Black Californians Owed More Than $800 Billion in Reparations, Economists Say

Economists told a California state task force Wednesday they estimate that Black residents are owed more than $800 billion in reparations for harm caused by centuries of slavery and systemic racism.

The case for reparations has been made many times in recent years, particularly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. California was the first state to establish a task force to determine how to compensate for the legacy of slavery and racist policies made after the practice of enslaving people was abolished, both of which have crippled Black people’s economic mobility.

Economists presented the task force with a preliminary estimate Wednesday that does not include either a recommended $1 million lump sum to each older Black resident for health disparities or compensation to people who had property unjustly taken by the government or a business devalued.

The reparations committee is due to give a final report on July 1. Until then, it can accept or reject proposals, including the economists’ budget.

“We’ve got to go in with an open mind and come up with some creative ways to deal with this,” Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who sits on the task force, told the Associated Press.

The task force can make suggestions in its July report, but the final call rests with the state legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom. It’s unclear when—or if at all—Black Californians will start receiving payments, because the preliminary estimate is 2.5 times more than California’s annual budget.

“How do you compensate for hundreds of years of harm, even 150 years post-slavery?” Senator Steven Bradford asked.

Critics of reparations in California argue that it’s unreasonable to pay in a city or state that never enslaved Black people. But advocates note that the majority of data and historical evidence shows that after slavery ended in 1865, policies and practices across the nation helped curb the rights of Black Americans.

San Francisco was the first major city to propose a reparations plan, putting forth a sweeping draft in December that includes eliminating personal debt and tax burdens, a guaranteed annual income for 250 years, and family housing for just $1. The city’s reparations committee has until June to produce a final report.

The Chicago suburb of Evanston was the first city to begin paying reparations, while Boston and Asheville, North Carolina, are also considering compensation measures.

Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee introduced a bill in 2021 to develop a reparations study task force. President Joe Biden has expressed support for studying reparations, but he has yet to back Lee’s bill, and the issue has yet to be seriously discussed at the federal level.

On Wednesday, President Biden kicked off his “Summit for Democracy” with a panel of explicitly undemocratic world leaders. Panel members included India’s Narendra Modi, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.

While the summit overall hosted leaders from all over the world, this specific panel was focused on “Democracy Delivering Economic Growth and Shared Prosperity.” All three far-right leaders pretended to care about democracy, while ignoring their own records.

During the summit, Indian Prime Minister Modi sermonized on how India was “the mother” of democracy. “Democracy is not just a structure; it is also a spirit. It is based on the belief that the needs and aspirations of every human being are equally important,” Modi said. “That is why, in India, our guiding philosophy is ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas,’ meaning ‘striving together for inclusive growth.’”

Modi, of course, has been at the helm of an extremist rise in Hindu nationalism in India. As chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2001, Modi oversaw a massive riot rumored to have been spurred by government and police officials who sought to target Muslims. The riot left more than 1,000 people dead—some 75 percent of whom were Muslim.

His authoritarian tendencies have only increased since he rose to power as prime minister in 2014. In recent months, Modi has blocked the airing of a BBC documentary questioning his leadership during the Gujarat riots; conspired with Twitter CEO and billionaire Elon Musk to conduct a mass censorship campaign against dissidents, including imposing a mass internet shutdown across the state of Punjab; and overseen the arrest of an opposition leader for “defamation.” This doesn’t even include basic features of Modi’s reign, like being the first Indian leader to not take questions at press conferences, or the ongoing Hindutva nationalist campaign that targets Muslims and other religious minorities.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, on Wednesday proudly assured that “Israel was, is, and always will remain a proud democracy at the heart of the Middle East.” He went on to dismiss the massive protests against his judicial overhaul plan, which would help cement power for his own government and potentially help him avoid corruption investigations, as “a very intensive public debate.”

Israel, of course, is not a thriving democracy, as it operates on a system of apartheid that targets millions of Palestinians. It would be laborious to summarize all the cruelties of this occupation here, or Netanyahu’s role in furthering them, but so far this year, Israeli forces have killed at least 90 Palestinians, 17 of whom were children (that’s an average of at least one Palestinian a day).

Italian Prime Minister Meloni spoke glowingly of how “only a democratic system” can guarantee “growth, justice, equality, [and] legality.” But she opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage and has said she wants to make it unconstitutional for gay people to adopt a child. She has opposed a 1993 law that punished people involved in racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination or the incitement of hate crimes. She holds rampant anti-immigrant and nationalist views and has stoked antisemitic and racist conspiracies related to George Soros and the “great replacement” white nationalist theory.

Meloni has also attended the Conservative Political Action Conference—a bastion of the most radical figures in American society—twice, once in 2019 and again 2022. She peddled more of her fearmongering around immigrants and “globalism” while there.

Almost too spot-on, Meloni has called Modi the “most loved leader in the world,” and she tried to assuage fears of her extremism during her 2022 campaign by likening herself to Netanyahu’s Likud Party in Israel and America’s Republican Party.

Other world leaders who spoke on Wednesday’s panel carry their own baggage. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s administration, in Modi-like fashion, has carried out a surveillance campaign against members of the press and politicians. Kenyan President William Ruto was previously charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity after he allegedly orchestrated postelection violence that killed more than 1,300 people.

That these leaders were deemed appropriate to speak on democracy is an indictment not just of the White House but of international political conventions. Such traditions allow anti-democratic states and leaders (including America) to posture as beacons of democracy anyhow, and they desensitize the rest of us from clear-as-day authoritarianism.

Kentucky’s Republican-led legislature on Wednesday overrode a gubernatorial veto of a massive bill targeting transgender rights, one of the most extreme anti-trans measures in the country.

Governor Andy Beshear vetoed Senate Bill 150 last week, warning it would cause an “increase in suicide among Kentucky’s youth” if it became law. But the measure had already passed both the House and Senate, mainly along party lines. A veto override requires only a simple majority vote from both chambers.

On Wednesday, the General Assembly re-passed the bill by a vote of 76–23 in the House and 28–9 in the Senate, meaning that the measure will now become law.

S.B. 150 will ban all gender-affirming care for trans minors in Kentucky and would force doctors to detransition any minors in their care. It would prohibit discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools at any level, prevent trans students from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity, and would allow teachers to refuse to use a student’s preferred pronouns.

“Good people will die because of what we’ve done here today,” Representative Daniel Grossberg said during the voting.

“To the LGBTQ children listening: You are not broken, your government is.”

Hundreds of people had gathered outside the state Capitol building earlier in the day to protest the measure, which the ACLU of Kentucky has described as “the worst anti-trans bill in the country.” Courier Journal reporter Olivia Krauth said the crowd may be the largest she has seen during the current legislative session.

Security had forcibly removed protesters from the gallery during voting. They stayed in the Capitol Rotunda, chanting, “Trans rights!”

Republicans had rushed the measure through the House and Senate in a record daylong sprint. A different omnibus anti-trans measure had looked dead in the water last Wednesday night. But the next morning, Republicans resurrected and expanded the text, forcing it through despite long and often emotional arguments against it from Democrats and trans rights activists.

Kentucky is one of many states, particularly Republican-led ones, trying to reduce LGBTQ rights. Just last week, Florida advanced an anti-trans bill so broad and extreme it could also prevent people from getting treated for breast cancer. In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp signed a law banning gender-affirming care for minors and criminalizing medical workers who provide that care.

Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles is learning the hard way that the internet has a long memory, as people called him out for an old Instagram post showing his infant son holding a gun.

The Republican lawmaker, known for fabricating parts of his résumé, has come under increased scrutiny since a shooter opened fire Monday on a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, killing at least three children and three adults and wounding several others. Ogles, who represents the district that the Covenant School is located in, has done little more than offer bland statements.

On Wednesday, Kat Abughazaleh, a video producer at Media Matters, found one of Ogles’s old Instagram posts.

The photo shows Ogles’s youngest child holding an automatic rifle. At the time of writing, the post was still up.

People flocked to comments on the 2016 post, calling out Ogles’s hypocrisy in light of Monday’s shooting.

“How do you sleep at night knowing innocent children die and are forever traumatized on your watch and you do nothing,” one commenter said.

Another said, “This is not what responsible gun ownership looks like. This is performative nonsense.”

A third summed it up best: “I don’t care if it’s a toy—you are joking about training a toddler to shoot a gun. It isn’t funny. Parents are burying their kids. Guns are the leading killer of children in this country. Why are you a proud contributor to this madness, @andrew.ogles?”

Ogles already saw widespread backlash Monday when internet users dug up an old family Christmas card of his. In the picture, Ogles, his wife, and their two oldest children hold automatic rifles while posing in front of the Christmas tree. The youngest apparently is only allowed to hold guns on Instagram and so has to hold the “Merry Christmas” sign. Ogles deleted the photo after the criticism, but maintained he does not regret taking it.

Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin seems to think Bernie Sanders is a hypocrite for attacking Starbucks because he wrote a bestselling book that made some money.

Mullin, who earlier this month told the Teamsters union president to “shut your mouth,” made the claims during a Senate hearing Wednesday with former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Arguing that Sanders himself has some money after his book was published (Sanders is still nowhere close to being a billionaire), Mullin seemed to believe the Vermont senator should not be going after Schultz or Starbucks for its union-busting practices.

“Mr. Chairman, you yourself have been very successful, rightfully so, glad you have been. You’ve been in office for 28 years and you and your wife have immersed [sic] a wealth of over $8 million,” Mullin began, incorrectly inflating Sanders’ reported net worth of $3 million.

“If you can be a millionaire, why can’t Mr. Schultz and other CEOs be millionaires and be honest too? If that’s the case, then why is it that Mr. Schultz, who actually creates jobs—and the bestseller of a book isn’t creating any jobs—why is it that he’s corrupt, and you’re not? Why is it that all CEOs are corrupt because they’re wealthy, and yet our chairman—who is wealthy, and I’m glad you are—you’re not?”

Beyond the factual errors, Mullin seemed to be entirely disinterested in the substance of the hearing at all. Why indeed can’t rich people like Schultz be deemed “honest?” Well, if they are carrying out a union-busting campaign to prevent workers from being able to advocate for adequate wages and benefits—and lying about doing so—then, indeed, they could readily be deemed corrupt.

Sanders, for his part, did not play too much into the charade. After briefly countering Mullin’s false claims about his net worth or that he thinks “all CEOs” are corrupt, he focused on the purpose of why they were there at all.

“What this hearing is about is whether workers have the constitutional right to form a union,” Sanders said. “The evidence is overwhelming, not from me, but from the National Labor Relations Board … that time after time after time—despite what Mr. Schultz is saying—Starbucks has broken the law and has prevented workers from joining unions to collectively bargain for decent wages and benefits.”

Mullin himself warrants his own level of scrutiny as to whether he is an “honest” millionaire. The Oklahoma Republican was already swimming in assets worth up to $29.9 million in 2020. The following year, his net worth exploded to be anywhere between $31.6 million and a gargantuan $75.6 million. Mullin received some $1.4 million in federal PPP loans and was among the members of Congress who helped tank the TRUTH Act, which would have required public disclosure of companies receiving those relief funds.

Mullin’s implication that Sanders is somehow hypocritical to hold the rich accountable since he is wealthy is a familiar talking point from the right. Its salience is weak given that, if anything, the talking point actually proves Sanders’s commitment to pursue policies even when they may impact him (like higher taxes on the wealthy).

Moreover, if Sanders is somehow in the wrong for holding fellow rich people accountable (though Schultz is worth 1,000 times as much as Sanders), what does that make rich people like Mullin who defend union-busting CEOs?