California’s first-in-the-nation task force on reparations is at a crossroads, with members divided on which Black Americans should be eligible for compensation as atonement for a slave system that officially ended with the Civil War but reverberates to this day.
Some members want to limit financial and other compensation to descendants of enslaved people while others say that all Black people in the U.S., regardless of lineage, suffer from systemic racism in housing, education and employment. The task forceGov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating the two-year reparations task force in 2020, making Californiawith a mission to study the institution of slavery and its harms and to educate the public about its findings.
Yet, the eligibility question has dogged the group since its inaugural meeting in June, when viewers called in pleading with the nine-member group to devise targeted proposals and cash payments to make whole the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. Opening up compensation to Black immigrants or even descendants of slaves from other countries would leave U.S. descendants with mere pennies, she said.
"No one asked me if my ancestors were enslaved in the United States or if they were enslaved in Jamaica or if they were enslaved in Barbados," said Holder, a civil rights attorney. "We have to embrace this concept that Black lives matter, not just a sliver of those Black lives, because Black lives are in danger, especially today."
Today, Black residents are 5% of the state’s population but over-represented in jails, prison and homeless populations. And Black homeowners continue to face discrimination in the form of home appraisals that are significantly lower than if the house were in a white neighborhood or the homeowners are white, according to testimony.
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