By some calculations, California’s payment to the descendants of slavery could reach $1.2 million per person.
Just who will qualify for reparations is still not certain, nor how the money will be dispensed.
The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans is due to be voted on by the state’s legislature later this month.
Of course, the money — no matter how much it is — will not compensate for the scars of a shameful national legacy of slavery and discrimination in the United States.
But California’s proposal for financial reparations for harms compounded over centuries could be a potential roadmap for other states, creating a blueprint as to how to compensate for historical injustices.
Still, the legislation may never get passed through the California legislature, and its has a potential cost of up to $800 billion, which would be the largest reparation sum in history.
California’s nine-member reparations panel has spent the last two years reviewing racial gaps that affect the state’s Black residents in health, wealth, housing, education and employment that affect many of the state’s Black residents, who make up about 5.7% of the population.
In the end, trying to put a price on historical wrongs could leave the most populous U.S. state both financially and morally bankrupt.
