The Blubber

California's reparations task force has voted to approve recommendations on how the state may compensate for reparations to Black residents, with estimates projecting that the state could owe $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, per NPR.

In March, it was announced California was weighing on $360,000 in reparations to eligible black residents, per Bloomberg.

One of the models under consideration suggests the state would owe a total of almost $640 billion to 1.8 million Black Californians with an ancestor enslaved in the US, per Bloomberg.

California’s task force has yet to say who would pay these sums. There is a projected $22.5 billion budget deficit.

“If California can admit its sins and change the narrative, then there is a way forward for states and cities across the nation,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.

The Reparations Task Force was created in September 2020, with the passing of AB 3121. The Task Force has two main objectives: 1) To “study the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on living African Americans…and on society”; and 2) to make recommendations for “compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution for African Americans.”

The interim report also recommends that the state should implement a reparations program to address its racial wealth gap (which one 2016 estimate put at around $350,000 in Los Angeles), though the Task Force has yet to decide the size of that payment.

In March, after hours of debate, the Task Force narrowly voted to base eligibility for reparations on lineage, determining that to receive reparations one should be “an African American descendant of a Chattel enslaved person or a descendant of a free Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th Century.”

Read more: https://unusualwhales.com/news/california-is-weighing-on-360-000-in-reparations-to-eligible-black-residents