From African Americans and native Hawaiians to Palestinians, Armenians and Mexicans, a common cry for reparations is being heard throughout the world. More and more, the controversial and hotly debated issue of repairing the horrors of the past is becoming the focus of ethnic studies scholars.

That debate in its broadest form came to UCLA May 11-12 when scholars from around the country gathered at Covel Commons for a conference hosted by UCLA's four ethnic studies centers - the Center for African American Studies, American Indian Studies Center, Asian American Studies Center and Chicano Studies Research Center.

"As W.E.B. DuBois once said, the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line," said Manning Marable, professor of history and political science and founding director of the African American Studies Institute at Columbia University.

Marable, the symposium's keynote speaker, said many advocates of reparations for African Americans believe the discussion is justified not only because of historical wrongs and the permanent scars of slavery, but also because of ongoing racism in the form of bank loan biases and racial profiling.

In New Jersey, for example, black motorists are five times more likely than whites to be searched by police, he noted. In the Bronx in February 1999, Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times by New York City police officers. "He was murdered not because of his behavior," Marable said. "He was killed before those officers ever pulled their guns. He was killed because of the image those officers had in their heads of black people."

Going after such institutions that perpetuate this kind of entrenched racism can correct such wrongs, he noted.

The issue of reparations is not new, Marable explained.

In 1865, the U.S. government said it would give 40 acres to every black male after slavery ended. At that time, there were an estimated 1 million African males. If each were to have been given 40 acres, the total amount of land would have been equivalent to South Carolina and most of North Carolina or hundreds of billions of dollars in equity, Marable pointed out.

"No matter how hard we work, we will never catch up - we will never catch up," he said. "Indeed, brothers and sisters, it's payback time."

With 1% of the population owning the majority of the wealth in this country, the issue of compensation actually cuts across color lines, the history professor said.

"Most white folks deserve a rebate too," he said. "We have to frame it in a way that brings people together."