Last Call For Reparation Nation, Con't

A new LA Times poll finds that Californians are massively opposed to cash reparations for Black citizens in the state as Oakland and other municipalities are suggesting be looked into.

 

California voters oppose the idea of the state offering cash payments to the descendants of enslaved African Americans by a 2-to-1 margin, according to the results of a new poll that foreshadows the political difficulty ahead next year when state lawmakers begin to consider reparations for slavery.

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Times, found that 59% of voters oppose cash payments compared with 28% who support the idea. The lack of support for cash reparations was resounding, with more than 4 in 10 voters “strongly” opposed.

“It has a steep uphill climb, at least from the public’s point of view,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers created California’s Reparations Task Force in 2020 with the goal of establishing a path to reparations that could serve as a model for the nation. After two years of deliberations, the task force sent a final report and recommendations this summer to the state Capitol, where Newsom and the Democratic-led Legislature will ultimately decide how the state should atone for slavery.

The group suggested providing cash payments to all descendants based on health disparities, mass incarceration and over-policing and housing discrimination that have adversely affected Black residents compared with white Californians.

The remedies recommended in the report also go far beyond cash payments and include policies to end the death penalty, pay fair market value for jail and prison labor, restore voting rights to all formerly and currently incarcerated people and apply rent caps to historically redlined ZIP Codes that disadvantaged Black residents, among dozens of other suggestions.

 

This will never happen, of course. The closer California actually got to reparations, to resolving the core causes of the egregious economic imbalance between Black and white folks in even a state as liberal as the Golden State, the easier it becomes for Republicans and other opposition groups to kill any reparation measures at all. 

There's no faster way to get white, Asian, and Hispanic voters back on the GOP train, enough so to turn Cali back into the Pete Wilson/Arnold Schwarzenegger red state that it was 15, 20 years ago than meaningful reparations. Republicans would be crazy not to drive that wedge into everything from school boards to the Governor's mansion.

Reparations are still the moral thing to do, but there will be consequences to the point where I can see California Republicans taking every dime back and charging Black folk for interest.

Just to be assholes.