Reparations for slavery: A road map | The Seattle Times
The California state task force on reparations for Black residents voted on March 22 to limit eligibility to individuals whose lineage could be traced to enslavement in America. While this first-in-the-nation task force hotly debated the issue, more important is that it was impaneled by Gov. Gavin Newsome to study and develop reparation proposals. While many look toward California, awaiting its findings and conclusions, Gov. Jay Inslee, who s been out in front on many issues of racial equity, should not wait. He should impanel a similar reparations task force, with similar objectives in Washington state.
Reparations to Black people, to be sure, are contentious. Opponents voice several issues. If my family never held people enslaved, if they came to this country after the Civil War, I have no responsibility for what happened during slavery, and I should bear no responsibility for paying reparations. Anyway, how do you compute what s owed to the descendants of the enslaved? And how would reparations get paid out?
Reparations like the one discussed here would be much easier to implement after we have a comprehensive social credit scoring system in place, complete with information about one’s ancestry. You’re laughing now, but just wait.