California Reparations

Black Californians should get $350,000 to help shrink the racial wealth gap and right historical wrongs, a landmark California reparations task force has heard.

Max Fennell, a 35-year-old businessman and former professional triathlete, told the committee the money should be given to all black California residents. He argued that black-owned businesses should receive grants of about $250,000 and 15-20 acres of land to help further boost black wealth during the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals' public hearing.


"It's a debt that's owed, we worked for free ... we're not asking; we're telling you," he told the panel, the Daily Mail reported . "The tangibles of what I'm asking for is $350,000 per black American in California — that's tangible, small business grant $250,000, and land 15-20 acres."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill establishing the task force in 2020. Since then, it has spent over a year studying the issue and began public deliberations over how to quantify financially the debt owed to black Americans for historical injustices, such as slavery, housing discrimination, mass incarceration, and more. The panel has until July 1 to complete its report and send recommendations to the state legislature.

Some 60 people were in attendance at the meeting on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported . The meeting took place in the Oakland City Hall, in the city that served as the birthplace for the Black Panthers, a black power political group that was heavily active in the 1960s and 1980s.

Economic research presented to the team suggested California's maximum liability for housing discrimination inflicted upon black residents between 1933 and 1977 was about $225,000, but panel Chairwoman Kamilah Moore subsequently suggested that reparations recommendations from the task force will likely be more narrowly tailored.

"In reality, that number would be minimized when you take into account the fact that the task force decided in March that the community of eligibility would be lineage-based rather than race-based," she explained, per the Daily Mail. "When you really look at who was really impacted by housing discrimination during that particular time period, it most likely won't be all black folks."

Over the summer, the task force released a 500-page report on discriminatory policies that dogged black residents in the time that followed emancipation.

Other parts of the country appear interested in exploring the prospect of reparations as well. For example, the Boston City Council voted Wednesday to convene a task force to study the issue and seek out ways to atone for the city's past mistakes.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/black-people-get-350000-reparations-california-committee