Race Hustling: California Task Force Releases a Reparations Program Report

A California task force on reparations is expected to release a report on June 1, 2022 detailing the ways it will tackle perceived wrongs the state has committed against African Americans. 

In this report, there are calls for expanding voter registration and police accountability for cases of alleged brutality. Plus, this report recommends the creation of a special office to assist African Americans who descended from slaves or free African Americans in the United States at the end of the 19th century in documenting their potential eligibility for financial restitution. 

The report is made up of 500 pages and is the first-government-sponsored study on the alleged damages that the state has committed against African Americans since the 1968 Kerner Commission report that former President Lyndon Baines Johnson established. 

Unfortunately, such plans are misguided and patronizing in nature. For one, reparations will take ethnic grievance hustling to whole new levels, as sorts of “victim” groups will try to use the state to shakedown whites and other groups who are perceived to be oppressors. 

Plus, such reparations plans would be an insult to African Americans who have rejected petty race hustling and have worked hard to establish stable livelihoods without complaining or begging for government handouts. 

Let’s face it, all societies have their low points. But those points are what we study and learn from. And most importantly, move on from. No other serious country is litigating its past history of injustices and pushing its historic population for them. In fact, most of these countries have comparatively worse track records when it comes to the abuse of individual liberties and human life. The US, for all its faults, has historically been one of the freest and most prosperous societies in human history.

The US should avoid passing reparations at all costs and start focusing on more existential matters such as rising inflation, mass migration, and the socio-economic breakdown of the country. These are public policy threats that harm Americans of all races and creeds.