Posted on June 29, 2021

Online Reparations Revolution

Hope King, Axios, June 25, 2021

In the absence of broad financial restitution to the descendants of slaves and Black Americans, some people are taking to Twitter to ask for reparations — and transacting through Venmo and Cash App.

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By the numbers: There have been more than 91,000 tweets which mention “cashapp reparations,” “venmo reparations,” or “venmo cashapp reparations,” according to an Axios analysis of data from Keyhole, since the start of the year.

  • 27,500 of those tweets, or 30%, were sent around the first official Juneteenth holiday last weekend.
  • Specifically, posts with Cash App and reparations together appeared 12,200 times compared to 8,700 for posts with Venmo and reparations together; and 6,600 when Venmo, Cash App and reparations appeared together.
  • Peer-to-peer reparations requests also spiked during the Capitol riots on January 6 and the start of Black History Month on February 1 this year.

What they’re saying: “Black,” “Juneteenth,” “need,” “people,” and “deserve,” were words that appeared most frequently within the tweets.

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State of play: Forms of reparations from the federal government being discussed now include direct cash payments to descendents of former slaves, assisted repatriation programs, affordable housing, free college tuition and student loan forgiveness, small business grants and baby bonds.

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