This article was originally published in CalMatters.
Recognition, apology and reconciliation are the three keys to reparations, California Assemblymember Corey Jackson said during a panel at the CalMatters Ideas Festival on June 6.
The panelists discussed how to solve ongoing issues within the Black community, such as housing, health care, and mass incarceration. Jackson was joined on stage by Kristin Nimmers, policy manager of the California Black Power Network, and Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation.
A 1,000-page report released last year by a statewide task force is about much more than just handing out money to the descendants of enslaved people, Blackwell said. It’s about correcting a system of racism and discrimination.
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“The focus on cash payments and the way it’s framed is clickbait. It’s meant to keep tabs on payments and screens,” Blackwell said.
Translating the recovery report’s more than 200 recommendations into law would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of the recovery task force, Blackwell said. To start, state lawmakers in the Black Caucus are introducing a package of 14 bills, Jackson said.
“There is no doubt that their work was top class and highly regarded. The task force members have turned their work into something that is now sacred to us,” Jackson said. “We are now part of a sacred mission to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of our ancestors.”
According to Nimmers, one of the key recommendations is to amend the California Constitution to ban involuntary servitude of prisoners.
“The Constitution says that slavery or involuntary servitude is permitted as long as it is for the punishment of a crime,” Nimmers said. “And so that results in forced labor, which often results in profit for those in control of the prison industrial complex.”
According to Nimmers, providing reparations to Black people can also provide a blueprint for offering similar services to Native Americans, Japanese-Americans and others who have been treated inhumanely throughout California’s history.
“It’s important that it’s not just for Black people, but for our non-Black allies as well,” Nimmers said.
Of the more than two hundred recommendations in the reparations report, two stood out to Jackson.
“Number one is we need free higher education for our people,” Jackson said. “Number two is we need to have the ability to own our own homes with the help so we can start creating generational wealth.”
To get a better sense of the issues facing Black people in California, the Black Caucus is partnering with the Black Freedom Fund to tour the state of California, Jackson said. The tour starts on June 15.
“We’re going to six places in California that have large African-American populations and small African-American populations to educate them about what the data says people are going through right now. We’re going to Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Oakland, Moreno Valley,” Jackson said.
This story was originally published on CalMatters.org.
