Reparations: CA to make amends for past atrocities

(continued from page 1) birth outcomes could be seen more frequently in historically redlined communities. His study, which examined several areas within California from 2006 to 2015, found that overall mortality and preterm birth rates also increased based on risk rating.

While research is still taking place, evidence already shows that redlining and other discriminatory practices have had severe health effects, causing significant damage to Black communities in California.

Housing Discrimination

In conjunction with redlining, communities adopted covenants that barred African American families from purchasing homes in certain communities, including Country Day’s neighborhood. These covenants are most prominent in northern Sacramento communities, such as Land Park and Arden, while the most aggressively redlined communities fall in the southern communities like Oak Park.

These covenants were used by Sacramento developers as late as 1960, shaping the cultural landscape of the city, according to a 2012 book project, “The History of Redlining and Restrictive Covenants in Sacramento: Explaining Today’s Neighborhoods” published by urban sociologist Jesus Hernandez. This resulted in white communities defined by investments and African American communities defined by neglect.

In modern times, we see the median net worth in Land Park is over $800,000 more than Oak Park, according to Hernandez’s report.

Due to community investment in parks, trees and quality services in Land Park, the value of homes have appreciated greatly, while homes in Oak Park suffered with none of the government support, as summarized in Hernandez’s report.

Mass Incarceration and Over-Policing of African Americans

The Task Force also found that the U.S. War on Drugs disproportionately affected African American people.

The federal government’s campaign against drug use was unevenly enforced, targeting African American individuals at far higher rates. According to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, despite illicit-drug use in non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic Black demographics sitting at a rate of 6.4% in 2000, four times as many African American individuals were arrested for drugs.

Over-policing of minority communities, itself a significant concern, has also led to a rise in mass incarceration. California Penal Code Section 2700, which deals with carceral rules, states that “The Department of Corrections shall require every able-bodied prisoner imprisoned in any state prison as many hours of faithful labor in each day and every day during his or her term of imprisonment as shall be prescribed by the rules and regulations of the Director of Corrections.”

As a result, a disproportionate number of African American prisoners are subjected to a system of unpaid labor that mirrors slavery.

Unjust Property Takings

“California built its cities over the bones of the African American neighborhoods that it tore apart,” the Task Force concluded. This was done “through eminent domain, building the highways, cities and parks” which have allowed California “to become the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world.”

One clear example of this phenomenon is Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach, a Los Angeles County community. This beach was a Black-owned spa and wellness facility that was taken through eminent domain and transformed into a whites-only beach, according to the Los Angeles County Anti-Racism, Inclusion and Diversity Initiative.

Only recently did the LA Council return Bruce Beach land to the Bruce family’s closest living relatives — a circumstance the Task Force’s team of experts cited as an early example of partial restitution.

Devaluation of African American Businesses

As of 2019, white households own as much as nine times more assets than African American households, the 2022 interim Task Force report showed. This devaluation is a result of redlining, which, according to the same report, isolates communities by limiting access to public services such as quality healthcare and education.

At a city planning level, African American communities are frequently listed as hazardous or risky to invest in. This, along with racism in our country’s private financial system marks the struggle of starting a business even harder for African Americans, as they are denied loans at higher rates than whites. According to the Task Force, this cycle has prevented the growth of familial wealth and equity in predominantly African American communities.

Meet the Task Force

The Task Force is composed of nine members from different backgrounds and communities. Gov. Gavin Newsom filled five of these seats while Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon selected two and the State Senate selected two.

The council is chaired by Kamilah Moore — a reparatory justice scholar and attorney — who was appointed by Speaker Rendon.

Moore’s vice-chair is Amos C. Brown Th.D., a Baptist minister who has fought for equality since the Jim Crow era. Brown was a freedom rider and was arrested alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at sit-ins in 1961.

The rest of the Task Force is composed of senators, assembly members, council members and experts in pertinent fields such as psychology, social equity and reparations law.

An expert team assists the Task Force in gathering research and creating a methodology for compensation.

This team is composed of economics experts, sociologists and historians chosen by Newsom, the State Senate or Rendon. This team has provided frameworks for reparations, strategies for the disbursement of reparations funds and forms of adjudicating reparations for the Task Force to vote on and enact.

For example, the Task Force plans to award restitution based on family lineage and state residency, which a “low threshold of proof.”

The Task Force recommends that each incident of ongoing harm, which they describe using the blanket term “atrocity,” should be heard by a tribunal, which facilitates court filings to calculate reparations.

In order to enforce and monitor the process of these tribunals and reparations, the Task Force recommends the resurrection of the California American Freedman Affairs Agency, a reconstruction-era program created to help settle freed slaves.

After June 1, the studied changes and recommendations will hit the legislature, and reparations may become a reality in our state.