California’s reparations’ task force member sparked criticisms after he tried to downplay the significance of the proposed monetary sum.
The member was slammed after referring to the monetary sum as the “smallest fragment” of their plan.
In an exclusive report published by the Daily Beat, it was revealed that “this notion arises even as the committee ponders allocating a sum close to triple the state’s current budget for compensating African American citizens, with the aim of atoning for historical injustices of slavery and subsequent prejudice”
On Wednesday, economists predicted in a preliminary estimate that the state’s plan to grant reparations to its Black residents could cost the state $800 billion which is nearly triple the state’s existing budget.
According to Fox News, the “California’s reparations task force consulted five economists and policy experts to arrive at the number, and clarified that the total does not include compensations for property the group says was taken unjustly, or for the devaluation of Black-owned businesses. California’s total annual budget currently sits at roughly $300 billion.”
On Wednesday, the reparations task force is expected to hold a meeting.
The group also announced that it will discuss the cost on Thursday.
$800 Billion & Counting… California Reparations Board Confronted To Make Good On Years Of Reparation Rhetoric https://t.co/Tlvtok8Rbh— US Burning (@UsBurning) March 30, 2023
“We’ve got to go in with an open mind and come up with some creative ways to deal with this,” California Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer said during an interview with The Associated Press.
Furthermore, the committee is facing a deadline, dated on July 1.
“That’s going to be the real hurdle,” Sen. Steven Bradford, another lawmaker who sits on the panel claimed before asking, “How do you compensate for hundreds of years of harm, even 150 years post-slavery?”
The recent findings from the panel come a month after a similar reparations panel in San Francisco also called for granting $5 million to each of the city’s Black residents.
Fox News revealed that the “city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee first unveiled its recommendation in January, arguing that the city owed compensation to Black residents for decades of discrimination. The committee’s chair, consultant Eric McDonnell, later clarified that the $5 million number came as a result of a “journey” rather than a “math formula.”
