UPDATED: 8:00 a.m. ET., May 9, 2023
Could reparations be coming to reality in the United States?
Last weekend, California’s reparations task force voted to approve recommendations on compensating the descendants of Black enslaved people in the state. The list of proposals also includes cash payments and an official apology for generations of harmful discriminatory policies.
Let’s break down what was in the final report:
In the final report, the Committee detailed years of discrimination against Black Californians, which included voting, housing, education, disproportionate policing and incarceration as well as others.
One of the first recommendations from the panel is that lawmakers craft an apology on behalf of the state that must “include a censure of the gravest barbarities.” Secondly, the panel recommends a new agency be created specifically to provide services to descendants of enslaved people as well as provide cash payments to those eligible.
The task force then gave two recommendations for how those eligible could be compensated: cumulative compensation for an eligible class and particular compensation for individuals for provable harms.
Cumulative compensation takes into account community harms such as health disparities, mass incarceration, over-policing and housing discrimination. Particular compensation would require documented evidence of their harm before being eligible for payouts.
Other proposals from the group include declaring election day a paid state holiday, restoring voting rights to all formerly and currently incarcerated people, and implementing rent caps in historically redlined neighborhoods.
Economists in California met with the Reparations task force in March and estimated it will cost more than $800 billion to compensate the descendants of Black enslaved people in the state.
Also proposed, but not included in the $800 billion, was a recommended $1 million per older Black resident for health…
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