reparations
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The state of California has set aside $12 million in reparations funds for its Black residents as restitution for the history of anti-Black oppression that has plagued Black people for the overwhelming majority of our existence in America.
The $12 million included in California’s $300 billion budget is far less than what activists wanted, but it’s also far more than the amount the MAGA world wants to see gifted to Black people anywhere in the country, which is zero.
“Obviously, it’s not enough, but this is the first time ever that reparations for Black people will be a line item in a state budget,” said Chris Lodgson, a reparations activist who lobbied lawmakers to make it all happen, according to the Washington Post.
California’s reparations task force, which was established by the state legislature, actually recommended billions in reparations funding, including $1.2 million in payments for Black Californians over 50 who have lived in the states their whole lives. While the state only ended up approving a fraction of the amount proposed, proponents of the initiative say it’s fortunate even the $12 million total was approved considering the state’s current financial situation, which includes a nearly $50 billion budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year.
“In this tough economic climate, for us to find this money for reparations sends a signal not only to the state but to the nation that California is committed to addressing the harms that are the result of slavery in this country,” said state Sen. Steven Bradford (D).
But it’s not quite safe for state Democrats to call the reparations approval a win as they still have to contend with salty white conservative activists who will certainly fight them tooth and nail before they allow a single Black Californian to receive a check that non-Black Californians don’t also have access to.
From the Post:
Recently, Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group, filed a lawsuit to stop the country’s first government-funded reparations program in Evanston, Ill., which had already paid nearly $5 million to 193 of the town’s Black residents. And the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently dismissed a lawsuit by survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre seeking reparations.
“In the wake of the Tulsa decision and the Evanston lawsuit, folks have been asking: ‘Is the reparations movement really going anywhere?’” said Trevor Smith, executive director of the BLIS Collective, a nonprofit focused on restitution for Black and Native Americans. “So the fact that California continues to lead the way is really important.”
The state’s reparations effort is still facing resistance from state Republicans and some Latino and Asian lawmakers, who have argued that it’s unfair to make current residents, a majority of whom are people of color, pay for the sins of the state’s White founders.
“Most every Californian, regardless of race or background, comes from a lineage involving immense pain and struggle,” Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez (R) said in a statement. “Singling out just one demographic is extremely problematic and likely unconstitutional. The problems of the past cannot be paid for by the people of today.”
Yeah—it might be true that Black people don’t have a global monopoly on historic oppression, but we’re the only people in America who endured roughly two and a half centuries of slavery followed by another century of legally-sanctioned second-class citizenship.
So, there’s that.
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In 2021, Los Angeles County returned prime beachfront property back to the descendants of the Black couple who purchased the land back in 1912 only to have it unlawfully seized by the city of Manhattan Beach through white supremacy, or as they called it at the time, “eminent domain.”
Now, the owners of Bruce’s Beach, named for Willa and Charles Bruce, will sell the property back to the county in exchange for $20 million in what LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn considers to be “reparations.”
From Reuters:
The Bruce family has informed county officials that they have decided to sell Bruce’s Beach to the county for the estimated value of the Manhattan Beach property, Janice Hahn, chairperson of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in a tweet on Tuesday.
“This fight has always been about what is best for the family, and they feel what is best for them is selling this property and finally rebuilding the generational wealth they were denied for nearly a century,” Hahn wrote.
In July, county officials transferred the deed to the 7,000 square feet (650 square meters) property to the great-grandsons of Willa and Charles Bruce, who owned the land before officials claimed eminent domain over it in 1924.
The movement to return the land to the family was part of a wave of reparative justice that has gained traction in parts of the United States to make amends for decades of exploitation of Black Americans by predatory developers, exacerbated by segregation and a lack of access to the legal system.
Bruce’s Beach Was A Resort For Black People
Before the land was taken from Willa and Charles by white people who hated Black joy, Black neighbors and Black property ownership as much as they hated the prospect of minding their own business, Bruce’s Beach was a resort where Black people lounge, dance, enjoy the beach without some establishment owner pointing one finger at the “whites only” sign and another at the gun on his hip he’d use to enforce the discriminatory policy. It was a rare thing of luxury that was afforded to Black people exclusively.
Now, the Bruce family descendants say allowing the county to re-purchase the property is another step toward restorative justice, according to Hahn.
“They feel what is best for them is selling this property back to the county for nearly $20 million and finally rebuilding the generational wealth they were denied for nearly a century,” Hahn said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “This is what reparations look like and it is a model that I hope governments across the country will follow.”
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