A few weeks ago, I reported that a nine-member California Reparations Task Force has estimated that black state residents could receive more than $223,000 each in reparations for the enduring economic effects of racism and slavery.
To put that amount in perspective, it has been estimated that it would cost around $569 billion to compensate the 2.5 million black Californians. That total is more than California’s $512.8billion expenditure in 2021 – which included funding for schools, hospitals, universities, and other civilization-essential services.
Now, the chair of California’s Reparations Task Force has said that black people are really owed $1 million each for “harms.”
Speaking with the Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Kamilah Moore said her task force found that California’s redlining housing practices targeting black Americans between 1933 and 1977 has had a direct effect on today’s homeless community.
Dubbing housing discrimination as one of the ‘five state sanction atrocities’ against black people, the panel initially recommended to California lawmakers that the state pay up $223,200 to each black resident.
Moore previously said economists on the panel estimated that black Californians descended from slaves were owed $1 million per person in reparations.
. . . . Prior to the task force’s first public meeting last month, Moore discussed the group’s work with economists on how to put a value on the ‘atrocities’ that impacted the black community.
‘They came up with $127,000 per year of the life expectancy gap between Black and white Californians,’ Moore said during a panel at Harvard. ‘That comes to just under $1 million for each Black Californian descended from slaves.’
Moore noted that ‘California can’t pay all that,’ so the task force will be spending the next six months hammering out an adequate value and payment method to recommend to state lawmakers.’
So, I guess the $223,000 each is a compromise we should be grateful for.
Hellbound and Down 