The left-wing campaign for cities, states and the federal government to pay reparations as a way to make amends for slavery and racism is gaining momentum as more communities across the country weigh payment proposals – including for historically oppressed groups other than Black Americans.
The issue of reparations has dominated headlines in recent months in large part due to California, where a task force created by state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 has been examining the possibility of implementing statewide reparations.
Late last month, the task force released its final recommendations, which the state legislature will consider whether to implement and send to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.
In its approximately 1,000-page report, the task force proposed dozens of statewide policies and ways to calculate monetary reparations designed to redress slavery and historical injustices against Black Americans. According to the task force, such history has created lingering consequences that exist today in the form of systemic racism.
CALIFORNIA REPARATIONS PANEL CALLS TO AMEND STATE CONSTITUTION TO LEGALIZE RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
California’s Reparations Task Force says the state’s laws on child support contribute to the historical wrongdoing of Black Californians. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / File)
Critics counter that reparations proposals are fiscally unmanageable and don’t make sense by having people who never owned slaves pay money to others who never were slaves as way to atone for slavery.
Still, the task force estimated the minimum dollar amount in harm that California has caused or could have prevented totals at least $1 million per eligible Black Californian.
Beyond cash payments, the task force recommended a variety of other reparations proposals, such as ending the prosecution of low-level crimes and mandating “anti-bias training” as a graduate requirement for medical school, among other…
