California should pay reparations to African Americans, task force says
By Kanishka Singh
(Reuters) – A California process power launched a 500-page report detailing the state’s function in perpetuating historic discrimination in opposition to African People, whereas recommending an official authorities apology and making a case for monetary restitution.
The doc made public on Wednesday defined the harms suffered by descendants of enslaved folks lengthy after slavery was abolished within the nineteenth century, citing discriminatory legal guidelines and practices in housing, training, employment and the authorized system.
“From colonial instances ahead, governments in any respect ranges adopted and enshrined white supremacy beliefs and handed legal guidelines as a way to preserve slavery, a system of dehumanization and exploitation that stole the life, labor, liberty, and mind of individuals of African descent,” the duty power mentioned in a report back to the California legislature.
The duty power was fashioned by California in 2020 to analysis and develop reparation proposals for African People, making it the primary U.S. state to have interaction in such a examine. Particular person cities and academic establishments have beforehand taken up the trigger.
“This method of white supremacy is a persistent badge of slavery that continues to be embedded as we speak in quite a few American and Californian authorized, financial, and social and political methods,” the report mentioned.
“These results of slavery proceed to be embedded in American society as we speak and have by no means been sufficiently remedied. The governments of the US and the State of California have by no means apologized to or compensated African People for these harms.”
The duty power will launch an extra complete reparations plan subsequent yr. California is dwelling to the fifth-largest Black inhabitants in the US.
The report additionally made preliminary suggestions throughout the jail system, saying that incarcerated folks shouldn’t be compelled to work whereas in jail and in the event that they do, they have to be paid honest market wages.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Enhancing by Matthew Lewis)
