Two years ago, far-left California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, established a task force with the assigned mission of examining slavery reparations. From the beginning, it was clear that the outcome from the task force wasn’t going to be if it would recommend reparations, that was a foregone conclusion. The only question was to whom such reparations should be given.
On Tuesday, that task force finally made their recommendation, and they may also have given a hint that whatever steps were to be taken would only be the beginning. After a lengthy debate and prior to holding the actual vote, the vice-chair of the task force, Rev. Amos Brown who is also president of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP, made the following plea:
“Please, please, please I beg us tonight, take the first step. We’ve got to give emergency treatment to where it is needed.”
Some may interpret “take the first step” as meaning that the task force doesn’t have the authority to pass laws, only to make recommendations. Therefore, future steps will be for elected officials to pass laws and make their recommendations a reality. But others could view Brown’s s request as only the beginning of a continuing, and perhaps never-ending, plan to redistribute wealth in the name of slavery, systemic racism, and other perceived injustices.
In a 5-4 vote, the group decided that only those black Californians who are able to trace their lineage back to enslaved ancestors will be eligible for the state’s “reparations.” But that decision highlights some of the absurdities of the initiative, particularly in answering the question of where to draw the line. And apparently, it represents some of the substance of the debate between task force members.
- Should reparations apply to all black Californians including immigrants, or just to slave descendants?
- What if someone is like Vice-President Kamala Harris (who is from California, by the way), and is descended from both slaves and slave owners? Do they qualify?
- What if someone who otherwise qualifies for the reparations is exceedingly wealthy, do they qualify? Will California be taking tax dollars from non-qualifying middle-class citizens and giving them to millionaires who happen to have a slave as an ancestor?
- What about those who had ancestors enslaved in other countries such as Jamaica, Canada, and Haiti? Will they qualify for reparations?
- What about those of us who have ancestors who were among the over half-million white men who died in the Civil War fighting to free the slaves; those who paid the ultimate price? Will they still be required to pony up tax dollars to fund this boondoggle?
- And what about those of us who descend from only European immigrants who never participated in slavery, will they be excluded from contributing those taxes?
Here’s the reality: Slavery was a despicable institution and is the ‘original sin’ of the United States. It was awful, and so was Jim Crow. But slavery ended 157 years ago, and Jim Crow ended 58 years ago with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This reparations scheme isn’t about making up for the sin of slavery, it’s about implementing a far-left agenda. And it’s only the “first step” in moving us towards full-blown socialism.
By Jess Lawson
Jess Lawson is a regular contributor to The Blue State Conservative and a passionate, conservative millennial who loves America.
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Featured photo by Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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