California is attempting to reckon with its history of racial oppression and violence and produce justice, in the form of reparations, from the bitter fruit. If the state succeeds in its reckoning it will be an enormous public service. If it should actually succeed in dispensing justice it might be something more like a miracle.
The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans was created by an act of the California legislature in 2020. Though a final report to the legislature isn’t due until July, the task force, which functions with assistance from the state Department of Justice, has produced more than 100 preliminary recommendations for “future deliberation.” The suggestions range from making official apologies to implementing a “detailed program of reparations for African Americans.”
The details are pending, but Bloomberg News reported recently that one model under consideration “suggests the state would owe a total of almost $640 billion to 1.8 million Black Californians with an ancestor enslaved in the US, which works out to roughly $360,000 per person.” Where the state would get $640 billion, almost three times its general fund this year, is uncertain, but without wildly creative financing, it would almost certainly come from the state’s wealthiest residents, who are also disproportionately White.
