Photo courtesy of Janie Har / Associated Press
The impact of slavery still affects African Americans today through systemic discrimination, which prompted California’s Reparations Task Force to unveil an extensive report of reforms on Wednesday that would offer financial restitution to the state’s residents.
In the 492-page interim report, the advocates detailed the harmful effects of slavery that started in the United States in the 1600s to the present-day struggles Black Americans endure in California and other parts of the country. The task force also outlined recommendations for low-income housing, free college tuition to California colleges and universities, employment opportunities, and reestablishing an unjust legal system.
“These effects of slavery continue to be embedded in American society today and have never been sufficiently remedied. The governments of the United States and the State of California have never apologized to or compensated African Americans for these harms,” according to the report.
The nine-member panel drafted one of two reports they plan to submit to the California Legislature for review. A final report will be issued next summer, including a detailed plan for providing financial reparations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the two-year task force as a law in 2020, marking California as the first state to initiate a plan to provide Black Californians with the resources needed to overcome the lasting effects of “legal slavery” and systemic racism.
The task force, comprised of elected officials, civil rights leaders, attorneys, and reparations experts, established its first meeting in June 2021. In March, the panel voted to restrict reparations to “descendants of African Americans enslaved in the U.S. or free Black people living in the country before the end of the 19th century.”
On Wednesday, Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state needs to be held accountable for the unwarranted treatment African Americans have experienced, per ABC News.
“Without accountability, there is no justice. For too long, our nation has ignored the harms that have been — and continue to be — inflicted on African Americans in California and across the country,” Bonta said.
He continued, “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.”
For decades, California’s policies have primarily affected Black residents in areas where they are less likely to thrive than their white counterparts. In the document’s 13 chapters, the task force described different forms of discrimination, political disenfranchisement, housing segregation, and the wealth gap, to name a few.
“Government actions intertwined with private action and segregated America, leading to environmental harms, unequal educational and health outcomes, and over-policing of Black neighborhoods in California and across the nation,” the report stated.
It added, “Government actions and failures over 400 years have created a wealth gap that persists between Black and white Americans at all levels of income, regardless of education or family status.”
According to the document, California has the fifth-largest Black population in the U.S., after New York, Texas, Florida, and Georgia. While an estimated 2.8 million people live in the state, an overwhelming percentage of African Americans are in jails, youth detention centers, and prisons.
“Approximately 28.3 percent of California’s prisoners were Black when they make up about 6 percent of the population. In 2019, 36 percent of minors transported to state juvenile centers were African American.”
Since California’s legal system contains racial inequality, the task force recommends several prison reforms that would allow inmates to be eligible to vote and receive livable wages through employment.
“Essentially, the purpose of that is to make clear how California and the localities within the state have been complicit in perpetuating the harms against the African American community,” said Kamilah Moore, chair of the task force.
African Americans in public or low-income housing have faced discrimination since the federal government initiated funding to build high-rise apartment buildings in predominately Black neighborhoods.
“Although the USHA manual stated that government housing projects should not segregate what were previously integrated neighborhoods, it also warned local officials not to build housing for white families “in areas now occupied by Negroes,”’ the report states.
Black Californians are more likely to be low-income than white residents, earning less than $54,000 compared to $87,000 for white individuals in 2018. The following year, 59% of White households owned their homes, compared with 35% of Black Californians, the report reads.
“We don’t own homes, and if you look at why there’s such a huge disparity between African Americans and white Americans and our ability to hold onto and sustain wealth, it’s because we don’t own homes,” said State Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, a task force member.
To help increase homeownership, the panel recommends creating a subsidized mortgage program to assure that qualifying African Americans would receive low-interest rates for loans.
While the report focuses on reparations and apologizing to Black California residents, task force members suggest other cities and states adopt the plan to establish racial equality moving forward.
Moore said she hopes more people “pore into the report and read it with an open mind and an open heart to really understand the African American experience in the state,” the Los Angeles Times reported.