A California Reparations Task Force is gearing up to submit their report on reparations recommendations to the state lawmakers in hopes of turning them into legislation.
State Governor Gavin Newson signed to create the task force in 2020 and appointed the nine members commissioned to research the state’s involvement with discriminating against its Black residents and suggest ways to expiate, as News Onyx reported.
Some suggestions include a formal apology to the slaves’ descendants in the U.S., public disclosure of the truth, “commemorations and tributes to the victims,” “Judicial and administrative sanctions against persons liable for the violations” and financial compensation. They refrained from putting a specific amount in the report and left it up to the lawmakers to decide a reasonable payment.
The 2022 report estimated that the state owed over $800 billion for the decades of “over-policing, disproportionate incarceration and housing discrimination,” according to AP News. That amount is 2.5 times the state’s $300 billion annual budget. However, a revised report reduced the cost to $500 billion.
The panel included the creation of a committee to oversee the reparations efforts.
The report’s deadline is July 1, but there’s a strong possibility that lawmakers may deny cash payments. Gov. Newsom is the deciding factor.
“It’s been a whirlwind; it’s been very work intensive, but also very cathartic and very emotional,” Kamilah Moore, 31, task force chair and a Los Angeles-based attorney, said. “We’re standing in the shoes of our ancestors to finish, essentially, this sacred project.”
The panel includes Senator Steven Bradford, Dr. Amos C. Brown, Dr. Cheryl Grills, Lisa Holder, Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer, Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis, Moore, Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe and Donald K. Tamaki.
The task force’s panel incorporated economists’ suggestions, like paying Black elders, who have lived in California all their lives, $1 million or $13,600 per year for health disparities.
Or Black people, who endured belligerent conduct from law enforcement or faced harsh prosecution during the “war on drugs” from 1971 to 2020 while living in California, could receive thousands of dollars.
Although California entered the Union as a free state in 1850, the task force’s report read that the early state government supported slavery when they passed and enforced a fugitive slave law that was more draconian than the federal fugitive slave law.
California’s early government also created laws that prevented Black citizens from accumulating political power.
Furthermore, through the state’s redlining, zoning ordinances, discriminating federal mortgage policies and decisions on locations for new highways and schools, the California housing industry deliberately discriminated against Blacks.
The report went into even more exquisite detail on how the state participated in oppressing Blacks, from underfunding African American schools and declining Black bar owners their liquor licenses to the 1991 fatal beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Department.
The task force held a meeting on June 29 to announce to the public that they had concluded the final report, where they gave details on what it included. Moore received a standing ovation after delivering her final remarks on the report.
#California #Reparations Task Force Chair @KamilahMooreEsq lights up the room with her impassioned final remarks. Here is how she concluded— I wish I had my phone recording for her full whole remarks, but my news camera captured them for my @ABC10 story later today. pic.twitter.com/DIDbviSMfL
— Becca Habegger (@BeccaReports) June 29, 2023
There have been discussions in several states about the possibility of reparations. New York lawmakers have passed a bill that puts reparations under consideration, but it won’t be easy, considering there are many naysayers who argue that slavery should be left in the past and that white people whose ancestors didn’t participate in slavery shouldn’t be forced to fund reparations.
Yet, many don’t understand that the legacy of slavery has impacted Black Americans today. Slavery may not exist anymore, but the world comprises racist people who still believe Blacks are inferior to those of lighter complexion, and many are acting on that aggression toward African Americans. It’s evident in the healthcare system, policing system, government, workforce, etc.
While reparations won’t heal wounds, it shows Black Americans that the government is taking accountability for its part in discriminating against Blacks. It’s recognizing the over 400 years of torture millions of Black children, men and women endured to build this country.
