The issue of Reparations for African Slavery is becoming a more prominent issue on the global stage today. In the US, it is becoming an issue on the Democratic Party Presidential platforms. Just a few year ago, in 2013, the 13 English speaking Caribbean countries (including Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and others) established a Reparations Commmission to push for reparations on a global scale.
Not all agree with these proposals, and I believe there are legitimate arguments to be made on both sides. However, passions and sensitivities -- and also social and intellectual taboos -- prevent many issues from being deeply explored. Coming from the Caribbean, a major centre of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, where we live with the legacy perhaps more than any other area in the world, I want to have a deeper debate on the issue, exploring some of the deeper and thornier questions.
To do so, I am happy to have as my guest today Professor Selwyn R. Cudjoe.