Reparations Task Force Members Blast Media For Focusing On $800 Billion Estimate
Members of the California Reparations Task Force criticized the media this week for focusing on the $800 billion proposed estimate of reparations, calling the monetary figure the “least important” part of the proposal.
Since the Task Force was first put together in late 2020, following Gov. Gavin Newsom signing AB 3121 by then-assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), they have considered and recommended reparations, monetary or otherwise, for African-Americans living in California, for discriminatory practices and slavery of the past, despite that California was never a slave state. While initially encompassing all people of African descent, the group of those qualified to receive reparations was significantly narrowed in March 2022 when the task force voted to limit the possible reparations to those who are an African American descendant of an enslaved person or free Black person living in the US prior to the end of the 19th century.
In the pre-modern world positions in society were largely inherited. Some people were born with saddles on their backs and others booted and spurred to ride them — “The rich man in his castle / The poor man at his gate / God made them high or lowly / And ordered their estate,” in the words of the Victorian hymn. The meritocratic idea was the dynamite which blew up this view of the world and provided the materials for the modern era. But its reign is threatened as 
