{"id":15421,"date":"2023-07-12T04:03:19","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T09:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15421"},"modified":"2023-07-12T04:03:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T09:03:25","slug":"california-faces-backlash-as-it-weighs-historic-reparations-for-black-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15421","title":{"rendered":"California faces backlash as it weighs historic reparations for Black residents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As California<\/a> considers implementing large-scale reparations for Black residents affected by the legacy of slavery, the state has also become the focus of the nation\u2019s divisive reparations conversation, drawing the backlash of conservatives criticizing the priorities of a \u201cliberal\u201d state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReparations for Slavery? California\u2019s Bad Idea Catches On,\u201d commentator Jason L Riley wrote<\/a> in the Wall Street Journal, as New York approved a commission<\/a> to study the idea. In the Washington Post, conservative columnist George F Will said<\/a> the state\u2019s debate around reparations adds to a \u201cplague of solemn silliness\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea of reparations, according to 2021 polling<\/a> from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and 2022 polling<\/a> from the Pew Research Center. Both found that more than 80% Black respondents support some kind of compensation for the descendants of slaves, while a similar majority of white respondents opposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pew found that roughly two-thirds of Hispanics and Asian Americans opposed, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in California, there\u2019s greater support. Both the state\u2019s Reparations Task Force \u2013 which released its 1,100-page final report and recommendations to the public<\/a> on 29 June \u2013 and a University of California, Los Angeles study<\/a> found that roughly two-thirds of Californians are in favor of some form of reparations, though residents are divided on what they should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When delving into the reasons why people resist, Tatishe Nteta, who directed the UMass poll, expected feasibility or the challenges of implementing large programs to top the list, but this wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we ask people why they oppose, it\u2019s not about the cost. It\u2019s not about logistics. It\u2019s not about the impossibility to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery,\u201d said Nteta, provost professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. \u201cIt is consistently this notion that the descendants of slaves do not deserve these types of reparations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In California, notions of deservedness may be tied to a commonly referenced facet of the state\u2019s identity \u2013 that it joined the union as a free state in 1850.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that supposedly serious people in San Francisco are considering a plan that would give $5,000,000 in reparations to every Black resident in their city in a state that never had slavery is a joke,\u201d Republican representative Lauren Boebert tweeted<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Newsmax, Michael Reagan \u2013 son of President Ronald Reagan, who signed the 1988 bill<\/a> apologizing and giving reparations to Japanese Americans for their imprisonment during the second world war \u2013 called<\/a> reparations a \u201ccash grab\u201d and a \u201cscam\u201d that will force non-Black residents to \u201cinclude the state in their will\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one should be taking this seriously at all. This is hilarious,\u201d Fox News host Greg Gutfeld said<\/a> of San Francisco\u2019s proposal on The Five. \u201cThey don\u2019t want this. What they want is to divide people, to create another commotion over race \u2026 White leftists do worse things to Blacks than the Aryan Nations ever could.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the Fox clip online, a comment with nearly 700 likes reads: \u201cA state that never ALLOWED slaves wants to take billions of dollars from people who never OWNED slaves to give to people who never WERE slaves. Welcome to California.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the state\u2019s history is more complicated, said A Kirsten Mullen, co-author of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century with William A Darity Jr, professor of public policy, African and African American studies and economics at Duke University. Both she and Darity \u2013 who is also her husband \u2013 are members of the expert team appointed by the task force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the state constitution banned slavery, Mullen said, the Fugitive Slave Law<\/a> allowed slaveholders to use violent measures to return enslaved people who entered California before its statehood. Many Confederates traveled west, too: brothers John and Joseph Le Conte, for example, became prominent early faculty<\/a> at the University of California, Berkeley. John Le Conte, a physicist who espoused white supremacy, served as its first acting president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task force\u2019s final report<\/a>, which follows last year\u2019s 500-page interim report<\/a>, lays out the state\u2019s role in detail, from how enslaved people were brought to California during the Gold Rush to how prevalent KKK members were among city officials. It also looked beyond slavery to the harms and ancillary effects of other forms of racism, such as housing segregation, unequal education, medical experimentation and sterilization, mass incarceration and greater risk of death from Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCalifornia, though it has this reputation, it\u2019s not necessarily well deserved for being a more liberal place,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cUltimately, what [the people of that time] learned was there was no place where Black people were treated with respect and had equality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That history left a stark economic divide. For every dollar that white families earn today, Black families earn 60 cents, according to a report<\/a> from the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan thinktank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe racial wealth gap is a premier indicator of the cumulative effects of intergenerational racism in this country,\u201d Mullen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who oppose reparations for the wrongs of centuries past may not think modern recipients deserve compensation, Nteta said, but they also don\u2019t think they deserve to be the ones responsible for compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea,\u201d Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, whose ancestry<\/a> includes slave owners, told reporters<\/a> in 2019. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We\u2019ve elected an African American president.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent research that he plans to investigate further, Nteta and his team found greater support for a range of reparations for victims of Jim Crow policies \u2013 many of those harmed are alive today, and so are their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This recency is also likely a part of why the Civil Liberties Act, which offered $20,000, an official apology and other redress to Japanese Americans incarcerated during the second world war, saw success, Nteta said. It was co-sponsored by Congressman Norman Mineta, the nation\u2019s first Asian American cabinet member, who was incarcerated with his family<\/a> as a boy. While the legislation encountered its own hurdles<\/a>, it eventually saw enough bipartisan support to make it to the desk of a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, who signed the bill in 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In California, Mullen and the economists on the expert team were tasked with determining dollar figures for specific harms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The preliminary projection<\/a> to address housing discrimination, for example, estimated up to $148,099 per Black resident, or $3,366 for each year in California from 1933-1977, the height of redlining practices. The estimate to address these harms could exceed $800bn<\/a>, more than 2.5 times the state\u2019s budget of $300bn<\/a>. Restitution over time could take a variety of forms, such as cash payments, community investments, tuition assistance and housing grants, like the city of Evanston, Illinois, introduced<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cash payments are less popular than other types of compensation in the UMass polling data, and California governor Gavin Newsom has not endorsed<\/a> the idea of large cash payments. For many in the reparations movement, Nteta said, the larger conversation goes beyond the payments themselves.

\u201cThis is about recognizing one of the nation\u2019s original sins, and the nation as a collective entity atoning for that and doing so substantively,\u201d Nteta said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But backlash against progress towards racial equality is nothing new. Mullen said this is the human response to change, particularly when any majority\u2019s station is challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It happened when newly emancipated Black people were denied 40-acre land grants<\/a>, when the black codes<\/a> restricted their rights following the end of the civil war, through Jim Crow and beyond. Historically, she said, punishments also extended to white allies who aided Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are still lots of ways that folks are protecting their hegemony,\u201d Mullen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is new is the pervasiveness of discussion. She credits this to the expanded availability of information \u2013 documentation of more than 100 massacres between Reconstruction and the end of the second world war, online archives of Black newspapers, databases through the Library of Congress and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to read it, to learn it without at least having to question what you\u2019ve been taught, what you\u2019ve read, and wonder what the implications are,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cSome of it is our fear of what we stand to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Nteta and state assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a member of the nine-person task force, noted that the size and influence of California \u2013 the nation\u2019s largest economy<\/a> \u2013 drives the volume of discussion about reparations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs California goes, so goes the rest of the country,\u201d Jones-Sawyer said. \u201cI think that\u2019s why there\u2019s pushback, because people really do understand that if we\u2019re able to resolve this in some fashion, it will start the resolution of a lot of these problems across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the nation enters a presidential election cycle, Nteta expects the potential for political fallout to limit Democratic focus on reparations. Decades of scholarship, he said, makes the case that Democrats tend to lose national elections when they center the interests or experiences of African Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this will go under the broad umbrella of \u2018This is where \u201cwokeness\u201d gets you \u2013 to a place where you\u2019re sending $5m to individuals simply because of the color of their skin,\u2019\u201d Nteta said. He expects to hear Martin Luther King Jr\u2019s I Have a Dream speech used to make the case that reparations are antithetical to our overarching values \u2013 content of character \u2013 even though King himself supported<\/a> reparations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, the idea of studying reparations found little traction at the federal level. Beginning in 1989, Representative John Conyers opened each session of Congress with HR 40 \u2013 named after the unfulfilled promise of 40 acres and a mule<\/a> for the newly emancipated \u2013 until his retirement in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But public attitudes might be changing slowly for a number of reasons, Nteta said, including the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the work of the Black Lives Matter movement and resistance to the ways white supremacy surfaced during the years of the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee has since revived HR 40<\/a> and, in 2021, Congress voted to advance<\/a> the bill. It was met with unanimous opposition from Republicans on the House judiciary committee, who saw a panel\u2019s findings as a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if any state could pass legislation, it\u2019s California, Nteta said, since a large percentage of the legislature is progressive, many of whom can avoid fallout because their term limits are approaching, and it has a progressive governor who has sometimes bucked national trends. If it passes in California, it may hit the dominoes of states with similar political characteristics, like Massachusetts or New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The task force\u2019s final report makes a significant number of recommendations, including a formal apology, updates to the language of the state constitution, recruitment of more African American educators, declaration of election day as a paid holiday to increase access to the polls, expanded rights for incarcerated people and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones-Sawyer and state senator Steven Bradford, also a member of the task force, will work to put forward legislation next year. He said he hopes it will serve as a blueprint for other marginalized people, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is so critically important to do this for the welfare of the economy, the welfare of the social system, the welfare of public safety, the welfare of our educational system,\u201d Jones-Sawyer said. \u201cAll of that benefits when we are not kept down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theguardian<\/a><\/strong><\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As California considers implementing large-scale reparations for Black residents affected by the legacy of slavery, the state has also become the focus of the nation\u2019s divisive reparations conversation, drawing the backlash of conservatives criticizing the priorities of a \u201cliberal\u201d state. \u201cReparations for Slavery? California\u2019s Bad Idea Catches On,\u201d commentator Jason L Riley wrote in the Wall Street Journal, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[7723,1189,9730,9731,6473],"class_list":["post-15421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-black-residents","tag-california","tag-compensation-disputes","tag-opinion-polls","tag-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15423,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15421\/revisions\/15423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}