Not to be confused with the state legislature, a reparations task force has approved recommendations that could result in billions of dollars in restitution to Black Californians for decades of state-sanctioned discrimination. Personally, I have read elsewhere people confusing or attributing reparations only to slavery. When CA was admitted to the Union, it was not a slave state but did, and in many cases, still does suffer from systemic racism.
Below are a few examples:
- Discrimination in Housing: Economists calculated that the state owed Black Californians $293 billion for its role in redlining practices that denied people living in Black neighborhoods access to mortgage loans.
- Over-policing and mass incarceration.
- Discrimination in healthcare.
- Property seizures.
- Commerce
One of the issues I have noticed not just in my state but elsewhere, freeways. Freeways seem to always go through marginalized neighborhoods, which has resulted in shuttered businesses that lined the main streets but were destroyed when the freeways came and diverted traffic from them. Not to mention the amount of smog, noise, and known carcinogens that polluted the surrounding area.
The task force debated which Black Californians should qualify for reparations. There were two camps: one that supported reparations for all Black Californians and the other that argued the reparations should be limited to descendants of enslaved Black Americans. In the end, the latter camp prevailed.
So your task, as the intelligent lot you are, is to discuss reparations.
If the state legislature enacted a bill based on the panel’s recommendations and Governor Newsome signed it into law, this is kind of how it would work:
- Lifelong Black California residents older than 70 would each receive more than $1 million.
- The state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, according to economists.
- The latest draft report released by the task force is far lower.
Or, feel free to discuss something about this topic that I didn’t address–It’s all on you and how you have processed the issue. Just don’t argue for argument’s sake; it’s not productive.
Hope you enjoy- Please understand that this is not a free chat thread; we’ll have one of those tomorrow.
