Ever since the publication of Randall Robinson's book The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, the issue of reparations to descendants of slavery has been coming more and more to the attention of mainstream America. Unfortunately, however, there is a great deal of misinformation out there on the subject, and very often a sincere, justice-minded white person has nowhere to turn for reliable answers to their questions about reparations. Hence, this workshop, which attempts to cut through the misinformation surrounding this issue and to equip people with a sound basis on which to form well-reasoned opinions about it.

I begin the workshop by laying out very concisely why I, personally, support reparations to descendants of slavery. My reasons are based on historical facts about the enslavement and its very real financial, psychological and spiritual aftermath today.

Next, I clarify what reparations is and isn't, explaining, for example, that it is not about X amount of dollars being given to X amount of people. I then make some suggestions of a general nature about how to approach the issue, including, for instance, making a comparison between how we feel about the Jews and the Japanese Americans receiving reparations with how we feel about Blacks doing so.

Finally, I put forward and answer seven of the questions that whites most often ask about reparations. They include:

• My family didn't own slaves, so why should I have to pay?
• What about all the poor people who immigrated here long after slavery - isn't it unfair to expect them to pay?
• Isn't the reparations movement divisive? Instead of looking backwards, wouldn't it be better to just concentrate on establishing racial harmony today?
• Whites fought and died in the Civil War to free the slaves, so doesn't that settle any possible debt to Blacks?
• If Africans hadn't sold each other into slavery there wouldn't have been any slavery, so why should Americans have to pay?

The rest of the workshop is a very free and open discussion of all of the above and anything else workshop attendees wish to discuss.

I am prepared as well to give a brief overview of the struggle for reparations as it has taken form over the years as a grassroots movement, in the courts, legislatively, and at the international level. If desired, I can also convey some of the many and diverse forms Black reparations leaders see reparations as taking. And, of course, I am always ready, willing and able to talk personally and frankly about how I became a reparationist and the many issues that arise when one is white in this Black-led movement.