By BARBARA SIMPSON
All I can say is, if you don’t live in California, be happy!
Not only do residents of that state now pay the highest of just about every state tax there is, but their governor is also about to hit them with a new expenditure that will cost billions more!
It all stems from a nine-member task force Gov. Gavin Newsom named in May 2021. It’s part of AB-3121 that he signed, authored by then-Assemblymember Shirley Weber, a Democrat of San Diego. The point of the legislation is to inform Californians about slavery and explore ways the state might provide reparations to descendants of those slaves.
In other words, find a way to make the citizens of today pay money to people who are alleged to be descendants of slaves from years ago.
The members of the task force are individuals with a range of expertise and diverse backgrounds — from academia, civil rights, community development, law, criminal justice, health and psychology, faith based and community activism. There are four Black women, three Black men, one Asian man, and one other man who is not identified by race.
The governor appointed five. The State Senate appointed two and the State Assembly appointed two — those four appointments were then approved by the governor.
From what has been reported, this move in California is the largest effort yet to address reparations for slavery. It should be noted that since California made this initial effort, other states, including New York, have begun similar efforts.
In addition, there is a movement to have the federal government adopt a similar plan and make the funding of such a project be part of our annual taxes!
No decision on that yet.
I find it interesting that there are no Whites on the committee — which indicates that Newsom, and the others involved, believe that a White person cannot be unbiased in such decision making.
To me, that in itself, is racist.
But then liberal Whites, like Newsom, do not believe that any conservative, regardless of color or sex, can be unbiased.
Newsom says his purpose is to continue to acknowledge historic wrongs in the state and to combat what he calls the “structural racism and bias in our institutions.” At that point, he didn’t give any details.
The Task Force spent the year surveying and traveling the state and its members have now presented their recommendations to Newsom.
Based on state figures, there are approximately 2.5 million Blacks in California. The committee is focused on what it calls “housing discrimination” that affected Blacks from 1933 to 1977.
As a result of the study, the Task Force recommends that the state pay $223,000 to each person who is a descendant of a slave.
That money is supposed to compensate them for “housing discrimination.” But the group is also considering reparations be paid for “mass incarceration, unjust property seizures, devaluation of Black businesses and health care.” All this would mean more money!
The total cost of this current plan for California taxpayers would be at least $559 billion — but this isn’t a final figure. The task force has until next June to submit the final recommendation and there’s no doubt that dollar figure will change — i.e., read that: increase!
Keep in mind that this current total figure is more than Californians now pay for schools, hospitals, universities, highways, law enforcement, and related issues.
Also keep in mind, that California was never a slave state — so the idea that current citizens must pay reparations for slavery is insane.
Another aspect of the problem with this is how to determine which Blacks of today are direct descendants of slaves and who are among the other Blacks of today who came to this country as free people in the years since the Civil War.
The committee and Newsom have not publicly addressed this dilemma. It will be interesting to see how it is resolved since it is so thoroughly involved with politics.
Another issue that will have to be decided is how to reimburse these Blacks the money that is finally determined to be due them. Do they just get a check? Do they get credit for housing grants? Do they get credit for educational tuition?
At this point, it is not decided and no doubt, it will be an issue for much discussion and debate! All imbued with politics as well.
It all boils down to a huge transfer of wealth from people who never owned slaves to people who claim to be descendants of slaves.
All I can say is that Gov. Newsom has jumped into a kettle of controversy — one he’ll need to settle as he is deciding whether to run again for governor or possibly run for president!
The man is nothing if not ambitious. It’s the story of his life.
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