dollars (pixabay photo)
California is moving closer to determining what eligible black residents should receive from the government for generations of discriminatory actions, a key step toward a potential reversal of the largest U.S. jurisdiction to pay out billions of dollars in damages.
California’s corrections task force will meet over the next two days in Sacramento to assess how the reparations, which could include direct payments and investments in education, health and homeownership for black communities, should be distributed. The group is supposed to deliver its final recommendations to the state legislature by July 1, and it will be up to the lawmakers to decide whether to adopt them.
More in-
Tackling the issue is a complex task for the group of civil rights leaders, policymakers, economists and researchers appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd. One of the models being tested suggests that the state would owe a total of nearly $640 billion to the 1.8 million black Californians with an enslaved ancestor in the U.S., which amounts to about $360,000 per person.
The California task force has not yet said who will pay those amounts. After years of budget surpluses, the state’s financial fortunes are turning around, with a projected budget deficit of $22.5 billion. The technology sector is laying off workers, declines in the stock market are hurting the incomes of the high earners who pay a large portion of the taxes, and the state already has some of the highest taxes in the country.
With a federal reparations bill scrapped in Congress, how the outcome plays out in the most populous U.S. state could have implications for other areas considering similar efforts across the country. Evanston, Illinois, in 2021 became the first American city to grant reparations to its black residents, including providing housing grants, And reparations studies are popping up in places like New York and St. Louis.
“If California can admit its sins and change the narrative, then there is a path forward for states and cities across the country,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who wrote the bill that created the task force while serving in the state Assembly. .
One of the most difficult questions facing the task force is how to define the historical period to measure the harms experienced by black residents in a country where slavery was never legal. And they will have to show how the payments and policy changes will reduce the persistent racial wealth gap, which has left white families in the US with roughly six times more wealth than black families.
A common practice is to use the racial wealth gap as an indicator of losses suffered by black descendants of enslaved people, according to an interim report by a task force task force. Under that model, a conservative estimate would be that the country owes $636.7 billion.
Another proposed strategy would be to calculate damages related to various wrongs, including housing discrimination, mass incarceration, over-policing, health damages, business devaluation and property seizure.
California’s panel chair, Camilla Moore, tweeted a news story earlier this year that detailed proposals to fund reparations that included adding estate or estate levies or providing tax credits.
Some California cities, including Los Angeles, have launched their own reparations task forces outside of the state effort. In San Francisco, one prominent proposal involves a one-time payment of $5 million to each eligible black resident.
In the latest victory for restitution advocates, Los Angeles County has returned the deed to prime beachfront property that was forcibly taken from a black couple a century ago. The owners’ descendants have now decided to sell the property back to the county for nearly $20 million.
“These local initiatives are extremely important to start a conversation,” said Thomas Cramer, an associate professor of public policy at the University of Connecticut who consults with the California Task Force on Economic Methodology. “The past is the past. But we can start a conversation about it by making an advance and then addressing the other injustices that happened.”
The compensation issue divided public opinion. About three-quarters of black Americans say the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid in some way, while only 18 percent of white Americans feel the same way, according to a Pew Research Center study.
“We don’t have to go back to 1619 or 1863 to find tangible harm,” said Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer Sr., a member of the task force, referring to the years when enslaved people arrived and the Emancipation Proclamation was passed. . “The legacy of slavery and discrimination continues in denying access to buying homes, to quality education, to health services. These are all things that economists can measure.”
Comments to the article(0):
Your response has been received and will be published subject to system policy.
Thanks.
for a new comment
Your response was not sent due to a communication problem, please try again.
Return to comment