California task force votes for million-dollar reparations plan and formal apology to black residents

After a year of deliberations, the California Reparations Committee recommended that the state formally apologize to its black residents and accompany these words with up to $1.2 million per person. The task force’s conclusions from this weekend must still be introduced in the California Legislature, which will vote on whether to sign all or some of the suggestions into law.

California #reparations task force’s penultimate meeting today at Mills College in Oakland. pic.twitter.com/7rXQ8pVXuA

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These measures on behalf of the state and the Californian people should be publicly funded, according to the vote of the committee's nine members. Not only would the state have to apologize, but it would also be forced to promise not to commit the same offenses again. This came in the presence of descendants of slaves.

The apology and financial compensation were not, however, the only recommendations approved by the nine committee members. They also considered advising that these "discoveries" be taught in California schools, that the state constitution be amended to prohibit serfdom and eliminate the death penalty.

Other recommendations that were contemplated include the establishment of community centers, eliminating legal protections for those who violate any of these rights, and declaring election day a paid holiday.

You do, you don't

Will all African-American descendants who passed through California be able to claim the reward? No. This was a point that the committee settled in previous meetings: only "those who who are able to establish that they are a lineal descendant of an enslaved persons or of a free African American person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th Century" would have access this money.

There will also be distinctions amongst those who meet these requirements, which the state itself would have to help the interested party to ascertain. Thus, having ancestors who have suffered exclusion by banks could increase the total received. It would be $3,366 more per year for those who lived in California between 1930 and the late 1970s. It will also be more for those who resided there between 1970 and 2020, who may receive $2,352 per year. The reason: mass incarceration and over-policing.

The amount could eventually total up to $1.2 million, according to New York Times estimates.

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They asked for more

Although the top figure was eventually rounded up to $1 million, committee members went so far as to request $7.6 million per person.

Thus, California would have had to disburse up to $800 billion, 2.5 times its annual budget. A black resident argued at that hearing in April:

I believe that $5 million in reparations is too little for the work that foundational black Americans have done for this country and as well for other countries. … I believe that $7.6 million is a number that can be used very wisely in our foundational black American communities.

Some black critics of the reparations

California was never a slave state and critics attribute their opposition to reparations to this fact. They further argue that today's taxpayers should not be liable for damages related to situations that took place hundreds of years ago.

Black civil rights activist Bob Woodson told The Associated Press that monetary reparations are "insulting." He added that they are impractical, controversial and counterproductive and noted that black families depended on faith to build thriving communities:

No amount of money could ever “make right” the evil of slavery, and it is insulting to suggest that it could. … Some of these communities only began coming apart after we lost sight of these values, which also hold the key to these communities’ restoration.