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California’s Reparations Report
A while back, there was a news alert on my phone that the Committee finally decided to release its preliminary report. As expected, reparations are to be extraordinarily broad and far-reaching, impacting multiple industries rather than just the personal items of descendants of slaves.
No one should be surprised by this.
What I was surprised by is how quickly this alert and topic dropped off of my phone with nary a trace. I had to do an internet search to find further information (including recent news articles about it) and to see what the actual recommendations are.
Inspired by Nancy Pelosi’s guidance, “You have to pass it to see what’s in it”, many of the elements are to be “detailed in the final Task Force Report”.
But just for fun, I thought I’d list some of the highlights from the more easily accessible summary (the 483-page report is much harder to find).
- Prison Reform: prisoners will be allowed to vote from jail, no longer be required to work “as able”, can choose what they would like to do for work and be paid a fair wage for that work (that is comparable to outside prison). Essentially, everyone who is incarcerated is then a paid student with room and board. Fantastic. The report refers to this as ending modern enslavement.
Penalize Law EnforcementEnd Racial Terror: officers and their employing agencies are to be held accountable and liable for unlawful harassment and violence, eliminating any immunity, and including extra fines and civil penalties if there is a “racial component” for the harassment. This would also repeal the Bane Act. It would fund memorials of “trauma of state-sanctioned white supremacist terror, possibly including memorials, and funding a long-term truth and reconciliation commission.” Included in the Racial Terror category, we also have financial assistance. The state is to somehow estimate the lost property and/or businesses “destroyed through racial terror”, compensate the black community, and provide housing grants and zero-interest loans to businesses, etc.- Political Disenfranchisement: Again, California needs to recognize and apologize for disenfranchising black voters and pursue special education programs with state-funded drives to register high school students to vote (because Motor-Voter isn’t enough) with funding set aside to create paid election jobs for students after school hours. Additionally, it should be enacted by April of next year. Right in time for 2024, folks. CA should also consider legislation to avoid redistricting in ways that are detrimental to the black community (as designed by…the government) as well as requiring a Racial Impact Report for all proposed legislation, budgets, and regulations. Allow felons to serve on juries and prohibit judges and attorneys from excluding them due to their criminal conviction history.
- Housing Segregation: Establish a state-subsidized mortgage system that guarantees low interest rates for qualified California Black mortgage applicants. Additionally, repeal CA Constitutional Amend. 34. “Crime Free Housing” only makes black felons homeless, according to the report.
The next section is so long, we’re starting over at number one. As suspected, much of the reparations studies are being used in order to force the hand of educators in public and private schools and to require certain types of education in order to get a degree in California. If California requires certain standardized tests to legally comply, they will. Then, that new version will become the national standard. As goes California, so goes the nation.
- Separate and Unequal Education: This would add a financial grant and stipend related only to black students in California. Currently, the Local Control Funding Formula includes foster children, English Learners, and kids with supplemental food needs as a part of the formula. This would add the first and only race-based rule by the legislature. Because I can’t make this up, I’m including this section in total, unaltered by quoting with bolding mine:
- Methodically guide this funding to provide instructional supports, enrichment, and counseling to Black students.
- Identify and eliminate racial bias and discriminatory practices in standardized testing, inclusive of statewide K-12 proficiency assessments, undergraduate and postgraduate eligibility assessments, and professional career exams (ex. STAR, ACT, SAT, LSAT, GRE, MCAT, State Bar Exam).
- Provide funding for free tuition to California colleges and universities.
- Provide funding for African American/American Freedmen owned and controlled K-12 schools, colleges and universities, trade and professional schools.
- Adopt mandatory curriculum for teacher credentialing that includes culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-bias training, and restorative practices and develop strategies to proactively recruit African American teachers to teach in K-12 public schools.
- Reduce arbitrary segregation within California public schools and the resulting harms to Black students at majority-non white under-resourced schools, by creating porous school district boundaries that allow students from neighboring districts to attend. Increase the availability of inter-district transfers to increase the critical mass of diverse students at each school so that students are assigned, or able to attend, public schools based on factors independent of their parents’ income level and ability to afford housing in a particular neighborhood or city.
- Provide scholarships for Black high school graduates to cover four years of undergraduate education(similar to the G.I. Bill model) to address specific and ongoing discrimination faced in California schools.
- Implement systematic review of public and private school disciplinary records to determine levels of racial bias and require all schools to implement racially equitable disciplinary practices.• Require that curriculum at all levels and in all subjects be inclusive, free of bias, and honor the contributions and experiences of all peoples regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, or sexual orientation.
- Advance the timeline for ethnic studies classes in public and private high schools
- Adopt a K-12 Black Studies curriculum that introduces students to concepts of race and racial identity; accurately depicts historic racial inequities and systemic racism; honors Black lives, fully represents contributions of Black people in society, and advances the ideology of Black liberation.
- Encourage identification and support of teachers who give culturally nurturing instructions and adopt new models for teacher development to improve teacher habits in the classroom.
- Improve funding and access for educational opportunities for all incarcerated people in both juvenile and adult correctional facilities.
With that, I suggest that everyone read the report for themselves. Beyond the usual vague suggestions that propose wide-reaching or expensive expansion of services, there is a clear agenda.
Further topics include:
“Racism in Environment and Infrastructure”
“Pathologizing Black Families”(which has more to do with incarceration, welfare allocation, and eliminating back child support payments to the state)
“Stolen Labor and Hindered Opportunity”
“Mental and Physical Harm and Neglect”
Truly, it must be seen to be believed. But remarkably, somehow this wonderful and celebrated Task Force is not shouting the recommendations to the heavens with interviews and reports everywhere. It is almost as if when the people know what is in it, they might find something to say about it.
Published in General
Get. Out.
Now.
This is why I will NEVER go home…
I loved growing up in California, and I honestly thought I would return there one day. But, no. Never.
Even if every one of these proposals were to go into effect, it wouldn’t change a thing for low-income blacks. They would continue to fail in school, engage in crime, engage in drugs, have difficulty holding jobs and extraordinarily high illegitimacy rates as they currently do. The problems facing blacks are not due to “white supremacy”, “the legacy of slavery” or capitalism. Instead the problems are due to the continued ideology of black victimhood and government dependence which has led to and will continue to lead to the same pathologies for low-income blacks and only enriches the “black leaders” espousing this blacks as eternal victims mentality.
California was a Union state, wasn’t it? Was slavery ever legal in California?
The whole idea of reparations all these years after slavery requires those who never did any harm to pay restitution to those who never received any harm. It is evil.
California came into the Union in 1850 as a free state, was part of the North during the Civil War providing a small number of troops to the cause.
There are no descendants of slaves held in California. Many of these recommendations are almost certainly unconstitutional. These people should get to work on the High Speed Rail System, which is way over budget and way behind schedule.
But think about how much fun the drafters had talking about this and writing it up, secure in the certainty that they are morally superior to you and me.
“With that, I suggest that everyone read the report for themselves.”
Nope. your summary is all anyone needs to hear.
Thanks for your sacrifice.
I didn’t read the 400+ pages. I’m afraid I’d suffer an apoplexy if I did.
For those not in the know, American Freedmen are either the descendants of slaves (and independent of the general African-American population) OR are the descendants of slaves of Native Americans (specifically the 5 “Civilized” Tribes).
I’m not sure of the Task Force’s definition here because they did not provide one. I’m not woke enough to know who we’re specifically discriminating against.
Result if enacted: all white and Hispanic people leave California. No California left.
A 400+ page argument against moving to or remaining in California. Brilliant.
Not necessarily. Many of these proposed solutions can be enacted and likely will: the racial equity committee to pass regulations and legislation (for example). It’ll create another layer of bureaucracy and looks fairly benign on it’s face. Education on racial relations. Honoring new holidays. Grand apologies. Those can all be done fairly easily. Once those are done, then there will be reparations for the other groups who will be outraged that all they get is Cesar Chavez Day and nothing for the Japanese Internment.
Reparations for property could be done, though the proof would be difficult. That is one point that I do, wholeheartedly support, particularly when the property is still in government hands.
Many of these ideas are broad reaching toward many populations and would pass due to not being specifically about black Americans. Justice for the incarcerated, for example, is about many people…and thusly would be passed.
The money is better spent on free college/training than on that rail boondoggle.
It is a good thing California has a big budget surplus right now.
In England the descendants of Anglo Saxons are still suffering disparities of income, education, and lifespan caused by the Norman invasion of 1066. As the Geralds are of old English peasant Anglo Saxon stock, I am eagerly waiting reparations.
That was a thousand years ago, you say? So what? The Normans are still better off than I am!
Exhibit 1:
Exhibit 2:
Exhibit 3:
I’ll be happy to accept payment in pounds sterling.
Interesting, that Christian name “Fitzwilliam”. Any name with the prefix Fitz means “born on the wrong side of the blanket”.
A thousand years. Just think of the interest!
I really need to get out of California. It becomes crazier and crazier every day.
Yup, in a freaking state that didn’t have slavery!!!
Went back to Simi Valley to bury my dad. Not planning to return.
I have two elderly family members remaining in California. I love them, and visit them several times a year. But once they die, and I have settled their respective estates, I intend never to go back. It hurts too much to see first hand what California has become…it’s like watching a loved one kill themselves by alcohol or substance abuse, and who resists all family efforts at intervention. (Been there, done that.)
“Reparations” would be a huge revenue for (certain kinds of) lawyers.
You folk miss the point. Everybody wants money and now the best easiest source of money is mining it from the various government and NGOs entities via grants, pledges, proposals, gifts, reparations or whatever. None of this stuff is what they say it is about it is all about mining the money source and building an infrastructure to siphon and manage that money from that source.
Is that likely to become law?
Ummmm. True in part. My ancestors entered England with William in 1066. Awarded large tracts of land in Wales for service to the king. Our Norman name (kind-of French) was converted to English.
Even though “justice” for the incarcerated means injustice for the rest of us.
In a normal world, you’d think, “No.” But this is today’s California of which we’re speaking.
To start with, just how much was spent on this boondoggle? Did the committee members get a stipend or just expenses?
And of course to implement these ideas will require a raft of new government bureaus along with corresponding NGOs with 6-figure executives to funnel all the graft to the appropriate grifters.
Kinda like the incredible booming homeless industrial complex that has mushroomed all up and down the West Coast states, commanding millions of tax dollars to throw around while the problem gets worse and worse.
The list reminds me of what you would get if you asked a five or six year old to list all of the things he or she would like for his/her birthday. Undoubtedly among the other absurdities would be a pony. When you are given no limits or requirement that you remain within some reasonable range you will get a list like this one. The compilers of this list have all of the most salient features of children completely divorced from reality. It is nothing more than an absurd fantasy, a pipe dream or a marijuana trip. Given its origin, I am totally unsurprised. A similar one would be generated in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Washington.
@Postmodern Hoplite
Perhaps I have mentioned this before but how you feel about California is how I feel about Seattle. It was always hippy-dippy liberal but it was a fun and prosperous and cool city. Also, one time I kissed a pretty girl in Pike Place Market. My Grandparents and Father took to the Chinese restaurants their and they are better than most restaurants in China with the exception of the Sichuan spice.(I lived in China for a few years.) Now… now… it’s trash and crime and businesses being barely able to scrape by.
It does feel like the two guys I knew who I lost to Crystal Meth. They are still alive, but in a serious way, they are dead.
Can’t “like” this, but I understand 100% what you mean. Seattle was once a great city, but no more. (My older son and his wife live there, so we are back there periodically, too.)