The California Reparations Task Force released a 500-page report Wednesday that calls for “comprehensive reparations” for generations of discrimination against Blacks that has led to a wealth gap that continues to expand over generations, the Washington Post reports.
Systemic racism, some of it government sanctioned, such as redlining, Jim Crow laws, lack of investment, educational disparity, and geographically-based aid programs, has supported the economic separated Blacks and other populations in California.
“Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect, and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations,” the report said.
The task force did not specify what the amount or form the reparations should be, noting that the mistreatment of Blacks started before California became a state and continued through adhering to the Fugitive Slave Act and to racist laws such as “sundown” laws from the recent past.