Black Californians who have watched a first-in-the-nation reparations task force have seen how the state can apologize and atone for decades of discriminatory policies. But they hope the proposals don’t become yet another example of a broken promise.
By SOPHIE AUSTIN and JANIE HARFILE - Pia Harris, with the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation, second from left, and her mother, Adrian Williams, listen to speakers at a reparations rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco, Tuesday, March 14, 2023. Harris hopes for reparations in her lifetime.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — San Francisco resident Pia Harris hopes for reparations in her lifetime. But the nonprofit program director is not confident that California lawmakers will turn the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation task force into concrete legislation given pushback from opponents who say slavery was a thing of the past.
It frustrates Harris, 45, that reparations opponents won’t acknowledge that life for Black people did not improve with the abolition of chattel slavery in 1865. Black families have been unable to accumulate wealth through property ownership and higher education. Black boys and teenagers are still told to watch out for law enforcement, and Black businesses struggle to get loans, she said.
“I want them to stop acting like it’s so far removed, and it’s not currently happening,” said Harris of the lingering effects of slavery and discrimination. “I want them to understand that we’re still going through things now as a community. It’s not — it hasn’t been over for us.” Black Californians have watched closely as the state’s reparations task force forged ahead in a two-year study, finally
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