Below is my column in The Hill on the recommendations for reparations by two appointed bodies in California. After years of declaring this a moral imperative, the bill has come due for leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. The collective demand is for trillions in California alone with additional trillions demanded from Congress in a national reparations program. California Democrats will now have to render a decision on committing real money on reparations to show that this was not mere virtue signaling. That decision could be coming soon.
Here is the column:
A long-awaited meeting of San Francisco’s board of supervisors was set this week to discuss the recommendation of its African American Reparations Advisory Committee to give $5 million to each eligible Black resident as reparations. The meeting was postponed, but the city and the state soon must make a decision on a bill that has come due for Democratic politicians.
The city council voted unanimously to create the reparations committee in 2020. Even though California was a free state without slavery before the Civil War, the committee’s “particular focus has been the era of urban renewal, perhaps the most significant example of how the City and County of San Francisco as an institution played a role in undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city’s Black population.” That could be viewed as only a partial payment for race-related injuries.
In the meantime, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) created his own Reparations Task Force, which just reached its own recommendations for $223,000 per person. Others have insisted the figure should be $350,000 for individuals and another $250,000 for Black-owned businesses. One California politician insisted the figure needs to be $800,000 per person, reflecting the average cost of a home in the state.
As these numbers rise, so do the calls for payments in both politics and the media. Even Disney has gotten into the act with a controversial children’s episode in which cartoon children demand reparations.
Notably, California’s law expressly states that this money should not be treated as compensation for federal reparations. That raises the question of whether a resident could receive $5 million from San Francisco, $223,000 from the state, and additional payments from the federal government.
Some congressional Democrats have pushed for similar federal reparations and passed a bill out of the House Judiciary Committee in 2021 that failed to receive a floor vote. BET founder Robert Johnson has called for $14 trillion in federal reparations.
These reparations measures have a remarkable range of focus, from slavery to housing discrimination to wealth inequities. In California, there was a sharp disagreement on the purpose, with many advocates arguing that it was wrong to limit the money to descendants of slaves. Task force member Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D–Los Angeles) insisted that, “at the end of the day, people who are prejudiced against us are prejudiced against all of us.”
Ultimately, advocates like Jones-Sawyer lost a close vote on extending state reparations to all Black Americans. The state task force voted to limit it to descendants of slaves; there are almost 3 million potentially eligible Californians.
The two reparation bodies were tasked with calculating reparation awards — and both the city and the state will now be pressed to make good on their commitments.
The costs of such policies — condemned by critics as virtue-signaling — are being faced by some other jurisdictions as well. For example, New York and numerous other cities have declared themselves to be “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants yet, in recent months, have protested increasing transfers of such immigrants to their jurisdiction.
The cost of California’s statewide reparations is estimated to be $569 billion. The state’s annual budget is roughly half that amount, at $268 billion. Making things even more difficult, the state faces a $22.5 billion deficit and is seeking spending cuts to cover the shortfall.
This may not be a bill that can be politically postponed, given past statements by the governor and other Democratic politicians.
That leads to the question of such programs’ constitutionality. Even after the political approval of payments, it is not clear that this money will ever be paid.
Under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, race-based classifications trigger strict scrutiny requiring a showing of both a “compelling state interest” and “narrowly tailored” means. In City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), the Supreme Court struck down a set-aside for minority businesses due to a lack of evidence of specific injuries. The court ruled that general past discrimination was not enough and added that “the dream of a Nation of equal citizens in a society where race is irrelevant to personal opportunity and achievement would be lost in a mosaic of shifting preferences based on inherently unmeasurable claims of past wrongs.”
Then-Justice John Paul Stevens added his liberal voice against such programs, noting that Richmond’s law “encompasses persons who have never been in business in Richmond as well as minority contractors who may have been guilty of discriminating against members of other minority groups.”
The reparations given in 1988 to Japanese Americans who survived World War II internment camps posed an easier issue, since the recipients were directly injured by the government and the money was meant to compensate them for their injuries.
The decision to narrow programs like focusing on the descendants of slaves or on housing deprivations will certainly be better for constitutional review than a general reparations measure. However, even liberal scholars like Erwin Chemerinsky seem to concede that these reparation measures would face series legal headwinds in the courts. The likely legal challenges are not often considered in discussions of reparations — but they could create a highly combustible situation, if large reparations guarantees were suddenly negated.
That legal fight, however, must await a moment of truth for California legislators.
Democratic politicians have insisted for years that reparations are essential to address systemic racism. But politicians like Gov. Newsom now face demands to put their money where their mouths have been. The years of calls for reparations have created a greater expectation, even an urgency. One well-known California activist declared: “It’s a debt that’s owed, we worked for free. We’re not asking; we’re telling you.”
That expectation is reflected in recent polling, showing a massive shift in the Black community on the question: 77 percent of Black Americans now support reparations — but, overall, nearly seven-in-ten (68 percent) of all respondents oppose such payments.
Thus, after defining reparations as a moral obligation, politicians may find it difficult to say this is an inopportune moment.
For Newsom and for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, the bill is now due.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
The Democrats see their control of the black vote slipping away so they do what they always do they offer free stuff for their vote. They want to do it right up to the door of the polling place. What have black people received for their vote? Rampant murder, failed schools and seven out of ten abortions. The Democratic leadership says just offer them a few more goodies and they’ll fall right back in line. However, I do like it when they’re passing out more ammunition to their circular firing squad.
My heritage is in New Mexico, and thankfully, there, they have claim to most of the land (talk to California, woke idiots). It’s a good point though, which I fully expect to be lost on woke millennials living in brownstones on their parents dime, thinking they are legitimately in the thick of something other than privilege that put them there in the first place when generational New Yorkers have had to move; and partly at this point because their teachers were also woke millennials living on their parent’s dime, this is how indoctrination works. Not all states were slave states, and some of our oldest cities are centuries old, predating even the founding of America (I was born in one),. This is a farce, perpetrated by people that can’t see beyond their own nose because they grew up in the most prosperous and peaceful time in Western history, and have to concoct grievances to feel a part of the human race itself. It is insanity. Think about notions regarding basic existence when one has been fed lie, after lie, and it might make more sense.
To bear witness: how much has the MSM in America said about Syria/Turkey this week, where the death toll is approaching 30,000? Guess those lives aren’t blue enough in Biden’s USA.
Time to put up or shut up, lefty race hustlers!
Can’t believe Mr. Turley seems to take this reparations issue seriously. Maybe he’s even FOR it–can’t be sure.
So John DeLaney are you saying that we shouldn’t take Gavin Newsom seriously when he calls for reparations in California? It looks like Newsom is going to run for president so taking his words seriously is important. Maybe you should ask Newsom if he believes his words are important. We should no if he is willing to back up what he says with action. I would like to know if he will be wearing his mask when he hands out the checks. I guess in your book it’s not important to know where a presidential candidate is coming from. I am fearful that if you post Gavin’s words on Facebook you will be shadow banned.
How do they determine who is eligible? Will the numerous descendants of Asians in CA be eligible? Are Africans in Africa eligible if their ancestors were enslaved? How about descendants of serfs? Or the obvious Native Americans? History is full of people mistreating people. Giving people equal opportunity and the tools needed to succeed (i.e. a good education) is the only intelligent way forward. Teach a man to fish…
See the post from yesterday, and ask what are progressives trying to do?
Did slave owners educate their slaves?
Policies advocated by Karl Marx in the 1850s are coming to fruition. Marx saw the United States as one of two laboratories for experiments in social change – Marx’s goal was to eliminate “the aristocracy,” which in his mind was landowners. The other was Russia. He advocated that Lincoln make the goal of the US government the abolishment of slavery. The some 4 million slaves would then join with Northern factory workers to impose communist government. His concepts were followed by advocates of the “social gospel” in American churches, namely those descended from the Puritans. The focus turned to factory workers through unionization then turned “civil rights.” Now it’s reparations, it’ll soon by confiscation of land owned by whites for redistribution to blacks – other “minorities” will suck hind teat.
These laws of reparations, if passed, would be “bills of attainder”, which are forbidden by articles 9 and 10 of the US Constitution. Bills of attainder are extra-judicial penalizing of individuals or groups performed by Rulers or Legislators outside of proper court procedings. Thus, in order to obtain reparations a group would have to resort to criminal law proceedings, not penalties passed by a legislature. Slavery and Jim Crow Laws were very evil yet were unfortunately legal in most of the places they were practiced until made illegal, so the complaint must be related slavery and Jim Crow practices after they were made illegal. People are not guilty of crimes committed by ancestors or by other members of groups that they incidently happen to be in unless the group membership is a explicit promise that they intend the crime. For, example, a white male who is not a KuKLux Klan member cannot be held responsible for crimes by the hate group just because the Klan and the non-Klan white are white.
That leaves tort civil procedings which would require at least a preponderance of proof that each individual paying reparations performed a harm against at least one of the litigants, which, as the respondents to this blog have noted, is an exercise in futility and ignorance. These bills of attainder might be temporarily passed in joke partisan legislatures and upheld in joke partisan lower courts, but would never survive the entire appeals system.
Democrats pay double taxes.
It’s all their baby.
Give the Owens Valley back to the Japanese Americans it was taken from during WWII.
The ONLY thing “democracy” sorts for is how to win elections. It does not sort for “good governance” – whatever that is. It does not sort for honesty. Or morality. It only sorts for who can win.
Democrats figured out a LONG time ago that the way to win is to make exclusively emotional arguments and perpetually promise to loot the treasury to pay people off for their votes. Then rely on academia and media to cloak it all as acts of “compassion”.
Hopefully, there are enough sane people left in the country to see how destructive this reparations movement is and it will finally cause the long overdue complete annihilation of the Democrat Party. Then salt the Earth every where it’s been.
60-ish years of CRA and 80+/- since FDR and where are we? The left has no where to turn, they have funded everything and it has failed (made things worse). Now they’re simply stuffing pockets (in exchange for votes).
Every single one of us, but no more so than those the left ostensibly tries to help, have had to suffer through this crap. You can pay for everything imaginable for some people – food, clothing, shelter, health care and have them in the richest (once) nation on the planet with the most egalitarian laws on earth (deal with it) and still get similar or worse results than had you done none of that, it appears. This is domestication via gov’t dependence and it is a sick pandering – truly racist, imo.
10s of millions of non-whites have integrated well into society in the US in the past 60 years. What we are seeing in the inner cities recently (the past 20 years) is black neighborhoods being gentrified by MX and Lt. Amer immigrants. People with no education, often, who do not speak the language (often) are displacing the blacks that have been there for generations.
What about the descendants of the black Africans who SOLD their fellow black Africans into slavery??? What do they have to pay??
Sorry, although ending slavery is something only white people do – no other race tried and it still exists in Africa – whites are also the only race even remotely considered chump enough to ask reparations from.
What do they have to pay??
A serving of Aunt Jemima waffles always works for me and my knee grow
Whip up this Aunt Jemima waffle recipe for an easy and delicious weekday breakfast!
https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/aunt-jemima-waffle/
Estovir: –And I wanted Uncle Remus to be my uncle, he was so kind and jolly, and told those great stories about Brer Rabbit and sang Zippety Do Dah! with the butterflies and birds singing around him! And Uncle Ben’s rice is still my favorite instant rice! And Stymie on the Little Rascals was sooooo funny! And when I was @ 4 y.o., my dad took my brother and me to the state fair (as he did every year) and Lone Ranger and Tonto his Indian friend were there, and they picked me up and kissed me-((story goes, I wouldn’t let anyone touch my face afterwords for fear of losing the “kisses.”)) Although I was raised in all white neighborhoods and schools, the above childhood references were my only markers to go by…
Too Bad it got ruined for all of us… My first conscious memory of “race” is the riots….
In my book, you seem no different than me as being colorblind. Then again, my father used to call his wife (my mother), mi ηεgra, and I, as the youngest offspring, was dark brown just like my mother. In Cuba, and in the Caribbean, we are colorblind. The most successful musician from Cuba, Celia Cruz, wrote songs that referred to herself as la ηεgra. In fact, my mother demanded that her children learn how to dance Salsa, Merengue, Danzo, Cha Cha, Bolero, to the music of Cuban musicians where Celia Cruz was #1 among them. She died in 2004 and the funeral processions both in Miami and New York City where thousands of people deep. Gloria Estefan, Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, famous musicians that were Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, Brazilian, and others practically revered Celia Cruz because she was that talented. When I play her music at home I grab a broomstick or umbrella and dance to her music because she encompasses the soul of Cuban music, and this from la ηεgra. As it is, before I married I dated blacks, Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and a few whites, but never did race even feature as a concern for me.
Search for Celia Cruz’ album that was a global sensation Azúcar ηεgra or her famous song, La ηεgra tiene tumbao and watch in the latter as the black woman featured in the song literally stops pedestrian and car traffic, men fall at her feet as she walks by them, and causes both men and women to stop dead in their tracks to admire her beauty, all sung proudly by Celia Cruz. Here is a very old song by her with words that features her skin color as a bragging point, sung back in the 1950s in Cuba because nobody cared. Only in America does race feature prominently in politics because it serves as a very useful tool to divide and conquer, a Marxist trait
Estovir: You are correct, and you would know better than I, but I think we all, as humans, produce melanocytes in varying degrees along a spectrum, n’est ce pas? So we all are on this earth together as the singular “human race,” flesh and blood and good food and music together! (not crazy about plantains for breakfast!)
I listened to your Celia Cruz video and Cuban music is soooo good, if we were neighbors, I would love to see you and your wife dance to this! The older 50s-60s big bands that our parents listened to are the best! Men on bongo drums (like Desi) and women with fruit on their heads dancing in those wide skirts!
I worked 1-2 years for the cruise lines (out of Port of Miami) while in college, a very handsome Cuban named Mario worked with me in customs, tried to teach me to dance to an old song (from 70s-80s?) called “Soul Makosa” I can still see him doing this dance for me. In any event, l know there was a copyright dispute, now attributing that song to an African, but I always thought it was Cuban because of Mario.
(apologies to all for going OT)
(and no, I wasn’t around in 1946 when I think Disney’s “Song of the South” came out–it was played regularly on TV until the 1970s?) and we kids loved it
Estovir……….You are a scream! LOL…….You also author some of the most enlightening, interesting and colorful comments….. especially about your beautifully rich heritage.
Maybe I’ve told you, but my home church in Houston.was known for its abiding attention to, and love for, immigrants from all over the world. The church provided an education and social support program, including English classes, free of charge, attended mostly by immigrant women There was no forced Southern Baprist evangelism, although some of the women and their husbands came to some of the Sunday services. You could always tell when the Cuban men were there. Not to generalize, but they were gorgeous!! So distinctly different in appearance and impressive demeanor from other Latino/Hispanic? men….. dressed in beautiful white suits and shoes! Their jet black thick hair was always slicked straight back, gleaming in the Sanctuary lighting. They almost glowed. Gosh they were gorgeous! My friends and I were teenagers, and we couldn’t take our eyes off of them! And we were in church LOL.
Anyway, in spite of what Black Lives Matter, etc.tries to bully people into believing, there ARE other cultures in this wonderful country of ours. Thank you for sharing yours. (P.S. I think I”ve told you our daughter is a flamenco dancer……studied in Spain, New Orleans and New York She also loves Cuban music.. We raised her in a latin/hispanic neighborhood and she fell in love with the music)
Thank you Cindy for your kind comments. I did not know your daughter is a Flamenco dancer. It takes a great deal of strength and ability. If you have any links to her performing in a theater please provide. There was a Flamenco restaurant / dinner show in Downtown Miami when I was a young child that children were not allowed to attend. I finally attended when I was old enough and I was stunned at the strength and dexterity of both male and female dancers. The orchestra was tremendous and the dinner show was top notch. Baptist churches in South Florida offered the same services your Houston church did, for the same reasons, as did Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc. The Archdiocese of Miami Catholic Church led the way with the Pedro Pan (Peter Pan) rescue of Cuban parents sending their children solo from Cuba to save them from Communism. Churches have always shown society how to be citizens driven by charity, welcoming the oppressed and tending to the discarded. They do far more than any government program as to providing compassion and journeying with people.
Lin you are absolutely right as to melanin, a protein synthesized by melanocytes that in part provides skin color. There is no such thing as a “black”, “white”, “brown” person. Each individual has millions of melanocytes that synthesize melanin given their inherited genetic programming, e.g. a dark father, light complexioned mother, offspring a mixture therein. As it happens in genetic expression, cells often deviate from their inherited genetics, either because of DNA errors, or the environment drives epigentic changes. As it is, most people have genetics from global populations, thus purity of race is bogus
It is important to realize that right wing types who thunder about white people being replaced with others carrying different skin colors is just as silly as “black lives matter” or reparations for blacks. Blacks differentiate each other by the darkness or lightness of their skin (e.g. a field black vs a plantation black). You are right Lin that we are all one human race, all of us sharing 99.9% genetics. The divisions in our society are no coincidence. Republicans pushed their “moral majority” in the 1980s, and Democrats now push their equally judgmental, intolerant religious dogmas. All accomplish one thing, to portray themselves as saviors of their constituents, i.e. power. Tomas de Torquemada had nothing on today’s secular woke inquisition
The bill isn’t due for the Dims. It’s due for all of us who pay taxes if this national race-dividing measure passes. I can assure you they’ll need 87,000 new IRS agents to crack down since “fiddling” by white folks will be mandatory. Reparations is a farce and paid to people who didn’t suffer by other people who didn’t inlflict the pain and to top it off it’s based purely on race. It’s a collossal violation of equal protection, unfair taxation and country destroying. And this notion that white people profitted from black people for “services rendered” in the past is as stupid as saying black people profitted from white people in receiving copius welfare payments. About 350,000 white males lost their lives fighting to free slaves in the South. If you’re going to transfer wealth based on pain inflcited, I’ll expect an equal payment to those white families from black families for “services rendered.” I’ll refuse to pay ’cause my family wasn’t even here when slavery was in vogue and cannon fire was all the rage.
Strangely, my browser home page prominently popped this up this a.m. (read the title carefully):
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-belief-in-meritocracy-is-not-only-false-it-s-bad-for-you
Why is “meritocracy” bad? Because, says the article, “It encourages selfishness and discrimination yet it continues to be instilled in the minds of many.” “Discrimination,” …that “trigger word.” This is where we’re heading, folks.
Equally strange, Investopedia identifies San Francisco resident William Alexander Leidesdorff (1810-1848) as “likely America’s first Black millionaire.” https://www.investopedia.com/first-black-millionaires-5218612. He had no problem “discriminating” against Mexicans who wanted to retain their influence in the area. (Of course, there also was Black millionaire John Stanly, who sold slaves in North Carolina and owned two plantations.) I note that the wealth of these Black men preceded the Civil War and the Emancipation Act.
-And check out other Blacks we seldom hear of, including Wall Street’s first Black millionaire, or the first Black Female millionaire, who produced a cosmetic empire for Black Women. I note that BOTH (early 1900s) preceded the Civil Rights Act.
SO much for merit, folks.
So much for “only in America.”
With the incredible wealth of Black musicians, inventors, athletes, entertainers, investors, etc. in today’s America, -and the readily-available DNA tests around for 20-30 years now-, I wonder how many have identified and contacted their less-fortunate ancestral ‘kinfolk’ in those less fortunate countries and sent their money back home? (like so many good Hispanics have done).
Maybe the San Andreas Fault will split California into two Californias: one for believers in merit, and one for those “deniers.”
Lin,
From the article you posted,
“Luck intervenes by granting people merit, and again by furnishing circumstances in which merit can translate into success.”
That is the dumbest thing I think I have ever read.
How did I get from sleeping on a bed roll, on the floor, to having made two fortunes and now my own farm?
Hard work, making sound intelligent choices, a good work ethic, and the ability to recognize opportunity when it presents itself and taking it. In regards to the last one, a pop culture reference,
“In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.”
-Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars, A New Hope
“In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.”
-Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars, A New Hope
Ashton Kutchner was back in Iowa, (His home state) talking to highschool kids
One of the kids said he was lucky to be a star. He answered back, “I’ve discovered his luck was greater the better prepared he was and the harder he worked. “
Upstate Farmer: And since I first started reading your comments, I knew right away you were a self-made man, who not only earned what you had, but importantly, thought for yourself. If you have children, I would guess that they are kids you and your wife are proud of, because of the values you have instilled.
(My father had his business looted and burned down in the 60s when all the race riots were going on. We lived in a suburb of a large metropolitan city, where his business was located. His insurance company dropped him after the second time. The third time, he had to pay for all of it himself. We kids were scared, especially when we saw him and my neighbor take shotguns to spend the night there to protect the building, leaving mom and the kids. But I can say, without batting an eyelash, that I never, ever, – even once, heard my dad say a single bad thing about black people (I have no idea what he might have said to my mother in private!) That’s the kind of respectful house I was raised in. But, 50-60 years later, there is no excuse for this nonsense, IMHO.
The idea of racial debts and claims is inconsistent with a liberal (small “l”) democracy. In the middle ages, different groups had different legal statuses. The transition to modern European legal systems saw the elimination of group legal statuses and the establishment of the individual person as the legal subject. Attempting to vest rights and liabilities in groups, especially a group as broad and vague as a “race”, will destroy the social amity and trust necessary to maintain a functioning democracy or even a country. If our modern leftists want to see where tribalism leads, they should check out Rwanda or even Hitler’s Germany.
Problem: Are there any federally recognized Indian tribes in California?
How many California tribes are there? There are approximately 110 federally recognized Indian tribes, including several tribes with lands that cross state boundaries. There are also about 81 groups seeking federal recognition.
I can hear the war drums beating.
The sum of money in question as large as it would be could only be paid in Confederate dollars.
The Yankees ain’t out of money .. . all they got to do is make some more.
Reparations has been the end goal of all this race-baiting. It always has and always will be. This will be the knife in Americas heart.
If you were to subtract the billion$ in damage done to small businesses and government buildings 2 years ago by Black Lives Matter, as well as billion$ done by “Smash and Grab” black youth since then, you would realize that they owe US!
Amen, Cindy Bragg: And I would subtract the $Billions spent on law enforcement and public funds spent on car jacks, uninsured drivers, drug deals, and robberies/burglaries/thefts- FAR disproportionate to white counterparts. And most legal settlements would subtract for the decades of housing, food stamps, unemployed health care, and monthly income already provided.
With Biden bragging about jobs market, maybe we can use the $billions saved from the above programs to pay reparations.
This nonsense answers the quesion — Why do laws have statutes of limitation?
Answer: Because you can’t fix past injustice withouot creating injustice in the present. Therefore there MUST be a cutoff point differentiating past from present. It’s the ONLY way to move into the future. In the end, it is awareness of the future that defines us as humans that have evolved and are capable of further evolution, compared with our understanding of “lower” animals.
As mentioned at approximately the 20-minute mark of this video, humans are essentially future-directed animals:
(in the 1980s and inspired by the Bakke decision, I won an academic award for writing about “substitute beneficiaries and substitute paymasters.”) We have been decrying this injustice for decades now, but who is listening?????
lin…..Congratulations on your award.
NoNoNONO! I really debated posting that, but wanted to show how LONG we have been struggling against this nonsense. (but thanks, no big deal, it is the TOPIC I wanted to emphasize).
lin……you’re too modest!
The Democrats are a wrecking ball. In their desperation to pull all minorities into their voter base, they make promises that, if kept, will ruin society, and if not kept, will ruin society.
I would propose that the funds to provide for this compensation should be seized from only those politicians who voted for these reparations. And once those funds run out, they should be seized from the political party (or parties) of those politicians who voted in favor of these bills. These payments should be limited to one time only per recipient. Additionally, these funds should not be eligible for any recompense from the state or national treasuries.
Kevin Beck: Or, those payments to descendants of slaves should be paid by descendants of slaveholders. Otherwise, we’re talking about collective punishment. And after blacks are satisfied (LOL) the queue will form: women, Chinese, Hispanics — all have been exploited and oppressed throughout the history of this country. Time to pay up?