L.A. City Council Votes To Support California Task Force Pursuing Reparations

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a motion lending the city’s support for the legislation behind the state’s “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.”

As reported by The Epoch Times, “AB 3121, known as the ‘Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,’ was passed in 2020 and established the group to ‘identify, compile, and synthesize the relevant corpus of evidentiary documentation of the institution of slavery that existed within the United States and the colonies that became the United States from 1619 to 1865,’… according to the bill text.”

The task force is the first of its kind in the nation. In March, that task force voted 5-4 to “restrict who would be eligible for reparations to African American descendants of enslaved people,” CalMatters reported.

Some on the board want reparations to be available to all black Americans in California due to ongoing alleged discrimination from the government, The Epoch Times noted:

The majority took a strict interpretation of AB 3121, the bill that established the task force and gave “special consideration” to direct descendants of enslaved people.

Other members argued that reparations should be open to all 2.6 million Black Californians, who through the years likely have faced systemic racism — such as police brutality, bank redlining, neighborhood disinvestment, and school or housing segregation.

As flagged by The Epoch Times, not everybody was in favor of the L.A. City Council’s motion to support the task force:

One public commenter who wrote into the city council meeting said: “Last I checked, I nor my family ever owned slaves. And no one I know was ever a slave. Reparations are a knee-jerk action to assuage your privilege, NOT mine.”

CalMatters also reported that “Kamilah Moore, chairperson of the task force, said nearly 80% of California’s 2.6 million Black residents would be eligible for reparations, based on calculations by William Darity, an economist on the task force.”

“According to 2014 data from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, there are about 178,000 Black immigrants in California — hailing primarily from the Caribbean and the African continent — or 6.8% of the state’s total Black population,” CalMatters noted. These individuals, under the current potential plan, would not be eligible for reparations.

The task force will meet in the upcoming weeks to hear lectures on racism from a variety of academics and scholars.

In June, it will present its first report which will include initial recommendations for reparations as well as a detailed report discussing current forms of discrimination against black Americans.

According to Moore, “the first report is underway at about 600 pages and 13 chapters,” CalMatters noted.

After that initial report, the final report will be released in July 2023 and “will include specific information on the eligible community, formal recommendations about the forms of reparations and a study of their compliance with international human rights law and standards.”

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