If you think the country, politics and society in general is going stark raving mad, it’s worse in California.
California is home to one-third of the nations’ welfare recipients and has the highest poverty.
Our failing schools now rank 48th in the country.
California lawmakers can’t build new homes or apartments for less than $800,000 each (luxury level costs).
The governor and lawmakers can’t figure out what to do with several hundred thousand drug-addicted, mentally ill homeless vagrants living on city streets and taking over public parks.
California lawmakers refuse to build additional reservoirs for water storage in a state in which drought conditions are historically normal, and now has a regular wildfire “season.”
California lawmakers and governor mandated all electric vehicles within a few years, but can’t keep the power on during heat spells and winter storms.
Lawmakers authorized more than $25 million worth of taxpayer-funded guaranteed income to some individuals in the state, but can’t really tell you why.
California lawmakers and Gov. Newsom passed a bill to censor doctors and strip them of their medical licenses if they provide information and advice to patients about COVID not in accordance with the “contemporary scientific consensus.”
There are more very serious issues in the former Golden State at the root of so many Californians and businesses fleeing to other states – highest-in-the-nation income taxes, highest gas taxes, high crime… But perhaps nothing is as ludicrous and farcical as the current reparations proposal, authored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) in Assembly Bill 3121.
The Globe reported Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Reparations Task Force is considering an estimated $569 billion to be paid by the state for reparations (that’s two and a half times California’s current state budget which already is running a deficit) to give to black-Americans living in California for past discriminatory practices and slavery, despite that California was never a slave state. Some of the recent proposals were simply cash payouts of $350,000 to every African American and $250,000 for every black-owned business to help close the “racial wealth gap,” which is actually a social justice grievance, and not slavery.
Interestingly, the already low black population of 5.5% in California has actually declined – blacks are also fleeing the state, and in particular, fleeing California’s hellish big cities.
And, if we are putting the skunk on the table, Asians suffered more recent discrimination in California, and are still the targets of horrific hate crimes. For that matter, many Irish escaping indentured servitude and the potato famine (1845-1852), and Chinese immigrants were the primary early builders of the Central Pacific Railroad. Many Irish American women became servants or domestic workers, while many Irish American men labored in coal mines and built railroads and canals. But that history isn’t taught in California’s public schools anymore.
The Reparations Task Force is also calling for the creation of a Bureau of African American affairs, similar to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
California’s committee to study reparations for African Americans will meet in Oakland Wednesday to discuss what form reparations could take and eligibility requirements to receive possible payments. https://t.co/iKubgDxR9E
— FOX 11 Los Angeles (@FOXLA) December 14, 2022
Leaving a warehouse-sized door opened on the bottom line, Reparations task force member Jovan Scott Lewis said: “Spoiler-alert: We don’t yet know the racial wealth gap in the state of California.” This is the preliminary conversation to figure out what we know and what we don’t know.”
Remember this: “Racial wealth gap.”
Task force member Jovan Scott Lewis:
“Spoiler-alert: We don’t yet know the racial wealth gap in the state of California.”
This is the preliminary conversation to figure out what we know and what we don’t know.
— Lakshmi Sarah (@lakitalki) December 14, 2022
Another task force member Dr. Cheryl Grills said: “Racial terror leads to racial trauma … also known as race-based traumatic stress.”
“Racial terror leads to racial trauma … also known as race-based traumatic stress.”
— Task Force member Dr. Cheryl Grills
— Lakshmi Sarah (@lakitalki) December 14, 2022
Dr. Grills discussed violence with police as a mitigating factor:
Another of the recommendations is to create a guaranteed income program for dependents of slaves. They also recommended repeal of Proposition 209, passed by the voters which bans racial and ethnic preferences in state education, employment and contracting. Notably and more recently, Proposition 16 failed at the ballot box, which would have overturned Prop. 209, the California Civil Rights Initiative, which merely states: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin, in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting.”
Attacking excellence injures everyone, including the intended beneficiaries.
Is the Reparations Task Force prepared to go back 10 generations to pay the relatives? The policies of Gov. Newsom, California’s elected Democrats and this reparations task force have caused far more harm and done more damage to California’s African-Americans by legislating them into victim status by whittling away at merit-base practices – rather than building constructive relationships in schools and employment, and building bridges to encourage best practices and ultimately promote success, not victimhood.
As Wenyuan Wu with the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation told the Globe during the Proposition 16 battle, “Progressive and woke San Francisco sticks out as the state’s worst county for black student achievement, with nine out of 10 failing state math and reading exams. This abysmal situation has deep roots in housing instability, community breakdown, high rate of turnover among teachers, and a toxic cultural de-emphasis on achievement. To blame this long-standing problem on amorphous systemic racism covers up real challenges that require practical policy solutions to bolster standards.”
Wu says, “Above all, equality and merit must be safeguarded as guiding principles.”
The Reparations Task Force is already pulling a bait-and-switch on Californians – with talk of a “racial wealth gap,” “racial terror,” “race-based traumatic stress,” and “guaranteed income for dependents of slaves,” what they are really promoting is social justice reparations and nothing more than a redistribution of wealth.
