California’s compensation task force has approved recommendations that could award billions of dollars in compensation to black Californians for decades of state-sanctioned discrimination.
The proposal On Saturday it was approved by a legislative task force to study and develop reparations plans for African Americans and will be sent to state lawmakers by July 1. It represents a far-reaching effort to redress black Americans for centuries of entrenched local racist policies. , State and Central Governments.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who is running for the Senate, said at the meeting Saturday that “this is a model for other states looking for compensatory damages, realistic ways to address the need for compensation.”
The next challenge facing reparations activists is persuading fellow Californians to go along with the government’s most expensive reparations plan for black Americans.
A 2021 Washington Post poll found that 65 percent of Americans opposed paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved black Americans. While 46 percent of Democrats supported the idea, 92 percent of Republicans opposed it. Two-thirds of black respondents supported the idea, but only 18 percent of white respondents did.
The plan will land on lawmakers’ desks long after the height of racial justice protests and at a time when the state is facing a $22.5 billion budget deficit.
What’s possible in politically progressive and racially diverse California could set a benchmark for reparations movements that have sprouted in more than a dozen cities and states in recent years.
