Tag: reparations

Reckless Reparations Reckoning

The last time racial reparations made the major news was on the eve of September 11, 2001 attacks. The loss of 3,000 Americans, which for a time fueled a new national unity, quickly dispelled the absurdities of the reparation movement, and turned our attention toward more existential issues. 

Now the idea is back in vogue again. Here are 10 reasons why the nation’s—and especially California’s—discussions of reparatory payouts are dangerous in a multiracial state, and why reparations are not viable either in an insolvent state or a bankrupt nation at large.

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Black activists hold armed rally to demand reparations in Virginia

Multiple BLM-affiliated groups held an armed rally in Richmond, Virginia demanding reparations for descendants of former slaves.

Video showed BLM757, BLMRVA, and the Fred Hampton Gun Club participating in the rally on Monday, armed with rifles in the gun-free zone of the State Capitol.

Police did not enforce the gun-free zone. However, the group complied when police told the armed activists to move back toward a sidewalk because they did not have a protest permit. 

According to independent journalist and documentarian Ford Fischer, the group was advocating for reparations as well as the passage of HR40, a congressional bill to study the subject.

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San Francisco reparations panel pitches $5M — each — to black residents

A San Francisco panel studying reparations has proposed a one-time payment of $5 million to each black resident of the city deemed eligible as recompense for the “decades of harm they have experienced,” according to a report on Monday.

“A lump sum payment would compensate the affected population … and will redress the economic and opportunity losses that​ ​Black San Franciscans have endured, collectively, as the result of both intentional decisions and​ ​unintended harms perpetuated by City policy​,” the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee said in a draft report issued last month, Fox News Digital reported. ​

The proposal could cost the city, which has a 2022-2023 budget of $14 billion, roughly $50 billion, the Daily Mail reported.

The committee also proposed wiping out all debts associated with educational, personal, credit card and payday loans for black households.

The 15-member pan​el was established by San Francisco supervisors in May 2021. A separate task force created by California’s legislature is also studying reparations.

The city group’s report says: “Reparation​ ​must be adequate, effective, prompt, and should be proportional to the gravity of the violations and the harm suffered.​”​

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St. Louis mayor plans reparations committee for black residents

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones signed an executive order to establish a volunteer panel that will determine the degree to which black residents of St. Louis have suffered from racism. The stated goal of the committee is to explore the history of “race-based harms” in St. Louis and reveal the “present-day manifestations” created by said history.

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, Jones came to the conclusion that the panel was needed after a “growing tapestry of equity-based analyses” shed light on the city’s history of violence, segregation, and exploitation that she says has left it as one of the most divided cities in the country.

“I look forward to reviewing this commission’s work to chart a course that restores the vitality of Black communities in our city after decades of disinvestment,” the mayor remarked in a statement. “We cannot succeed as a city if one half is allowed to fail,” she declared.

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California Reparations Committee Recommends $223K Each for State’s ‘Black’ or ‘African American’ Residents

A California committee formed to determine how much in reparations black people should receive due to slavery and past discrimination has determined that each of the 2.5 million California residents who identify as “Black” or “African American” should be paid $223,000 each for “housing discrimination.”

The total cost of reparations just for housing — there are four other causes for reparations the committee will consider — would be more than $569 billion. That’s $40 billion more than the entire state budget.

The committee has also recognized mass incarceration, unjust property seizures, devaluation of Black businesses, and healthcare as other causes for reparations.

The committee was created in 2020 after the Democratic legislature authorized its formation. It has until June 2023 to submit its recommendations.

“We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction,” Jovan Scott Lewis, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the task force, told the New York Times.

Californians eligible for reparations, the task force decided in March, would be descendants of enslaved African Americans or of a “free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century.” Nearly 6.5 percent of California residents, roughly 2.5 million, identify as Black or African American. The panel is now considering how reparations should be distributed — some favor tuition and housing grants while others want direct cash payments.

That’s the stickiest issue of all. Who is eligible and how do you prove it?  How much “black blood” will you need to claim any of the cash? These issues are impossible to adjudicate fairly, but no one on the commission is concerned about “fairness” It’s a punitive form of “justice” and needs to be stopped in its tracks before it gets started.

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‘We’re not going to move on’: Hakeem Jeffries cosponsors slavery reparations bill

Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the potential House Democratic leader who has been endorsed by outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is a cosponsor of the slavery reparations study legislation currently pending in the House.

Formally titled the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, H.R. 40 passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in April 2021, but it has not been put up for a full House vote.

The bill would establish a 13-member commission to “examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.” The United States declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776.

“Year after year, decade after decade, century after century, we’ve come a long way,” Jeffries said during a Brookings Institution discussion addressing “structural racism” in U.S. public policy institutions in February 2020. “But, you know, some notion of truth and reconciliation, how do we move forward toward a more perfect union, I think has got to be part of any conversation connected to H.R. 40.”

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Biden agrees to pay climate REPARATIONS: US will pay up to $1BN to compensate developing countries for global warming – but gas-guzzling China WON’T have to pay into global fund

Joe Biden says the US will sign-up to a UN-backed fund to pay reparations to developing countries worst-affected by climate change.  

The creation of the fund was announced Saturday. It was negotiated at the United Nations‘ COP27 Summit in Egypt, was originally known as a ‘loss and damage’ fund and had been blocked by previous American administrations. 

The nations who’ll benefit from the funds are largely from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. They say they’re set to be worst-affected by rising sea levels and other weather extremes blamed on carbon emissions created by wealthier countries. 

Last year, Biden was granted $1 billion to help developing countries tackle climate change, although it’s unclear if that cash will go into this fund. 

The president also faces having his plans stymied by the GOP-majority house, which would have to approve any funding mooted by the White House.

There will be wrangles with fellow UN members over who pays what – which could well mean nothing gets done until after the next presidential election in 2024. 

And if a Republican like GOP golden boy Ron DeSantis ends up winning the presidency, the fund could face being scrapped again. 

Donald Trump famously pulled the US out of the 2015 UN Paris Accord on climate change, saying it represented a bad deal for America – with DeSantis known to share many of the 45th president’s views. 

China – the world’s biggest polluter – wouldn’t have to contribute to any global fund, because it is still considered a developing nation, despite its vast wealth. 

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Sitting Congresswoman Claims That Reparations Could Have Slowed The Spread Of COVID

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) claimed that if reparations for slavery had been implemented, that might have helped to contain the spread of COVID during the recent global pandemic.

Jackson Lee took to the House floor on Thursday to rally support for H.R. 40, a bill that would establish a congressional commission to study the potential cost and impact of reparations.

Noting that COVID infection rates among minority communities had initially appeared to be greater than among white Americans or the population at large, Jackson Lee cited a Harvard Medical School study that said living conditions — and work environments in the African American community were more conducive to the virus’ rapid spread.

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California panel set to release report calling for ‘comprehensive reparations’ to Black Americans

A California task force on reparations  – the first of its kind in the nation – is set to release a report on Wednesday outlining several ways to address what it believes to be wrongs committed by the state against Black Americans.

The report calls for expanded voter registration, policies to hold police more accountable in cases of alleged brutality, and recommends the creation of a special office that would, in part, help Black Americans who descended from free or enslaved Black people in the country at the end of the 19th century document their eligibility for financial restitution.

The report, which runs 500 pages, will be the first government-commissioned study on harms against the African American community since the 1968 Kerner Commission report ordered by President Lyndon Johnson, task force Chair Kamilah Moore said.

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Slave descendants question Georgetown’s $1 billion reparations fund

A year after the Jesuit university announced the reparation fund, descendants of slaves owned by Georgetown have questions

Descendants of slaves owned by the Jesuit religious order and Georgetown University have questions about where the money raised for reparations has gone.

The Catholic university first announced in April 2021 the plans to raise $1 billion to make reparations, though not individual payments, to atone for the Jesuits’ past ownership and sale of slaves. The Jesuits had a goal to raise $100 million in the short-term, according to the initial announcement.

A year later, the descendants of some of the 272 slaves want to know how the money has been spent.

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