Tag: reparations

Nearly a dozen mayors moving forward with slavery reparations plans

Nearly a dozen mayors in towns and cities across the United States are moving forward with local plans to offer reparations in one form or another to black Americans in an attempt to rectify the alleged lingering effects of U.S. slavery.

The group, Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity, consists of high-profile U.S. mayors such as Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Steven Adler of Austin, Texas, along with executives from smaller cities such as Asheville, N.C.’s Esther Manheimer and Keisha Currin of Tullahassee, Okla. 

The mayors “are committed to moving that needle with action and advocacy that points toward justice and healing the wounds of history,” the group says on its website. 

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California — a state that never practiced slavery — moves forward with slavery reparations plan

On Tuesday, a first-of-its-kind task force charged with studying the issue and developing proposals for redress convened for its inaugural meeting, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The task force is the result of a bill signed last year by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that required members to draft a formal apology to black Americans and come up with various financial remedies for the lingering effects of discriminatory practices in the country.

“As our country reckons with our painful legacy of racial injustice, California again is poised to lead the way towards a more equitable and inclusive future for all,” Newsom said at the meeting.

California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta added, “Although the horrors of slavery may have begun in the past, its harms are felt every single day by Black Americans in the present.”

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BLM activist Bree Newsome calls for land reapportionment as part of reparations

Black Lives Matter leader Bree Newsome calls for reparations in the form of land reapportionment. She wrote on Twitter that crimes committed by the ancestors of white people should be paid by those descendants. Those who have benefited from the gains of white criminals past, she posits, should not be able to use those assets, if they are currently in possession of them.

“Amazing how white people commit atrocities in one generation & then they just disappear from existence,” she wrote. “No descendants, no names, no current wealth or land holdings that can be identified as a result of the atrocity.

“Only Black survivors exist with living memory apparently,” she wrote. The idea is that those who still have the land that belonged to their forefathers should relinquish it to the descendants of those who had been harmed by racist past practices. Newsome basically believes that children are responsible for the sins of their parents.

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House Judiciary Committee Approves Bill for Commission on Reparations for Slavery

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would create a commission to study reparations for black Americans for slavery. The vote was along party lines, 25 Democrats voting yes and 17 Republicans voting against.

The bill has been designated as H.R. 40, in reference to the “40 acres and a mule” once promised to freed slaves in the South.

The bill would create a 15-member “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” which would recommend “appropriate remedies.” The text of the bill argues that slavery resulted in “systemic” discrimination against black Americans whose effects endure: “[A] preponderance of scholarly, legal, community evidentiary documentation and popular culture markers constitute the basis for inquiry into the on-going effects of the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic structures of discrimination on living African Americans and society in the United States.”

It is not clear who would pay reparations to whom. Moreover, as the Washington Post noted, one Democrat’s comments highlight another potential problem with the idea: namely, that once reparations for “systemic” problems in the past begin, it is unclear where they should end.

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SF district attorney withdraws charges against defendant in attack on Asian man

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin withdrew charges on Monday against one of two suspects in a disturbing attack on an Asian man in San Francisco’s Bayview that was captured on video and prompted outrage from city leaders, officials said.

The district attorney’s office will pursue a “restorative justice” model against 20-year-old Dwayne Grayson, who was booked last week on suspicion of robbery, elder abuse, a hate crime charge and probation violation following the Feb. 22 incident.

Police said Grayson recorded the attack and posted it to social media.

Boudin charged him with elder abuse last week, but pulled back the charges after having a conversation with the victim, said Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office. The victim has not been identified or spoken publicly about the incident.

“We’ve been in conversation with the victim who expressed interest in a restorative justice outcome in this case,” Bastian said. “Specifically, against the young person who videoed the incident. We respect victims and their desires, and we will explore a restorative justice outcome.”

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Democrats Ban White Farmers From Federal COVID Relief Program

Last week, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. The bill, comprised of $1.9 trillion in the name of “COVID relief,” received no support from Republicans in the House or Senate, and it’s not hard to see why.

The legislation includes carveouts for dozens of leftist priorities, including a bridge in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s New York and a tunnel in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Silicon Valley. These items clearly have nothing to do with pandemic relief for the millions of Americans out of work or the businesses shuttered by blue state governors’ harsh public health regulations. To the hardworking Americans everywhere, this bill should reek of the far-left’s desire to shove their ill-conceived policy priorities wherever they can stash them.

What most don’t know about this bill, however, is the small provision known as “Section 1005” that authorizes the secretary of agriculture to make payments of 100 to 120 percent of the “outstanding indebtedness of socially disadvantaged farmers.” Under this provision, those included in the socially disadvantaged category are American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Asians, Blacks, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics.

Putting aside all of the Washington jargon that makes little sense outside of a committee hearing room, this provision—specifically written into the American Rescue Plan by Democrats—pushes a blurred vision of so-called “social equity” by providing relief for farmers based on the color of their skin. Rather than offering much needed relief to all farmers, Sec. 1005 prioritizes race, just as it would ethnicity, sex, or any other factor.

It bears repeating: Sec. 1005 focuses debt relief on farmers based on their race, not based on how harshly the pandemic has affected them—the very reason for relief in the first place. Ironically, this racial discrimination is the very focus of what officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have worked so hard to combat.

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White farmers blast $5bn promised to minority farm-owners in Biden’s relief bill as discrimination and ‘racism’ with Sen. Lindsey Graham claiming it is a form of ‘reparations’

White farmers have voiced their frustration after President Joe Biden‘s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package this week awarded $5billion to minority farmers while not offering them the same aid.

The Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act was introduced to the relief package by Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock in early February to provide immediate financial relief to black, indigenous, and Hispanic farmers.

The bill provides $4billion in direct payments to farmers of color and has allocated $1 billion to address systemic racism at the U.S. Agriculture Department (USAD), providing legal assistance to farmers of color and grants and loans to improve land access for minorities.

The $4billion will provide direct payments of up to 120 percent of a ‘socially disadvantaged’ farmer or rancher’s outstanding debt as of January 1, 2021.

Yet white farmers believe the add-on to the relief package is discriminatory as South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham blasts the money as ‘reparations’.

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Professor suspended for tweets criticizing reparations and bias training

The tweets that led to Manco’s suspension were posted on his pseudo account, “South Jersey Giants.” Someone figured out Manco was the owner of the account, took screenshots of some tweets, and posted them on Instagram.

In one of the tweets shared, Manco argued against slavery reparations, saying, they were like the great-great-grandchild of a murder victim asking the great-great-grandchild of a convicted murdered for compensation. “Now, get this racist reparation bullshit out of your head for good,” Manco added in the tweet.

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Obama: ‘White Resistance and Resentment’ Prevented Reparations Push

Former President Barack Obama says that “the politics of White resistance and resentment” kept him from pushing for financial reparations for Black Americans while he was in office.

In the second episode of his podcast with Bruce Springsteen, “Renegades: Born in the USA,” released on Monday, Obama said that he thinks reparations are “justified,” despite having opposed it during the 2008 election.

Obama said, “there’s not much question that the wealth … the power of this country was built in significant part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it, but a large portion of it — was built on the backs of slaves.”

He added that a proposal for reparations failed during his presidency because of “the politics of White resistance and resentment.” 

The former president said, “And what I saw during my presidency was the politics of White resistance and resentment. The talk of ‘welfare queens’ and the talk of the ‘undeserving’ poor. And the backlash against affirmative action.”

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