Substitute while the actions of the article are loading
The nation’s first working group in California on reparations for black Americans said it had documented 170 years of systematic discrimination by the state and called for “Comprehensive reparations” for the victims of this history of government-sanctioned oppression.
IN A 500-page report released Wednesday by a working group mandated by the legislature says today’s wealth gap between blacks and white Americans in California and the rest of the country is a direct result of slavery, Jim Crow laws, red lines and more. governments policies that have locked black Americans in failing schools and communities with excessive police control.
“Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect and other atrocities in almost every sector of civil society have caused lifelong cascading and intergenerational damage,” the report said.
The task force announced its interim report the most extensive document on the government discrimination against the black community following the landmark report of the Kerner Commission in 1968.
It called to establish a government service to deal with past and potential future damage and to assist eligible black Californians through a reparations program. But he does not set a price for his recommendations; this is expected to be described in detail later in a second report.
The report tells the story of California’s harassment of black Americans since its inception. While California was accepted into the union as a free state, the report said the state had passed and imposed a refugee law requiring the return of enslaved people seeking freedom there.
The report also cites the vast history of California’s “western cities,” communities that forbid black Americans from living within their borders; The report says many suburban communities outside of Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as most cities in Orange County, were once “sunset cities.” It also documents the history of urban renewal and highway projects that dismantled once-thriving black neighborhoods such as San Francisco’s Fillmore, effectively destroying generations of accumulated wealth.
Historically an all-black city wants reparations to be rebuilt as a “safe haven”
The commission itself said it contradicted whether direct cash payments were politically feasible in the country. The report, co-authored with the state’s Department of Justice, ended up in Sacramento, full of money. Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget includes a $ 97.5 billion surplus, but the Democrat is also facing demands for a tax refund – and other programs require specific amounts of money.
Even Proponents acknowledge that the reparations campaign is facing a tough battle in a state where only 6 percent of the population identifies as black and where voters recently rejected a move to return to action.
“I hope this report is used as an educational and organizing tool, such as the state of California and the United States in general, for the damage to the African-American community and the African-American community’s contribution to the United States,” said Camilla Moore. chairman of the working group. “This report documents the full range of evidence of harm to the African-American community that will justify claims for reparations in the final report.
The interim report comes in the middle of the two-year term of the state working group on reparations. It was created in 2020 through legislation backed by then-member Shirley Weber (D), who has since become the first African-American to serve as California’s secretary of state.
A spokesman for Newsom said on Wednesday afternoon that the administration was still in the process of reviewing the long report, but added that it was a major step forward for racial justice not only in California but across the country.
“Once again, California is leading the nation in a bipartisan way on racial justice and equality, which is a long overdue discussion that we need to have – not just in one state, but across America,” the governor’s office said in an email. . “We are also looking forward to reviewing the second report, which is expected next year.
California’s work came when the idea of reparations entered the mainstream of political conversation. More than three decades after it was first introduced in Congress, the House of Representatives bill, which will set up a federal commission to study reparations for black Americans, has enough votes to vote, say its key advocates. With odds against the bill in the evenly divided Senate, supporters are urging President Biden to sign an executive order that will set up a committee resembling the California Working Group.
A 2021 Washington Post survey found that 65% of Americans oppose the idea of monetary reparations for black Americans. A majority of Democrats – 46 percent – support the idea, while more than 90 percent of Republicans oppose it. Two-thirds of black respondents supported reparations, but only 18 percent of white respondents did so. Although the majority still opposes reparations, the number of those who support the idea has increased significantly compared to previous polls. A 1999 ABC News poll found that only 19 percent of Americans approve of reparations for black Americans.
Supporters say they have votes in the House to pass a bill on reparations after years of lobbying
“This must be a political campaign on top of a matter of politics and all kinds of moral arguments,” said James Lance Taylor, a professor of political science at the University of San Francisco and a member of the city’s reparations working group. “Everything in favor of expanding the rights of blacks has always been taken negatively. The odds are always against us, but we are further away than we ever were. ”
Much of the most difficult work for the task force remains to be done. After months of debate, the working group voted 5 to 4 in March. limiting monetary reparations only to people who can show where they come from Black Americans who were in the country before the early 20th century. But broader questions about the size and scope of monetary reparations – and even if they are possible – remain unanswered.
“I personally feel – it’s just me, it’s just my point of view – that white people will not give black money to put in their pockets,” said the Rev. Amos Brown, vice chairman and pastor of the Third Working Group. a Baptist church in the Fillmore neighborhood of San Francisco. “But if we can get programmatic solutions in areas where we can quantify the difference and show that the state is responsible, in areas like education, economics and our cultural enclaves, if we can get some form of reparations along these lines,” then I think we will have done a good job. “
But Chris Lodgson, organizer of the Coalition for a Fair and Just California, an advocacy group that helped draft the bill calling for the working group and continues to work closely with the committee by holding hearings, said cash payments are mandatory.
“We are of the position that if it is not direct compensation, it is not reparation,” Lodgson said. “So making real proposals that rely on them a lot Direct financial compensation is the big challenge for us next year, but I am convinced that we will do it. “
Supporters remain optimistic that they can find a way.
“California has shown the way on a number of big issues that were just as difficult as reparations, namely marriage equality and marijuana legalization, so if there’s one place that could have a similar effect on the reparations problem, it’s California. “Taylor,” I said. “This is the largest state in the union. It’s politically important, and it’s kind of a promise to the rest of America that no matter how outrageous the backlash policy is, there’s a blue wall in California.
Add Comment