Nearly two years after the California Reparations Task Force began work, the group has yet to make key decisions that will be at the heart of its final report recommending how the state should apologize and compensate residents. blacks for the damage caused by slavery and discrimination.
A vote possibly scheduled for this weekend on eligibility requirements for payments and other remedies has been delayed due to the absence of one of the nine committee members. But the group could vote on Saturday on whether lawmakers should create an agency to implement a possible reparations program.
Lawmakers passed legislation in 2020 creating the task force to assess how the legacy of slavery harmed African Americans long after it was abolished through education, criminal justice and other disparities. The legislation directs the task force to consider reparations proposals “with special consideration for” the descendants of enslaved black people living in California and is not intended to create a program in place of a government program federal.
The task force’s work has captured widespread attention, as it is the first of its kind in the country. But some used the group’s latest two-day meeting in Sacramento to warn that too few black Californians are knowledgeable enough about its work.
A resident said the task force revolutionary 500-page interim report, published last year, should be available in libraries and schools. But others said it’s not just up to the task force and its communications team to publicize their work.
“This room should be full of media, and it’s not because black people are outcasts,” Los Angeles attorney Cheryce Cryer said Saturday. “We are at the foot of the totem.”
The two-day rally in Sacramento, the state capital, comes as the group nears its July 1 deadline to release a report for lawmakers. The document will represent a milestone in a growing push for reparations efforts in different parts of the country. It’s a movement that has garnered the support of a large segment of African Americans, but also advocates that include Japanese Americans who fought for their families to receive payments from the federal government after residents were placed in internment camps during World War II.
Tariq Alami, a Sacramento resident who has followed the task force’s work since its inception, said it was clear the government should have enacted reparations for Black Americans a long time ago.
“It doesn’t take a genius to see that there are differences in society because of what we encountered as black people,” Alami said.
Dozens of attorneys and residents came from across the state to the California Environmental Protection Agency building to give public comments Friday and Saturday that ranged from detailing family history of property seizures to ancestors calling on federal lawmakers to follow California’s lead.
Once the task force releases its final report, the fate of its recommendations would then rest with state lawmakers, two of whom are members of the task force – Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer and State Senator Steven Bradford, both Democrats representing parts of Los Angeles. County. Lawmakers would also decide where funding for any reparations legislation could come from.
The task force spent several meetings discussing the timelines on which reparations might depend for five harms for which economists are pursuing estimates to help quantify the extent of discriminatory policies against black Californians.
These economists said Friday that some of the data and information they still need to get additional estimates include figures on the discrepancy between what the government paid black residents for the property it seized and the actual value. of these goods.
The task force has previously proposed the following timelines for the five wrongdoings, which begin either when the state was founded or when certain discriminatory policies were implemented: 1933 to 1977 for housing discrimination and homelessness, 1970 to 2020 for oversurveillance and mass incarceration, 1850 to 2020 for unjust land grabbing, 1900 to 2020 for damage to health, and 1850 to 2020 for devaluation of black-owned businesses.
Task force member Monica Montgomery Steppe on Friday expressed concern about making 1977 the cutoff year for housing discrimination and homelessness, given that black residents make up about a third Californians experiencing homelessness. This year was proposed based on the passage of the Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law stimulating lending in low- and middle-income neighborhoods.
Economists said using this year helps support their estimates of the effects of government-sponsored redlining when majority-black neighborhoods were often classified as “unsafe”.
“There are additional reasons people sleep rough,” Steppe said.
The task force voted last year to limit reparations to descendants of enslaved or free black people living in the United States from the 19th century. Members have yet to vote on whether compensation should be limited more to California residents or also include people who lived in the state and intended to stay but were displaced.
Elsewhere in the country, proposals for reparations for African Americans have had varying results. A bill that would allow the federal government to study reparations has not come close to a vote in Congress since it was first introduced in 1989.
Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, made national headlines in 2021 as the first city to offer reparations to black residents in the form of housing subsidies. But few have benefited from the program, according to the Washington Post. reported.
In December, the African American Reparations Advisory Committee of San Francisco released a disorganized proposing a payment of $5 million for each eligible person. The city’s board of supervisors is expected to vote on the committee’s final recommendations.
In New York, state lawmakers reintroduced a Invoice earlier this year that would create a commission to study reparations for African Americans.
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