Telling Lies, Telling Tales and Telling (and Doing) the Truth: Racism, Moral Repair and the Case for Reparations
Authors
Publication Date
2022-02Journal Title
Studies in Christian Ethics
ISSN
0953-9468
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
35
Issue
1
Pages
41-62
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
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Show full item recordCitation
Banner, M. (2022). Telling Lies, Telling Tales and Telling (and Doing) the Truth: Racism, Moral Repair and the Case for Reparations. Studies in Christian Ethics, 35 (1), 41-62. https://doi.org/10.1177/09539468211051197
Abstract
<jats:p> First, in the section ‘Telling Lies’, this article attempts to illustrate recent everyday racism. Racism has a history and takes many different forms. I describe a particular practice of racism (found in Britain, circa 1970), which relied, for its doctrine, on supposedly scientific assumptions about biology and breeding—and received a confirming fillip through the celebration of monarchy, empire and rose-tinted history. Second, in ‘Telling Tales’, the story of Zacchaeus is taken as exemplifying a form of moral repair in which telling and doing the truth are intimately related. Third, in ‘Telling and Doing the Truth’, I contend that telling and doing the truth in relation to racism requires not only a clear naming of racism’s lies but also the making of reparations, for the reason that the lies of racism subtended manifold injustices, of which Atlantic slavery and the exploitation of colonies are notable instances. I take the history of the West Indies as providing a clear case where moral repair is (over)due, and I consider the form that reparations might take. </jats:p>
Keywords
SPECIAL ISSUE: TRUTH, LIES AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS, racism, reparations, moral repair, truth and lies, slavery, colonialism
Identifiers
10.1177_09539468211051197
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09539468211051197
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333202
Rights
Licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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