[In California, the preliminary report of a governmental task
force suggests how the toll of slavery and white supremacy can be
assessed—and compensated for.]
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REPARATIONS GET REAL  
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Ramenda Cyrus
June 13, 2022
The American Prospect
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_ In California, the preliminary report of a governmental task force
suggests how the toll of slavery and white supremacy can be
assessed—and compensated for. _

People line up to speak during a Reparations Task Force meeting at
Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, April 13, 2022., Janie Har / AP
Photo

 

Two years after Gov. Gavin Newsom created California’s Reparations
Task Force, the group has issued its first report on the need for
reparations for Black people within the state.

The task force is the first of its kind, and its report takes an
ambitious stance on how to provide relief from systematic racism to
the state’s two million-plus Black Americans. The findings of the
report have wide-ranging implications for how reparations as a policy
can be regarded at the state level. It also provides a race-conscious
framework for broader policy considerations.

Such reparations are government attempts to undo a wrong on a
population by adopting special economic considerations for that
population. Popular ideas
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included direct cash payments, tuition, and favorable housing policy
for the descendants of enslaved Americans.

The idea has been widely discussed for years, at least since Ta-Nehisi
Coates’s 2014 essay on the topic
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Atlantic_. “The early American economy was built on slave labor. The
Capitol and the White House were built by slaves. President James K.
Polk traded slaves from the Oval Office,” Coates wrote.
“Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective
biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see
ourselves squarely.”

_MORE FROM RAMENDA CYRUS_
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There have been many questions about the practicality of such a
policy. Many have asked: How do you determine eligibility? Is it fair
to provide reparations for just Black Americans? How can the country
afford this?

Some have endeavored to answer these questions. The task force is set
to release a full report later this year, and so for now only has
provided answers to some of the big questions. Still, the interim
report is likely the most thorough governmental documentation on both
the need for slavery reparations and the entire history of racism in
America.

Its executive summary states: “In order to maintain slavery,
government actors adopted white supremacist beliefs and passed laws to
create a racial hierarchy and to control both enslaved and free
African Americans … These laws and government supported cultural
beliefs have since formed the foundation of innumerable modern laws,
policies, and practices across the nation.”

The task force then points to the agencies, laws, and court rulings
that actively perpetuated both slavery and racial injustice. If
California sets the tone on this topic, as it did with marijuana
legalization or gun reform
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at least in blue states, then subsequent reports on reparations should
acknowledge this reality as well.

The report details the history and harms of racism, from enslavement
and racial terror to political disenfranchisement and segregation,
thoroughly assessing the history both within the country and in
California specifically. It also acknowledges a brief moment when
Black people had political power during Reconstruction, but just as
quickly notes that those gains were systematically stripped.

Reconstruction applied only to Southern states, but the report notes
the resounding backlash that echoed in faraway California as well.
“Racist lawmakers elected from southern states blocked hundreds of
federal civil rights laws and edited other important legislation to
exclude or discriminate against African Americans.”

The report is an ambitious exercise in defining the
“institutional” part of institutional racism.

The task force’s legitimacy has been questioned
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the basis that California was never a slave state. The report has a
reply: “Despite California entering the Union in 1850 as a free
state, its early state government supported slavery. Proslavery white
southerners held a great deal of power in the state legislature, the
court system, and among California’s representatives in the U.S.
Congress.” Gov. Newsom has also been criticized
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focusing on reparations when the state has other big things to worry
about: Inflation and a tumultuous housing market are just a couple.

The report is an ambitious exercise in defining the
“institutional” part of institutional racism. Racism is not only
the action of an individual, the report documents, but also a
coordinated effort among powerful actors to maintain a system of
subjugation. The need to remedy the daily pain this has generated is
urgent. Highlighting the impact of slavery and racism on a state like
California gives clearer insight into why it is important that all
states take these steps forward.

The interim report is 500 pages long, with dozens of recommendations
for reparations. Direct cash payments are far from the only option,
and a wide range of possibilities are considered within the report.

It suggests broad ideas such as striking harmful language from the
state’s Constitution permitting involuntary servitude; it also
suggests validating the Black experience by creating “forms of
acknowledgement and apology” for political disenfranchisement and
other harmful systems.

Despite the report being rather broad and preliminary, the task force
does take care to offer very specific solutions. For instance, to
compensate for stolen labor, the report suggests: “Create a fund to
support the development and sustainment of Black-owned businesses and
eliminate barriers to licensure that are not strictly necessary and
that harm Black workers.”

It also suggests providing free tuition to California colleges and
universities and creating a state-subsidized mortgage system that
would provide low interest rates to Black people.

The full report is expected to be released later this year.

_RAMENDA CYRUS is the John Lewis Writing Fellow at The American
Prospect._

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* reparations
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* slavery
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* California
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* Racism
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* Racial Justice
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* Racial Inequity
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