A member of California's reparations task force is complaining of the news media's "preoccupation" with the $800 billion price tag dominating headlines.
Cheryl Grills, a task force member and clinical psychologist told Cal Matters that the multi-billion dollar price tag is the "least important" part of the proposed handout program.
"We want to make sure that this is presented out in a way that does not reinforce the preoccupation with a dollar figure, which is the least important piece of this," Grills, whose been on the faculty of Loyola Marymount University (LMU) for the past 34 years, said.
"It’s important, but it’s the least important in terms of being able to get to a point in our country’s history and in California’s history where we recognize that the harm cuts across multiple areas and domains and that the repair needs to align with that," she continued. "It’s really unfortunate. I’m actually sad to see that our news media is not able to nuance better. It’s almost like, ‘What’s going to be sensational’ as opposed to what’s important."
REPARATIONS FOR BLACK CALIFORNIAS COULD COST $800B, ECONOMISTS WARN
California’s Reparations Task Force has until July 1 to deliver its final recommendations to the state legislature.
In 2020, as demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd's death swept the nation, the state legislature voted 58-12 in favor of a bill establishing the reparations task force, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law. Its members and experts over the past more than two years have produced thousands of pages of documentation, data and research related to various categories of alleged racial injustice. Those categories range from evaluating anything from the criminal justice system to barriers to homeownership.
It's unclear how the state legislature might adopt the final recommendations after the yearslong effort, and Newsom has so far remained quiet on the issue while juggling a nearly $22.5 billion budget deficit for the next fiscal year. The $800 billion reparations price tag is roughly 2.5 times the state's annual budget.
WHAT COMES NEXT FOR REPARATIONS IN SAN FRANCISCO AND CALIFORNIA
"These recommendations are the culmination of collaboration between experts who understand the scope and legacy of how racism and disenfranchisement have had long-term socioeconomic impacts on California’s African-American communities," Assemblymember Damon Connolly, a Democrat, told Cal Matters. "This report contains recommendations that are common-sense and comprehensive — changes that should have been considered long ago."
Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors said it was weighing several recommendations from the city's African American Reparations Advisory Committee, including paying qualifying Black residents a one-time lump sum of $5 million, the elimination of personal debt and tax burdens and guaranteed annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years.
San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton suggested allocating $50 million of the city's budget toward the establishment of an office of reparations to begin preparing for implementing the recommendations from the city reparations advisory committee.
