In June, the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans (Reparations Task Force) released an interim report on the supposed “harms inflicted on African Americans in California and across the nation due to the ongoing legacy of slavery and systemic discrimination.”
Yes, this Reparations Task Force lives, eats, and breathes the 1619 Project’s social-justice training and ideologies most infamously aligned with critical race theory and Marxism. The task force, convened by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is reportedly “stockpiled with radical far-leftists, some of whom seem to hate America and think it’s a living hellhole for black Americans.” Consider the following:
- The task force’s chair, entertainment lawyer Kamilah Moore, is interested in hearing “from ‘experts’ who want to abolish the police.”
- Dr. Amos Brown, the vice chair, said that “America is a racist country.”
- According to California Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer, a task force member, “Today we don’t treat African Americans as slaves, but when you look at the prison system, you go, ‘Oh, I now can connect the dots that the prison industrial system might just be another form of slavery.’”
- Another member, Dr. Jovan Scott Lewis, reportedly wrote a paper “essentially branding capitalism as racist.”
- Appointed task force member Steven Bradford, a state senator, told the Los Angeles Times, “I’ve often said, if you can inherit generational wealth, you can inherit generational debt and the state of California, as well as the United States, owes a debt to African Americans who are descendants of slavery and helped build this country.”
I’m sure you get the picture — the deck of members of this reparations task force is stacked in favor of opening a Pandora’s box and supporting legalized theft from taxpayers to pay for damages from what they deem “racial disparity.”
Even California Attorney General Rob Bonta buys into the false narrative, stating in a press release:
California was not a passive actor in perpetuating these harms. We must double down on our efforts to address discrimination in our state and nation and take a hard look at our own history, including at the California Department of Justice.
This interim report is a historic step by the State of California to acknowledge the insidious effects of slavery and ongoing systemic discrimination, recognize the state’s failings, and move toward rectifying the harm. I commend the Reparations Task Force for their commitment to this effort and for being a model for partners across the nation. I urge every American to read the task force’s report and join with us in recommitting ourselves to justice.”
Now, with the State of California’s admission of its failings, Gov. Newsom’s Reparations Task Force says that under the initiative, each qualifying black resident in the state could receive $223,200.
Fox News reported that “the task force drew its ballpark number by examining gaps in housing and speculating the approximate amount of wealth lost between 1933 and 1977. The state panel says that Black Californians lost $5,074 per year under previous housing policies.” The task force had “voted in March to limit potential reparations to descendants of free or enslaved Black people in the country at the end of the 19th century rather than all Black people, as many reparations advocates have pushed for.”
The push for reparations for descendants of African Americans has also led to legislation at the federal level, with H.R. 40, which would establish a body to review racial disparities and form a “national apology” to the black community.
That bill, named the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,” was reintroduced by Texas Democratic Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee in the House this year — it was originally introduced by former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) in 1989. The bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021, but is not likely to get any further.
It will be interesting to see if, how, and when any reparations payments are approved and disbursed, especially with the People’s Republic of California facing a $25 billion budget deficit next year.
The real rub will be when these reparation payments begin — the butterfly effect will be unfathomable in Western society, as every descendant of any suppressed group will be reaching out for his “fair share.”
