A budget deal between Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Democrats set aside a measly $12 million for “reparations,” which means “redress for the descendants of former slaves in California.” Some well-known members of the Legislative Black Caucus pushed for this.
On Saturday, chair of the Black Caucus and Assemblymember Lori Wilson (D-Suisun City), said, “That is a win.”
It doesn’t feel like a victory. It shouldn’t be thought of as one either.
Thousands of Black people in California are running out of time and money and are trying very hard to make ends meet. The California Reparations Task Force was set up in 2020 to look into and come up with policies, such as cash reparations, to help Black Californians, especially those whose relatives lost wealth because of slavery.
This was started by Newsom, and California was hailed as the first state in the country to try to make justice happen. A long report from the reparations task force made a point that not enough Californians understood: “African Americans were being enslaved in California before the state passed a constitution against slavery in 1849.”
From the lynching of a slave in San Jose’s town hall in the 1800s to generations of economic and political discrimination, a group of experts made a strong case for Black Californians to get reparations.
But what is being called “a win” doesn’t match the urgency of the reparations issue or the current situation of Black Californians, who are overrepresented in poverty, high rates of incarceration in the state prison system, and high rates of dropping out of school. This is because they have been economically and politically disenfranchised for generations.
Not very good settlement bills
A study from UC San Francisco’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative looks at the experiences of Black people who are homeless in the state. It finds that more than a quarter of the state’s homeless are Black, which is almost four times the state’s Black population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 26% of California’s homeless people are Black, even though Black people only make up 7% of the state’s total population.
When state leaders see these numbers, they better act quickly. If they don’t, we have a long road ahead of us. the first set of bills to deal with compensation. The first set of bills doesn’t sound like they would do much to help people who were wrongly jailed during the war on drugs get their freedom back. “Upcoming bills include creating the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency and asking that this new department look into cases of possible racial eminent domain.” They would also stop the state from punishing prisoners who refuse to work and help make a grant program to help communities work to make schools and streets less violent, The Bee reported on June 23.
How can we expect anything to change if money doesn’t get straight to the people who are affected?
Black people in California deserve more.
Reparation is a kind of fairness that changes things. A lot of money won’t solve the problem; what needs to be done is to change the lives of Black people who the government has left behind.
This project is supposed to cost $12 million, which should be enough to build a base that can be fixed.
Even though there is a deficit of almost $47 billion, that amount does look like it could be a good start for the task group. Wilson agrees: “Even though it’s been a tough deficit year, our leaders and the governor have seen their duty to those who were affected by slavery,” she said.
Newsom and the lawmakers should be praised for trying to fix wrongs that their political predecessors didn’t do anything about. They have until the end of the legislative session on August 31 to pass 15 bills and two constitutional changes that the Reparations Task Force wants. You can either put up or shut up now. Even if the first steps are small, the Legislature needs to get used to passing changes with reparations in mind.
A lot of people have talked about how compensation could happen in California. But if the plan keeps getting small amounts of money, it won’t make much of a difference for Black Californians.
