California task force to study reparations for Black Americans

Discussions about reparations for Black Americans have gained new momentum after a summer of racial reckoning. California is the first state to pass a law that will explore what that could look like.

|
Office of the Governor/AP
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill that establishes a task force to deliver recommendations on reparations for Black Americans, Sept. 30, 2020, in Sacramento, California. The task force will decide the eligibility for and scope of any reparations.

California will develop a detailed plan for reparations under a new law signed on Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, making it the first state to mandate a study of how it can make amends for its role in the oppression of Black people.

The law creates a nine-member task force to come up with proposals for how the state could provide reparations to Black Americans, what form those reparations might take, and who would be eligible to receive them.

“This is not just about California, this is about making an impact, and a dent, across the rest of the country,” Mr. Newsom said moments after signing the bill during a ceremony broadcast on his YouTube channel.

The law does not limit reparations to slavery, although it requires the task force to give special consideration for Black people who are descendants of slaves.

California never had a government-sanctioned system of slavery. It entered the Union in 1850 as a free state after gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains. But the state did let slave-owning whites bring their slaves to California. The Legislature even passed a law making it legal to arrest runaway slaves and return them to their owners.

“California has come to terms with many of these issues, but it has yet to come to terms with its role in slavery,” said Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, a Democrat from San Diego who authored the bill.

The law does not say the reparations must be cash payments. Other options could include forgiving student loans and paying for public works projects or job training. In July, the City Council in Asheville, North Carolina, approved reparations by pledging to make investments in areas where Black people face disparities.

Reparations are not without precedent in the United States. The U.S. government partially funded German reparations to Holocaust victims following World War II. And in 1988, the federal government set up a reparations program for Japanese-Americans who were held in concentration camps during World War II.

Reparations for slavery have been debated for decades in the U.S. A similar proposal to study reparations for Black Americans was first introduced in Congress in 1989. It has never passed, but Congress held a hearing on the proposal last year.

Momentum has been building once again for similar proposals in state and local governments across the country after the May police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota reignited a national movement for racial justice. State legislatures in Texas, New York, and Vermont have considered studying reparations, but none have passed measures.

Mr. Newsom would appoint five members of California’s task force. The other four would come from the Legislature, with two each appointed by the leaders of the state Senate and Assembly. The law says the task force must include at least two people from “major civil society and reparations organizations” and at least one person from academia who is an expert in civil rights.

The task force must have its first meeting no later than June 1. It must submit its recommendations to the state Legislature one year after its first meeting.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to California task force to study reparations for Black Americans
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2020/1001/California-task-force-to-study-reparations-for-Black-Americans
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe