Members of the California Reparations Task Force issued wide-ranging recommendations to the legislature for payments meant to compensate for past anti-black racial discrimination.
The document assembled by the nine-member task force offered over 100 recommendations to lawmakers and suggested cash reparations payments that could exceed $1 million in some cases. Democratic lawmakers in California, which entered the union as a free state in 1850, have contended that their approach to reparations could serve as a model for other states.
The task force suggested banning the enforcement of laws against “public intoxication, disorderly conduct, minor trespass, and public urination” since such incidents could increase contact with police officers and purportedly raise the risk of excessive force.
“Although the subjects of these contacts are often experiencing homelessness, a mental health crisis, or both, the responding officers typically possess neither training nor expertise in working with these vulnerable populations. This disconnect often results in the use of excessive and sometimes fatal force that falls disproportionately on Black individuals,” the report said. “Given the devastating impacts of this kind of over-policing, the Task Force recommends that the Legislature prohibit law enforcement from criminally enforcing public disorder infractions and other low-level crimes.”
The task force also recommended nixing all outstanding interest on child support debt, contending that the payments owed by black citizens are attributable to “discriminatory” federal laws which have disrupted their families. Black residents compose 7% of the state’s population but owe 18% of child support debt, which is subject to 10% annual interest in California.
“As a result of the debt owed for back child support and interest, a disproportionate number of African American parents are saddled with crushing debt that hinders their ability to attend school or job training, maintain housing, and find employment if their professional licenses and driver’s licenses have been suspended because of the failure to pay child support debt,” the document continued. “The Task Force recommends that the Legislature enact legislation to terminate all interest accrued on back child support, requiring only the payment of the principal owed. At a minimum, the proposal recommends that the Legislature eliminate the prospective accrual of interest on child-support debt for low-income parents.”
Other recommendations from the task force included eliminating or reducing phone call charges from detention centers, reducing the placement of black children in foster care, removing Confederate monuments, increasing the minimum wage, and prohibiting discrimination based on natural hair styles in competitive sports.
Consideration of reparations for black Americans emerged three years ago after the death of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide social justice movement. Critics of reparations initiatives assert that the policies would fail to allocate funds in an objective manner, inevitably expand to additional minority groups, and deepen racial divides in the United States.
Some 68% of adults believe that descendants of slaves in the United States should not receive reparations, according to a survey from Pew Research Center. Roughly 80% of white Americans oppose reparations while 80% of black Americans support them; substantial majorities of Asian and Hispanic respondents likewise oppose reparations.
