What good are piecemeal reparations? From Georgetown University, where school leadership once sold enslaved people, to Evanston, Illinois, where redlining kept Black residents out of homeownership, institutions and local governments are attempting to take reparations into their own hands. But do these small-scale efforts detract from the broader call for reparations from the federal government?

Fabiola talks with Indigenous philanthropist Edgar Villanueva, founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project and creator of the Case for Reparations fund, about the reparatory justice efforts underway across the country and the role that individual donors might be able to play in reparations. Fabiola also speaks with activist Kavon Ward, who worked to restore Bruce’s Beach, waterfront land in California, to the descendants of Black families who were pushed off the land by eminent domain. (Ward’s work was funded by Villanueva’s organization.) They discuss how jurisdictions are repaying Black people for what was taken from them — and if that repayment can be considered reparations at all.

This series was made possible with support from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here: https://forms.gle/w9vYsfFGvdJLJ3LY9

Host: Fabiola Cineas, race and policy reporter, Vox

Guest: Kavon Ward, founder, Where Is My Land; Edgar Villanueva, founder, Decolonizing Wealth Project

References: 

Decolonizing Wealth, Second Edition: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance by Edgar Villanueva (Penguin Random House, 2021)

How a California beachfront property now worth millions was taken from its Black owners (CBS, May 2021)

Governor Newsom Signs SB 796, Authorizing the Return of Bruce’s Beach (California state Sen. Steven Bradford, September 2021)   

How Black activist Kavon Ward found her calling in the fight for Bruce’s Beach (Orange County Register)

272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? (The New York Times, April 2016)

In Likely First, Chicago Suburb Of Evanston Approves Reparations For Black Residents (NPR, 2021)

We want to hear from you! Take Vox’s audience survey today: vox.com/feedback

This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Jonquilyn Hill 
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Why slavery? Marxist scholar Adolph Reed argues that Jim Crow — not enslavement — is the defining experience for Black Americans today. Reed recounts his childhood in the segregation-era South in his book The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives. Fabiola speaks with Reed about his experience, his argument that reparations aren’t necessarily a healing balm, and what policies and resources are needed to create a more equitable society.

This series was made possible with support from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here: https://forms.gle/w9vYsfFGvdJLJ3LY9

Host: Fabiola Cineas, race and policy reporter, Vox

Guest: Adolph L. Reed Jr., author of The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives

References: 

The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives by Adolph L. Reed Jr. (Verso, 2022)

The Marxist Who Antagonizes Liberals and Left (New Yorker)

Black Americans’ views of reparations for slavery (Pew Research)

Library Visit, Then Held at Gunpoint (New York Times, 2015)

The Racial Wealth Gap Is About the Upper Classes (People’s Policy Project, 2020)

Income Inequality and the Persistence of Racial Economic Disparities (Robert Manduca, 2018)

We want to hear from you! Take Vox’s audience survey today: vox.com/feedback

This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Jonquilyn Hill 
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Paying the price. One of the typical questions asked during conversations about reparations is how to pay for them. Fabiola talks with economist William “Sandy” Darity and folklorist Kirsten Mullen about how reparations could be executed. The husband-and-wife team lays out a comprehensive framework in their book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, for who would qualify and how the federal government would afford the $14 trillion price tag.

This is part of 40 Acres, a four-part series examining reparations in the United States.

This series was made possible by a grant from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here: https://forms.gle/w9vYsfFGvdJLJ3LY9

Host: Fabiola Cineas, race and policy reporter, Vox

Guests: William “Sandy” Darity and Kirsten Mullen, authors of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century

References: 

• From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen (The University of North Carolina Press; 2020)
• Homestead Act (1862)
• Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances (Federal Reserve; 2020)
• Evanston is the first U.S. city to issue slavery reparations. Experts say it's a noble start. (NBC News; 2021)
• The Root of Haiti’s Misery: Reparations to Enslavers (New York Times; 2020)
• ‘We’re Self-Interested’: The Growing Identity Debate in Black America (New York Times; 2019)

We want to hear from you! Take Vox’s audience survey today: vox.com/feedback

This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Jonquilyn Hill 
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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Fabiola Cineas talks with Nkechi Taifa, the founder and director of the Reparation Education Project, about the history of the fight for reparations in America. Though they came to the forefront during the 2020 election in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, activists have been fighting for repayment for slavery since the practice was abolished. This is part of 40 Acres, a four-part series examining reparations in the United States.

This series was made possible by a grant from the Canopy Collective and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To provide feedback, please take our survey here: https://forms.gle/w9vYsfFGvdJLJ3LY9

Host: Fabiola Cineas, race and policy reporter, Vox

Guest: Nkechi Taifa, founder and director of the Reparation Education Project

References: 

• WMUR, 2019: Joe Biden discusses China-US trade talks, gun violence
• The N'COBRA movement and HR 40
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: The Truth Behind “40 Acres and a Mule”
• Summer of Change: The Civil Rights Story of Glen Echo Park
• Los Angeles Times, 1995: Inspired by Marcus Garvey, Audley Moore has struggled to lift up African Americans
• The Republic of New Africa
• The Atlantic: Martin Luther King Makes the Case for Reparations
• HR 442 — Civil Liberties Act of 1987
• HR 40 — Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act
• Pew Research Center: Black Americans Have a Clear Vision for Reducing Racism but Little Hope It Will Happen
• Gallup polling on American attitudes and race
• Belinda Sutton and Her Petitions
• No Pensions for Ex-Slaves: How Federal Agencies Suppressed Movement To Aid Freedpeople
• Wall Street Journal, 2019: "Reparations Ray" Blazed Lonely Trail
• Associated Press, 2019: New Orleans mayor to apologize for 1891 lynching of 11 Italian Americans
• NPR, 2009: Senate Apologizes For Slavery
• ABC News: Advocates call on Biden to act on reparations study by Juneteenth
• NPR, 2006: COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying
• Washington Post, 2000: In Aetna's Past: Slave Owner Policies
• New York Times, 2016: Insurance Policies on Slaves: New York Life's Complicated Past

We want to hear from you! Take Vox’s audience survey today: vox.com/feedback

This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Jonquilyn Hill 
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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In this bonus, chat episode of The Impact, Jillian is joined by Vox's Matt Yglesias and Course Correction's Nelufar Hedayat to talk about how the data collected on Covid-19 deaths will help shape our world, now and in the future.

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Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, are known as “Ambos Nogales” — “both Nogaleses.” The city straddles the border of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. For a long time, a hole-riddled chain-link fence ran along that border. Residents could cross back and forth with ease. But in 1995, the federal government replaced the chain-link fence with a wall. Over time, that wall has been fortified with surveillance towers, more Customs and Border Patrol agents, and drones. 

President Trump wants to extend the Nogales model all along the US-Mexico border. In the final episode of the season, The Impact goes to Nogales with the Arizona Republic to find out why the federal government decided to build the wall, how it has changed Ambos Nogales, and how it has affected migrants who hope to cross into the United States.

Further listening and reading: 

• Rafael Carranza’s reporting in the Arizona Republic
• Maritza Dominguez’s work on the Valley 101 podcast 
• Radiolab’s Border Trilogy explores Operation Blockade and the federal government’s Prevention Through Deterrence policy
• Vox’s guide to where 2020 candidates stand on policy, including immigration

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Host:

Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

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Free college tuition seems like a solution to so many problems. After all, the price of tuition is the No. 1 reason students give for leaving school. And when students don’t finish, they can’t access the many benefits of a college degree. That’s why several presidential candidates have proposed some version of a free college program.

But in Kalamazoo, Michigan, free college isn’t a proposal, it’s a reality — and it has been for almost 15 years. Students who live in Kalamazoo and attend its public schools K-12 have their in-state college tuition completely covered. It’s called the Kalamazoo Promise. 

The Promise has had some impressive results, but it's only brought Kalamazoo’s college graduation rates up to the Michigan state average. In this episode, we follow the lives of two Promise recipients, Aaliyah Buchanan and Olivia Terrentine, to find out why free tuition has not been the panacea Kalamazoo had hoped it would be.

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to [email protected].

Further listening and reading: 

• Michelle Miller-Adams’s book about the Kalamazoo Promise, The Power of a Promise: Education and Economic Renewal in Kalamazoo, gives in-depth background on the program
• MLive’s Kayla Miller introduced us to Aaliyah and wrote a great piece about the Promise last year
• The UpJohn Institute has a real trove of data and research about the Promise for anyone who would like to dig further into the numbers
• Vox’s explainer on free college in the 2020 race

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Host:

Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

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Natasha Razouk wants to give her 7-year-old the best possible life. She buys big boxes of fresh tomatoes at Costco, and she gets her daughter warm boots, a good coat, and school supplies each year. 

But all that is expensive. Natasha’s daughter grows out of clothes quickly, and she needs books and health care and day care. That’s why the Canadian government gives every parent, including Natasha, a little money each month — a few hundred Canadian dollars — to help cover the cost of raising a child. 

It’s called the “child benefit.” In 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised it would lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. Now, a number of US presidential candidates have signed onto a similar proposal.

In this episode, we see whether the Canadian child benefit delivered on Prime Minister Trudeau’s promise. We find out how that money changed Natasha’s life and her daughter’s. And we look at what US presidential candidates can learn from our neighbors to the north.

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to [email protected].

Further listening and reading: 

• Vox’s Dylan Matthews explains what child benefits are and the plan to introduce one in the US.
• The National Academy of Sciences recently studied child benefits as a tool to cut child poverty in half; here’s what it found.
• In the episode, we talk about a graph Kevin Milligan drew. See it, and an associated tweet thread, here. You can read a paper Kevin wrote with Mark Stabile about previous child benefit increases here.
• Vox’s guide to where 2020 candidates stand on policy. 

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Host:

Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

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Janet Feldman has been paying for private insurance for years. She does so even though Australia has a robust public insurance option. But when she was diagnosed with a serious illness, her doctor told her not to use the private insurance she was paying for. She stuck to public insurance — and she’s very glad she did, because using the private system in Australia can have some serious disadvantages. 

In fact, so many Australians prefer the public system to the private that it’s become a problem for the stability of the two. 

Australia’s public-private system looks a lot like proposals from a number of US presidential candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In this episode, Vox health care reporter Dylan Scott continues his international investigation of health care across the world, with a stop in Australia. He meets with doctors, researchers, patients — even a robot — and returns to the US with evidence that could both hearten and concern candidates like public-private boosters like Biden or Buttigieg.   

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to [email protected].

Links:

• Dylan’s deep dive into Australian health care
• Stephen Duckett’s working paper on public and private insurance in Australia
• Dylan’s piece on the three different kinds of health care plan floated by the Democratic candidates
• Vox’s guide to where 2020 candidates stand on policy 

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Host:

Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

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In the early 1990s, the government of Taiwan decided to try an experiment. In just nine months, they completely revolutionized their health care system, covering every Taiwanese citizen through a single-payer program. It’s a system that looks very similar to the Medicare-for-all proposals from presidential candidates like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. 

Vox health care reporter Dylan Scott went to Taiwan to investigate how its single-payer system is working and what the United States can learn from it. He interviewed patients, doctors, government officials, and a researcher with a charming love story. Dylan learned that while the people of Taiwan love their version of Medicare-for-all — a program that has significantly improved Taiwan’s health outcomes — the entire system could go bankrupt, soon. 

We always want to hear from you! Please send comments and questions to [email protected].

Further listening and reading: 

• Dylan's deep dive on Taiwan's health care system
• Uwe Reinhardt’s last book, Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Healthcare
• Tsung-Mei (May) Cheng wrote a Wall Street Journal opinion piece making the case for a public option
• Dylan’s piece on the three kinds of health care plan floated by the Democratic candidates
• Vox’s guide to where 2020 candidates stand on policy 

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Host:

Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

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Two decades ago, Hans-Josef Fell quietly started a revolution in his home country, with a law that looks a lot like part of the Green New Deal endorsed by many Democratic candidates. That law transformed Germany, and that has the potential to change the world.  

Fell found a way to make renewable energy technology — like solar panels and wind turbines — cheap. His law allowed Germans to sell the renewable energy they create to the grid at a really high fixed price. Germany paid that fixed price through a surcharge on every electricity consumer’s bill.

Demand for renewables grew so much in Germany that China started to mass produce solar panels and wind turbines, which drove the price down. Now, people all over the world can afford this technology. But the law has also had some unintended consequences. Due to some amendments and market forces, the surcharge on Germany’s electric bills have skyrocketed. Electricity has become a burdensome expense for Germans living on welfare, and the high cost has even left a few spending a lot of time in the dark. 

Further listening and reading:

• Vox’s David Roberts on how government policy helped make solar technology affordable
• Vox’s Umair Irfan and Tara Golshan on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Green New Deal
• Vox’s guide to where all the 2020 candidates stand on policy, including climate change issues

Subscribe to The Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app to automatically get new episodes of the latest season each week.

Host:

Jillian Weinberger, @jbweinz

About Vox:

Vox is a news network that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices