should be considered at the ``collective and 
     the individual level,'' Rishmawi said, while adding that any 
     such process ``starts with acknowledgment'' of past wrongs 
     and ``it's not one-size-fits-all.'' She said countries must 
     look at their own pasts and practices to assess how to 
     proceed.
       Rishmawi said Bachelet's team found ``a main part of the 
     problem is that many people believe the misconceptions that 
     the abolition of slavery, the end of the transatlantic trade 
     and colonialism have removed the racially discriminatory 
     structures built by those practices.
       ``We found that this is not true,'' said Rishmawi, also 
     denouncing an idea among some ``associating blackness with 
     criminality . . . there is a need to address this.''
       The report called on countries to ``make amends for 
     centuries of violence and, discrimination'' such as through 
     ``formal acknowledgment and apologies, truth-telling 
     processes and reparations in various forms.''
       It also decried the ``dehumanization of people of African 
     descent'' that was ``rooted in false social constructions of 
     race'' in the past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes 
     and harmful practices as well as tolerance for racial 
     discrimination, inequality and violence.
       People of African descent face inequalities and ``stark 
     socioeconomic and political marginalization'' in many 
     countries, the report said, including unfair access to 
     education, health care, jobs, housing and clean water.
       ``We believe very strongly that we only touched the tip of 
     the iceberg,'' Rishmawi said, referring to the report. ``We 
     really believe that there is a lot more work that needs to be 
     done.''

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. This report came from the United Nations because 
reparations is a universal concept of repair, repairing, and human 
rights. This report from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights is 
big stuff. It ``offers a sweeping look at the roots of centuries of 
mistreatment faced by Africans and people of African descent, notably 
from the transatlantic slave trade.''
  Does that sound familiar? Back and forth across the ocean.
  ``It seeks a `transformative' approach to address its continued 
impact today.''
  In its report, it says: ``I am calling on all states to stop denying, 
and start dismantling, racism; to end impunity and build trust; to 
listen to the voices of people of African descent; and to confront past 
legacies and deliver redress.''
  This is what this report from the United Nations has said.
  It goes on to say: ``Reparations should not only be equated with 
financial compensation.''
  This is what I have been saying. I say that when I go on the floor 
and ask for my colleagues to support it. Thank goodness we understand 
it. We get it. I am looking for my Republican friends to join us.
  ``Adding that it should include restitution, rehabilitation, 
acknowledgment of injustices, apologies, memorialization, education 
reforms, and `guarantees' that such injustices won't happen again.''
  Does that sound unfair?
  ``We could not find a single example of a state that has fully 
reckoned with the past or comprehensively accounted for the impacts on 
the lives of people of African descent.''
  This individual, who was head of the unit on nondiscrimination, said: 
``Our message, therefore, is that this situation is untenable.''
  This is the report from the U.N.
  ``A main part of the problem is that many people believe the 
misconceptions that the abolition of slavery, the end of the 
transatlantic trade, and colonialism have removed the racially 
discriminatory structures built by those practices.''
  Absolutely wrong. The report found that this is not true, ``also 
denouncing an idea among some `associating blackness with 
criminality.''' That has gone on in many places around the world, 
including the United States.
  This report also ``decried the `dehumanization of people of African 
descent' that was `rooted in false social constructions of race' in the 
past to justify enslavement, racial stereotypes, and harmful practices 
as well as tolerance for racial discrimination, inequality, and 
violence.''
  Do we realize that that hurts all of our children? Children who are 
White and non-White are hurt by the definitions of color and Africans 
and people of African descent.
  We face inequalities, meaning those of African descent, and ``'stark 
socioeconomic and political marginalization' in many countries, the 
report said, including unfair access to education, healthcare, jobs, 
housing, and clean water.''
  What the commission could do is to give peace and understanding of 
the very fact of what would be a positive response to this question of 
discrimination.
  I want to add some real scientific evidence that I am not here on the 
floor complaining. I am giving an opportunity, along with the 
infrastructure bill, along with the budget reconciliation, because I am 
on the Budget Committee, along with voting rights, after 30-some years 
when this bill was first introduced in 1989, after the Japanese 
received reparations in 1988, of which we supported.
  Thank you to the Japanese American Association. They are strong 
supporters of H.R. 40. They got reparations for their false and unfair 
internment in the 1940s during World War II. We celebrated it. We 
worked with them and helped them construct that, those who were in 
Congress at that time.
  John Conyers filed this bill shortly after 1989, and I am honored to 
have been given this challenge and opportunity by him upon his 
retirement. I will not let the Nation down. I say the Nation because a 
definitive study is worthy. It I might show you that the idea of 
reparations is to suggest a continued, systemic impact, a continued, 
systemic impact that is going on, even in this moment.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this article that is part of the 
Harvard Medical School's continuing coverage of medicine, and you would 
not believe it.

              [From Harvard Medical School, Feb, 10, 2021]

  Anti-Racist Epidemiology--Research Suggests Reparations for Slavery 
       Could Have Reduced COVID-19 Infections and Deaths in U.S.

                            (By Jake Miller)

       This article is part of Harvard Medical School's continuing 
     coverage of medicine, biomedical research, medical education 
     and policy related to the SARS-Co V-2 pandemic and the 
     disease COVID-19.
       Civil rights activists have long called for monetary 
     reparations to the Black descendants of Africans enslaved in 
     the United States as a financial, moral, and ethical form of 
     restitution for the injustices of slavery.
       Now, a study led by Harvard Medical School researchers 
     suggests reparations could also have surprising public health 
     benefits for Black individuals and the entire nation.
       To estimate the impact of structura inequities between 
     Black and white individuals, the researchers set out to 
     capture the effect of reparation payments on the Black-white 
     wealth gap in the state of Louisiana.
       Their analysis, published online on Feb. 9 in Social 
     Science & Medicine. suggests that if reparations had teen 
     made before the COVID-19 pandemic, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 
     in the state's overall population could have been reduced by 
     anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent.
       The work was done in collaboration with the Lancet 
     Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.
       ``While there are compelling moral and historical arguments 
     for racial-injustice interventions such as reparations, our 
     study demonstrates that repairing the damage caused by the 
     legacy of slavery and Jim Crow racism would have enormous 
     benefits to the entire population of tbe United States,'' 
     said study senior author Eugene Richardson. assistant 
     professor of global health and social medicine in the 
     Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.
       The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on racial 
     minorities--Black individuals in particular--have been well 
     documented. Black people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one 
     and a half times higher than that of white people, are 
     hospitalized at a rate nearly four times higher, and are 
     three times as likely to die from the disease, according to 
     the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease 
     Control.
       The greater disease burden among Black people has caused 
     tremendous loss of life and

[[Page H3750]]

     unspeakable suffering across these already vulnerable and 
     disadvantaged communities. Notably, these effects have also 
     spilled over and are driving transmission rates of the virus 
     in the overall population, the study authors said.
       Addressing the structural inequalities at the roots of this 
     disparity through monetary reparations would not only 
     radically decrease the impact of COVID-19 among the people 
     who received reparations, tbe authors said, but would reduce 
     the overall toll of the disease on a broader scale, 
     benefiting the entire population. The findings, the 
     researchers said, powerfully underscores the truly global 
     nature of the pandemic and the notion that a society is only 
     as strong as its most vulnerable members.
       ``If we extrapolate these results to the entire United 
     States, we can imagine that tens or hundreds of thousands of 
     lives would have been spared, and the entire nation would 
     have been saved much of the hardship it has endured in the 
     last year,'' said Richardson, who is also the chair of the 
     Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice.
       For their analysis, tbe researchers paired sophisticated 
     data analytics and computational tools with commonly used 
     epidemiologic modeling methods to calculate the impact of 
     structural racism on infection rates among Black and white 
     populations in Louisiana. They chose Louisiana as an exemplar 
     of the impacts of structural racism in the U.S. because it 
     was one of the few states that reported infection rates by 
     race in the early stages of the pandemic. For a control 
     group, the researchers chose the relatively egalitarian 
     population of South Korea.
       The researchers noted that although modeling is used to 
     understand many factors in the spread of an infectious 
     disease, such as differences in infection risk based on 
     whether passengers on a train sit with windows open or closed 
     or individual variations in mask-wearinq habits, it has 
     rarely been used to capture the effects of social factors 
     that can create vast disparities between populations, such as 
     those seen between Blacks and whites in the U.S.
       Richardson's recent book Epidemic illusions explores the 
     ways conventional epidemiology is constrained from proposing 
     solutions that address the root causes of health disparities 
     derived from the combined weight of centuries of racism, 
     imperialism, neoliberal politics, and economic exploitation. 
     One of the goals of the paper is to challenge the narrow ways 
     people who work in medicine and public health measure and 
     think about problems and solutions and to broaden the public 
     imagination, thus opening new conversations about what 
     challenges and opportunities are worth considering in global 
     health and social science, Richardson said.
       The study examined the initial period of the outbreak, 
     before infection control measures were implemented, so any 
     differences in infection rates between populations at that 
     time would have been driven mainly by differences in the 
     social structures, the researchers said.
       For example, Louisiana has a population heavily segregated 
     by race, with Black people having higher levels of 
     overcrowded housing and working jobs that are more likely to 
     expose them to SARS-CoV-2 than white people. In comparison, 
     South Korea has a more homogenous population with far less 
     segregation.
       To probe how such structural inequities impact transmission 
     of SARS-CoV-2, the researchers examined infection rates over 
     time for the first two months of the epidemic in each 
     location. During the initial phase of the outbreak in 
     Louisiana, each infected person spread the virus to 13 to 2.5 
     more people than an infected individual durinq the same phase 
     of the outbreak in South Korea, the analysis showed. The 
     study also showed it took Louisiana more than twice as long 
     to bring the early wave of the epidemic under control as 
     South Korea.
       Next, the researchers used next-generation matrices to 
     gauge how overcrowding, segregation, and the wealth gap 
     between Blacks and whites in Louisiana could have driven 
     higher infection rates and how monetary reparations would 
     affect viral transmission.
       The model showed that greater equity between Blacks and 
     whites might have reduced infection transmission rates by 
     anywhere from 31 percent to 68 percent for every person in 
     the state.
       This research comes at a time when many Americans are 
     already thinking about the larger societal costs of 
     structural racism, the researchers said. They noted, for 
     example, that the nationwide movement to protest police 
     brutality against Black people has been fueled by many of the 
     inequitable outcomes exemplified so painfully by the 
     coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.
       ``This moment has made it possible for a lot of people who 
     had no reason to think about these inequalities to be very 
     aware of them,'' said study co-author and Lancet reparations 
     commissioner Kirsten Mullen, who was a member of concept 
     development team for the National Museum of African American 
     History and Culture.


                         Anti-racism in action

       Richardson said that the research was designed to explore 
     how reparations payments might have altered the trajectory of 
     the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and how a different 
     response to the disease could have helped mitigate the 
     disparities fueled by social conditions that are vestiges of 
     slavery. Such conditions, Richardson noted, include ongoing 
     discrimination and structural racism in the form of 
     redlining, overcrowding, over-incarceration, and the 
     heightened use of lethal force in policing experienced by 
     Black people.
       Richardson said that historian and anti-racist scholar 
     Ibram X. Kendi's description of the differences between 
     racism and anti-racism were helpful in designing the study. 
     According to Kendi, a racist policy is any policy that 
     produces or sustains inequality or promotes the power of one 
     racial group over another, whereas an anti-racist policy is 
     any measure that produces or sustains equity between racial 
     groups.
       Richardson said that one important goal of the project was 
     to attempt to harness the power of mathematical modeling for 
     an anti-racist response to the coronavirus and beyond.
       ``When you look at a formula for transmissibility, it looks 
     like an objective calculation,'' he said. ``But where is 
     lethal policing in that formula?''
       Richardson noted that it was important to call attention to 
     the systemic and structural elements of racism that can get 
     lost in simplified models of disease.


                         What are reparations?

       Mullen and study co-author William Darity, who recently 
     published a book on reparations and have written in the press 
     about the case for using reparation payments to fight COVID-
     19, defined reparations as a program of acknowledgement, 
     redress, and closure for a grievous injustice. In this case, 
     Mullen said, the atrocities are associated with periods of 
     enslavement, legal segregation and white terrorism during the 
     Jim Crow era, and racial strife and violence of the post-
     Civil Rights Act era, including ongoing inequities in the 
     form of over-policing, police executions of unarmed Black 
     people, ongoing discrimination in regard to incarceration, 
     access to housing, and, possibly most important, the Black-
     white gulf in wealth.
       Successful reparations programs include three elements: 
     admission of culpability on behalf of the perpetrators of the 
     atrocity; redress, in the form of an act of restitution; and 
     closure, wherein the victims agree that the debt is paid and 
     no further claims are to be made unless new harms are 
     inflicted.
       In this case, Mullen said, reparations would take the form 
     of financial restitution for living Black individuals who can 
     show that they are descended from at least one ancestor who 
     was enslaved in the U.S. and that they self-identified as 
     Black on a legal document at some point during the 12 years 
     prior.
       The financial restitution is designed to help close the 
     Black-white wealth gap. Darity noted that it is important to 
     distinguish wealth from income. Wealth is how much you own, 
     and income is how much you earn. Greater wealth translates to 
     greater stability for individuals and families across time. 
     Greater wealth is also more strongly associated with greater 
     well-being than greater income, Darity said, and disparities 
     in wealth manifest as health disparities.
       Wealth is more strongly associated with familial or 
     individual well-being,'' said Darity, who is the Samuel 
     DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke 
     University and a Lancet reparations commissioner. He noted 
     that, according to the Federal Reserve Board 2016 Survey of 
     Consumer Finances, the average Black household had a net 
     worth $800,000 lower than the average white household, and 
     that Black people, who represent 13 percent of the U.S. 
     population, only own 3 percent of the nation's wealth.
       ``This dramatically restricts the ability of Black 
     Americans to survive and thrive,'' Darity said.
       To assess the effect of reparation payments on the 
     trajectory of the pandemic, the researchers based their 
     calculations on a model that would pay $250,000 per person or 
     $800,000 per household to descendants of enslaved 
     individuals--one of several proposed reparation models.


              Every transmission is a social transmission

       ``Every transmission has a social cause,'' said study co-
     author and Lancet reparations commissioner James Jones, 
     associate professor of Earth System Science and a senior 
     fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford 
     University.
       For a brief moment when AIDS was in the spotlight during 
     the late 80s and early 90s, people interested in social 
     behavior became interested in mathematical modeling of 
     disease, Jones said. While that interest largely waned, the 
     COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need to think about 
     social science, inequality, social structure, behavior 
     patterns, and behavior change, as well as how they fit 
     together with how we understand and respond to epidemics, 
     Jones said.
       Even the simplest model must account for a rudimentary 
     social structure, Jones said. At its most basic, this can be 
     represented with a generalized estimate of how likely an 
     infected person is to come into contact with a susceptible 
     person. He explained that this number, R0 or ``R-naught,'' is 
     the average number of people an infected individual transmits 
     the virus to. When R0 is less than one, no epidemic is 
     possible because the number of people infected decreases. 
     When R0 is greater than 1 an epidemic is possible. R0 also 
     determines the total number of people who could potentially 
     become infected or how many people would need to be 
     vaccinated to end the epidemic. It can also be

[[Page H3751]]

     used to calculate the so-called endemic equilibrium--which 
     determines whether a disease will continue to exist within a 
     population, simmering constantly in the background or 
     bubbling up seasonally, like influenza.
       ``That's the theory of infectious disease control in a 
     single parameter,'' Jones said.
       That seeming simplicity can make it hard to focus on the 
     complex ways that infectious diseases move through the real 
     world, the researchers said.
       ``It's important to highlight that R0 is not simply a 
     function of the pathogen,'' Jones said. ``It's a function of 
     the society.'' Social and environmental factors like 
     mobility, segregation, and the nature of the built 
     environment help determine rates of infection, he said.
       This is one important reason that diseases don't hit all 
     people the same. Global R0 is an average of very different 
     R0s for different groups of people. Some groups are more 
     likely to interact only with members of their own group, some 
     groups are more likely to come in contact with infected 
     people, and some are more susceptible to the disease for 
     other reasons, Jones said.
       In this case, the researchers used mathematical models to 
     help understand the differences in R0 for Black people and 
     white people in Louisiana and to help think about how things 
     would change if racism were less prevalent in America.
       Absent those interventions, the researchers noted that 
     Black Americans remain at an elevated and inequitable risk of 
     becoming infected and dying during the COVID-19 pandemic and 
     that this inequity will continue to fuel the pandemic for all 
     Americans.
       ``Increasing equality would have huge benefits on infection 
     rates for everyone,'' said co-author Momin Malik, who was a 
     data science postdoctoral fellow at the Berkman Klein Center 
     for Internet & Society at Harvard University at the time the 
     study was conducted.
       This research was supported by the National Institute of 
     General Medical Sciences Models of Infectious Disease Agent 
     Study (grant R01 GM130900), National Institute of Allergy and 
     Infectious Diseases (grant K08 AI139361), National Institute 
     of Minority Health Disparities (grant R01 MD011606), National 
     Science Foundation Division of Social and Economic Sciences 
     (grant 1851845), Institute of Education Sciences (grant 
     R305A190484), and the Ethics and Governance of Artificial 
     Intelligence Fund.

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. It states: ``Civil rights activists have long called 
for monetary reparations,'' this report opens up. This is a scientific, 
vetted report from the Harvard University Medical School. It is titled 
``Anti-Racist Epidemiology: Research suggests reparations for slavery 
could have reduced COVID-19 infections and deaths in the U.S.'' This 
was published online on February 10.
  It says: ``To estimate the impact of structural inequities between 
Black and White individuals, the researchers set out to capture the 
effect of reparation payments on the Black-White wealth gap in the 
State of Louisiana.'' This is an important report.
  ``The disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on racial minorities--
Black individuals in particular--have been well documented. Black 
people get COVID-19 at a rate nearly one-and-a-half times higher than 
that of White people, are hospitalized at a rate nearly four times 
higher, and are three times as likely to die from the disease, 
according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease 
Control.
  ``The greater disease burden among Black people has caused tremendous 
loss of life and unspeakable suffering across these already vulnerable 
and disadvantaged communities. Notably, these effects have also spilled 
over and are driving transmission rates of the virus in the overall 
population.''
  They did their study in many places, but I will read a portion. ``The 
study examined the initial period of the outbreak, before infection 
control measures were implemented, so any differences in infection 
rates between populations at the time would have been driven mainly by 
differences in the social structures.''
  ``Louisiana has a population heavily segregated by race, with Black 
people having higher levels of overcrowded housing and working jobs 
that are more likely to expose them,'' and they found that if 
reparations had been given, they would have done better.
  I conclude, Mr. Speaker, by just saying that you see a picture of the 
Tulsa race riot. That is why I stand here today to say that Tulsa 
Greenwood needs reparation. H.R. 40 needs to pass. Why don't we do it 
together?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________