California\u2019s reparations task panel approved recommendations to compensate and apologize to Black communities for centuries of discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a meeting in Oakland, the nine-member committee, which first met nearly two years ago, approved a lengthy list of reparations recommendations for state lawmakers to examine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the meeting, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), called on states and the federal government to implement reparations legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee said reparations are morally justified and could solve historical racial imbalances and inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The panel\u2019s first vote accepted a detailed assessment of Black Californian discrimination in voting, housing, education, disproportionate policing and incarceration, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other suggestions included creating a new organization to serve descendants of enslaved people and calculating what the state owes them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAn apology and an admission of wrongdoing alone is not going to be satisfactory,\u201d said Chris Lodgson, an organizer with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, a reparations advocacy group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task force\u2019s draft recommendation requires parliamentarians to \u201ccensure the gravest barbarities\u201d on behalf of the state in their apologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task force noted that California\u2019s first elected governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, was a white supremacist who supported legislation excluding Black people from the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The draft report states that California, a \u201cfree\u201d state since 1850, did not pass any laws guaranteeing freedom for all. Instead, the state Supreme Court enforced the federal Fugitive Slave Act for over a decade until freedom arrived in U.S. states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy participating in these horrors, California further perpetuated the harms African Americans faced, imbuing racial prejudice throughout society through segregation, public and private discrimination, and unequal state and federal funding,\u201d the study authors wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task team adopted a public apology, admitting the state\u2019s past wrongs and committing not to repeat them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would be presented to the descendants of enslaved people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
California apologized for interning Japanese Americans and mistreating Native Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The panel adopted the draft report\u2019s \u201ccash or its equivalent\u201d restitution for qualified residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oakland\u2019s Mills College of Northeastern University hosted over 100 citizens and activists. All lamented the country\u2019s \u201cbroken promise\u201d to give emancipated slaves 40 acres and a mule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many claimed it was time for governments to fix the harms that prevented African Americans from living without fear of being wrongly punished, maintaining property, and earning wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former Black Panther Party chairwoman Elaine Brown encouraged protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task force meeting was viewed as a pivotal moment in the push for local, state, and federal agencies to apologize for African American discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way in the world that many of these recommendations are going to get through because of the inflationary impact,\u201d said University of San Diego School of Law professor and reparations specialist Roy L. Brooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Economists predict the state may owe Black residents $800 billion, or 2.5 times its yearly budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The newest task force draft report has a much lower figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2020, Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a former Democratic assemblymember, authored legislation creating the task force to address the state\u2019s historical culpability for African American harms, not as a substitute for federal reparations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task team initially limited reparations to descendants of 19th-century enslaved or free Black individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As reparations for African Americans have had uneven success elsewhere, the group\u2019s work has received national attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Black residents in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, recently received housing vouchers as reparations, but few reportedly used them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A bill to acknowledge the inhumanity of slavery in New York and form a panel to investigate reparations proposals has cleared the Assembly but not the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A decades-old federal proposal to form a reparations panel for African Americans has stalled in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oakland City Council member Kevin Jenkins called the California task group \u201ca powerful example\u201d of what can happen when people work together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenkins stated, \u201cI am confident that through our collective efforts, we can significantly advance reparations in our great state of California and, ultimately, the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
California\u2019s reparations task panel approved recommendations to compensate and apologize to Black communities for centuries of discrimination. At a meeting in Oakland, the nine-member committee, which first met nearly two years ago, approved a lengthy list of reparations recommendations for state lawmakers to examine. At the meeting, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), called on states and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1481,1120,1480],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-black-californian","tag-black-communities","tag-u-s-rep-barbara-lee","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}