The Democratic governor of California seems to have disapproved of the concept of awarding black state citizens million-dollar payments as compensation for their enslavement.
California’s Democratic Party governor, Gavin Newsom, has shot down the notion that the state’s black inhabitants may be given million-dollar payments as part of a drive for slavery reparations.
After the state’s independent slavery task group suggested that black residents in the state should be compensated in cash for problems caused by earlier forms of American racism, which included slavery, the potential for these seven-figure payments emerged. The task force floated the concept that African-Americans living in the state might receive up to $1.2 million in actual cash.
Given that implementing such a plan would probably cost the state $800 billion, or close to three times the amount budgeted each year, Newsom has appeared to become very eager to downplay the notion that black residents might receive these enormous payments, telling Fox News that reparations were more than just financial in nature.
“This has proven to be a significant process, and we must keep trying to strive as a nation in order to reconcile our ancestral sin of slavery as well as comprehend how that era of history has impacted our country,” he said to the broadcaster.
“Dealing with such a legacy is about a lot more than money,” he continued, asserting that the state should put more of an emphasis on “enhancing economic mobility, breaking down obstacles to vote, strengthening resources for combating hate, establishing sweeping law enforcement along with justice reforms that promote trust as well as safety.”
James Gallagher, the leader of the California Assembly’s Republican party, referred to the backtracking as “a fool’s errand from the start” and seemed to be both incensed and perplexed by it.
“With this reparations task committee, Democrats had promised the world, yet today the enormous taxpayer bill is coming due,” he added. “Newsom has backed himself into a corner, and he’s going to have to decide between giving his approval to a ludicrous policy that’s going to bankrupt the state of California or acknowledging once and for all that every part of this task group was nothing other than a political stunt.”
One thing to keep in mind about the whole scenario is that, despite the desire to make up for the crimes of slavery committed against African-Americans in California, the state itself never permitted slavery in the first place, becoming a free state of the union in 1850.
