Saturday saw historic news in the realm of reparations.
The nine-member Reparations Task Force panel in California approved recommendations that could mean a sum in the neighborhood of $800 billion dollars (according to economists) in payments to Black residents. This is the most comprehensive and historic attempt at setting up a reparations program, and the potential payout is almost three times the state budget of California.
Formed during the slew of racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the panel has spent over a year conducting research and holding listening sessions from the Bay Area to San Diego. They produced a report detailing how restitution should be handled to address a myriad of racist harms over time in housing, incarceration, and healthcare inequality. However, it will be up to legislators to weigh the recommendations and decide whether to act on them.
The task force’s final report is to be sent to lawmakers in Sacramento before a July 1 deadline. Estimates in the report cover a varied number of issues to address. Eligible Black Californians affected by redlining should receive up to $148,099. That estimate is based on a figure of $3,366 for each year they lived in California from the early 1930s to the late 1970s when redlining was at its peak. To address over-policing, eligible Black persons would receive $115,260, or about $2,352 for each year of residency in California from 1971 to 2020, the years of the “War on Drugs.”
Hypothetically, a lifelong state Black resident who is 71 years old could be eligible for roughly $1.2 million in total compensation for housing discrimination, mass incarceration and additional harms. All of the estimates are preliminary and would require additional research from lawmakers.
Nationwide, opinions on reparations are broadly not in favor (roughly 70% oppose) but they are sharply divided along racial lines. Last fall, a survey from the Pew Research Center found that 77% of Black Americans say the descendants of slaves should be repaid, while just 18% of white Americans say the same. Democrats were pretty much evenly split on the issue, and less than 10% of Republicans were in favor of reparations. Race isn’t the only fault line; age is another, with more adults under 30 being in favor of reparations than their older counterparts.
Naturally, supporters for and against have strong feelings. The reparations panel has been holding public meetings, and during one of them an activist identified as Reverend Tony Pierce was one of the most outspoken.
“You know that the numbers should be equivocal [sic] to what an acre was back then. We were given 40, OK? We were given 40 acres. You know what that number is. You keep trying to talk about now, yet you research back to slavery and you say nothing about slavery, nothing,” said Pierce when at the podium. “So, the equivocal [sic] number from the 1860s for 40 acres to today is $200 million for each and every African-American.”
Other liberals in favor were less ideologically bullish and more generally supportive. California Assemblyman and panel member Reggie Jones-Sawyer called the effort “a trial against America’s original sin, slavery, and the repercussions it caused and the lingering effects in modern society.”
Critics, meanwhile, point out the potential financial nightmare that could come from these expensive payments given that California’s economy is in the midst of a deficit.
Others, as surveyed in a piece for NPR, such as Jeff Bernauer of Alabama, say it’s not a problem that modern generations should atone for.
“The generation that would be paying for it have nothing to do with what was done in the past,” he says. “And then you’re paying people that have nothing to do with it in the past.”
Terry Keuhn of New York does not like the idea of a program that would only help some people.
“We’re all immigrants at some point, whether it was voluntary or forced,” she says. “And nobody needs a handout anymore. Everybody, you know, pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps and works for a living and makes their way in this world.”
The conflict between a sense of justice to grapple with a grave national sin and the economic difficulties mixed with an affront to traditional American values of individualism seems to be the defining argument that will play out as reparations become a more common conversation in cities across the country.
