‘ABSURD’: GOP lawmakers slam federal reparations proposal
Rep. Cori Bush introduced a resolution urging federal reparations for Americans of African descent, but one Republican lawmaker slammed the plan as "absurd."
Reparations task force member Rev. Amos Brown told The New York Times, "Of all these billionaires in San Francisco, you could establish a reparations fund" to pay millions to Black residents.
California is one of multiple states negotiating over economic reparations for Black Americans whose ancestors were victimized by the Atlantic slave trade and its legacy, despite the fact California was designated as a free state when it joined the Union in 1850.
The New York Times observed that the premise of San Francisco’s call for reparations in particular focuses on "redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s when the authorities declared entire blocks to be ‘blighted’ and used eminent domain to purchase businesses and homes." A building designated as "blighted" usually means it unsafe, unsanitary or somehow endangers the welfare of the surrounding community.
The panel called this designation and acquirement of property the "most significant example of how the City and County of San Francisco as an institution played a role in undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city’s Black population."
Pastor Amos Brown speaks at a rally in front of the Hall of Justice in San Francisco as demonstrators demand justice for Vicha Ratanapakdee on March 22, 2021. Ratanapakdee died after being pushed to the pavement as he walked through the city's Anza Vista neighborhood. (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
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Brown is the vice chair of both the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee and the president of the San Francisco branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Brown is reportedly optimistic that reparations will indeed be paid to Black San Francisco residents, but is unsure which plan will be the most viable.
Kamilah Moore, chair of the California Reparations Task Force, and Amos Brown, vice chair, appear at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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"Despite past promises going unfulfilled, he said, he’s ‘very, very cautiously optimistic’ that the city will enact some form of reparations, even if he fears the $5 million idea could give false hope to Black residents," The New York Times wrote.
"Of all these billionaires in San Francisco, you could establish a reparations fund," Brown told the paper.
The Times also observed that the tech industry has driven up prices and "gentrified" neighborhoods to the point that residents can no longer afford to live there.
Longtime Los Angeles resident Walter Foster, 80, holds up a sign as the Reparations Task Force meets to hear public input on reparations at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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"San Francisco’s Black population has shrunk from 13 percent in 1970 to about 5 percent today, driven first by cycles of redevelopment and then by the gentrifying forces of tech employers. Black residents have been pushed into outlying Bay Area suburbs with cheaper housing and long commutes, if not other cities and states," it wrote.
Fox News reached out to Brown for comment, but did not hear back.