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Speaker 1: We have done so much with so little from so few.

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Speaker 1: We made a way out of no way. But for

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Speaker 1: that to persist in a nation that claims to be

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Speaker 1: about equal protection on the law, that claims to be

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Speaker 1: about fulfilling the problems of the decoration of independence, life, liberty,

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Speaker 1: and the pursuit of happiness, It's not been for us.

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Speaker 1: For us, it has been hardship, power, and hellless moments continuously.

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Speaker 2: I'm wes Kosova today on the Big Take. California seriously

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Speaker 2: explorers reparations for African Americans. For decades, African American activists

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Speaker 2: and politicians have made the case for reparations to provide

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Speaker 2: some measure of compensation for the legacy of slavery, racism,

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Speaker 2: and discrimination in the US, but these efforts haven't gone anywhere.

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Speaker 2: Now California is taking the argument for reparations to the

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Speaker 2: next level. A state task force of economists, public policy experts,

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Speaker 2: and elected officials has written a detailed draft report that

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Speaker 2: attempts to quantify the costs of historical injustice. They calculate

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Speaker 2: it to be as much as eight hundred billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: The goal of the task force is to recommend to

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Speaker 2: state lawmakers who should be eligible to receive compensation of

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Speaker 2: one kind or another. That big top line number and

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Speaker 2: the potential for payments to some individual jewels of up

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Speaker 2: to a million dollars or more have gotten a lot

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Speaker 2: of attention, positive and negative. And we'll get into what

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Speaker 2: those numbers mean, because there's more to it than that

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Speaker 2: part of a reparations plan, and the cost wouldn't be

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Speaker 2: for individuals, but to address ongoing inequality in things like

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Speaker 2: education and healthcare. Camilla Moore is an attorney and reparatory

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Speaker 2: justice scholar in the chair of the task force. I'll

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Speaker 2: talk with her about the challenges of trying to put

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Speaker 2: a dollar figure on injustice.

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Speaker 3: It's been a romant of emotions.

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Speaker 4: It's been very cathartic to hear from those who would

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Speaker 4: be eligible. You know, descendants of slaves, for instance, who

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Speaker 4: are pretty much sharing their stories to us every time

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Speaker 4: we meet, pouring their hearts out about the harms and

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Speaker 4: atrocity they've endured.

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Speaker 2: I also speak with Bloomberg's California bureau chief, Karen Breslau.

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Speaker 5: Some of this defies numbers, and it really speaks to

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Speaker 5: something of a collective atonement.

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Speaker 2: She's written a deeply reported peace about the Task Force,

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Speaker 2: and she's here to tell us how reparations would actually work.

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Speaker 2: Jare a person more. Let me just start with the

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Speaker 2: most basic question, what is the case for reparations? Why

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Speaker 2: should California pay them?

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Speaker 4: So, the case for reparations in the state of California

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Speaker 4: particularly is about the state taking account stability for its

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Speaker 4: role in perpetuating what we've called the badges and incidents

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Speaker 4: of slavery that still linger on and disproportionately negatively affect

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Speaker 4: African Americans, primarily those who are descendants of slaves. And

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Speaker 4: so we have spelled out in our final report various

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Speaker 4: different instances of California a perpetuating exclusionary public policy or

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Speaker 4: widespread private discrimination as well. And that's what the crux

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Speaker 4: of the justification for reparations in the state of California lives.

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Speaker 2: And so how do you decide who should be eligible

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Speaker 2: to receive compensation?

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Speaker 4: So the task Force we debated around the issue of

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Speaker 4: eligibility for over ten months and February of twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 4: In March twenty twenty two, we finally came to a

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Speaker 4: decision around who should be eligible, particularly for monetary cash payments.

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Speaker 4: In various other forms of reparations, and we decided to

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Speaker 4: base eligibility on lineage, that being, if you're a descendant

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Speaker 4: of a free or enslaved black person living in the

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Speaker 4: United States prior to nineteen hundred, then you would be eligible,

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Speaker 4: rather than a race based standard.

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Speaker 2: And so it's for people who lived anywhere in the

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Speaker 2: United States, not just California, which of course was not

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Speaker 2: a state that sanctioned slavery.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's for any person who's a descendant of an

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Speaker 4: enslaved or free black person living in the United States

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Speaker 4: more broadly prior to nineteen hundred, because a lot of

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Speaker 4: Black American Californians, you know, our grandparents, great grandparents, they

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Speaker 4: migrated from the South to California. The only part I

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Speaker 4: wanted to note is around California's role in slavery. You know,

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Speaker 4: a lot of people ask why California. You know, we

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Speaker 4: have argued as a task force, if we made the

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Speaker 4: claim that California was only free and name there were

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Speaker 4: over you know, two thousand black people who were enslaved

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Speaker 4: in the state. Not only that, California implemented or enacted

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Speaker 4: a fugitive slave law that was actually much more aggressive

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Speaker 4: than the federal Fugitive Slave Law that was in eighteen

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Speaker 4: fifty two, so that deputized ordinary white citizens to essentially

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Speaker 4: round up free black people to re enslave them in

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Speaker 4: the South or in some instances in the state of

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Speaker 4: California as well.

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Speaker 2: And so it's one thing to make the argument for reparations,

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Speaker 2: which has been made over the years in any number

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Speaker 2: of places, and quite another thing to try to figure

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Speaker 2: out how you decide who gets what, How did you

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Speaker 2: go about doing that? To put a dollar figure on

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Speaker 2: centuries of injustice.

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Speaker 4: We hired five economists and public policy experts who are

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Speaker 4: at the top of their field to just with this

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Speaker 4: question in terms of how do you calculate potential compensation,

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Speaker 4: particularly for these decades, generations longs of human rights violations?

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Speaker 3: Quite frankly, and so.

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Speaker 4: In our final report, you'll most likely see language acknowledging

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Speaker 4: how it's nearly impossible to put a dollar amount on

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Speaker 4: these human rights violations. But what we decided to do

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Speaker 4: was to utilize these economists and public policy experts to

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Speaker 4: essentially calculate the pure losses of the black community across

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Speaker 4: five different state sanctioned atrocity areas. The global figure that

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Speaker 4: the task force arrived at meaning the five economists and

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Speaker 4: public policy experts we hired were able to calculate almost

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Speaker 4: eight hundred billion dollars in the total losses in five

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Speaker 4: particular harm areas, so housing segregation. So part of that

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Speaker 4: eight hundred billion dollars represents the loss of home ownership

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Speaker 4: value because there was state sanctioned redlining in the state

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Speaker 4: that you know, relegated black folks to certain neighborhoods, to

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Speaker 4: certain homes, health harms. There's an eight year life expectancy

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Speaker 4: gap between white Americans and Black Americans, so some of

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Speaker 4: that eight hundred billion dollar value of loss is an

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Speaker 4: attempt to quantify that life expectancy gap. They were able

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Speaker 4: to gather some evidence to quantify the losses the black

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Speaker 4: community has faced over you know, disproportionate uses of imminent

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Speaker 4: domain in black communities, over policing and mass incarcerations. Took

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Speaker 4: into account for instance, loss of earning potentials and things

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Speaker 4: like that. And then the fifth form, which was devaluation

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Speaker 4: of black businesses. So taking in that eight hundred billion

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Speaker 4: dollar amount also takes into account the losses that black businesses.

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Speaker 3: Have taken over time.

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Speaker 4: The state Taskforce has not recommended the state payout eight

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Speaker 4: hundred billion dollars.

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Speaker 3: In some new outlets have.

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Speaker 4: Said we've recommended every black person get paid one point

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Speaker 4: two million dollars. Now that's misinformation. The monetary figures again

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Speaker 4: just represent supure loss economically speaking of the black community

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Speaker 4: because of us being targeted via exclusionary public policy and

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Speaker 4: why spread private discrimination. And so now it's going to

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Speaker 4: be up to the state legislature to read that methodology,

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Speaker 4: hopefully endorse it. But then it'll be up to them

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Speaker 4: to actually prescribe the actual amount. So it could be

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Speaker 4: less than what we arrived at in terms of the loss,

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Speaker 4: it could be more, it could be the same. It's

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Speaker 4: that's a political conversation that's best left to the legislators

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Speaker 4: at this point.

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Speaker 2: And so have you assigned dollar amounts for individuals to

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Speaker 2: claim if they have suffered losses under one or more

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Speaker 2: of these five areas?

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Speaker 4: So we haven't assigned dollar amounts, but we have recommended

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Speaker 4: that there be two types of forms of compensation cumulative

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Speaker 4: reparation repertory compensation and individual compensations. So we have recommended

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Speaker 4: that all folks who are eligible receive reparations in the

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Speaker 4: form of compensation. But in addition to that, those within

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Speaker 4: the eligible class, if they can prove, so to speak,

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Speaker 4: direct proof of harm in those five areas, then they

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Speaker 4: should be entitled to additional compensation as well.

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Speaker 2: But the dollar amounts assigned to each of those forms

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Speaker 2: of discrimination are not set out in the report.

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Speaker 4: There are monetary figures in the report, but they aren't

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Speaker 4: dollar amounts that we're recommending per se.

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Speaker 3: They represent the loss.

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Speaker 4: Of the black community over time based on those particular areas.

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Speaker 2: And so those dollar figures, you then think, will be

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Speaker 2: used by the legislator to try to come up with

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Speaker 2: compensation amounts that correspond with the different form terms of

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Speaker 2: injustice that people suffered, Yes, exactly, and is this something

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Speaker 2: that individuals will have to apply for to say I

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Speaker 2: was discriminated against in these areas and therefore I am

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Speaker 2: making an application for compensation.

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Speaker 4: So one of the recommendations from the task force were

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Speaker 4: to create a new state agency tentatively called the California

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Speaker 4: American Freeman Affairs Agency, and that would be the agency

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Speaker 4: where people would essentially sign up to receive direct repertory

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Speaker 4: justice services, including showing their eligibility for the programs in general,

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Speaker 4: but also cash payments. We invited expert witnesses around what

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Speaker 4: this agency could look like, like administrative law professors, for example,

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Speaker 4: and we recommended that the agency have a genealogy branch

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Speaker 4: to assist people in showing their eligibility, and also it's

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Speaker 4: a general eligibility branch for those cash payments.

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Speaker 2: And so that each person would come forward and make

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Speaker 2: a claim and then it would be looked into and

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Speaker 2: sort of investigated to see whether or not the claim

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Speaker 2: was valid.

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Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, So.

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Speaker 2: You've been working on this for quite some time. What's

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Speaker 2: this been like. You've been going around the state, You've

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Speaker 2: been listening to people's stories. You've heard people saying that's

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Speaker 2: a great idea, You've heard vocal opposition. What is it

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Speaker 2: like to head this task forse.

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Speaker 4: First, I'd say an honor and a privilege. You know,

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Speaker 4: I went to law school with an express purpose into

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Speaker 4: studying repertory justice on a domestic and international level.

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Speaker 3: So I went to Columbia for my JD.

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Speaker 4: And then I received a Master of Laws an international

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Speaker 4: criminal law from the University of Amsterdam. So this was

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Speaker 4: just perfect timing for me in terms of me being

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Speaker 4: able to transfer my wealth of knowledge that I have

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Speaker 4: into this historic process.

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Speaker 3: It's been a romant of emotion.

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Speaker 4: It's been very cathartic to hear from those who would

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Speaker 4: be eligible. You know, descendants of slaves, for instance, who

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Speaker 4: are pretty much sharing their stories to us every time

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Speaker 4: we meet, pouring their hearts out about the harms and

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Speaker 4: atrocities they've endured over time living in the city of California.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's been interesting getting.

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Speaker 4: Hate mail as well from folks who aren't very enthusiastic

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Speaker 4: about it, but you know, it all comes with the territory.

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Speaker 4: So I've been having a great experience overall.

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Speaker 2: And so where does it go from here? You've written

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Speaker 2: this report, You're going to deliver it, and then what

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Speaker 2: happens next.

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Speaker 4: So the task for us, as you mentioned, we have

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Speaker 4: finalized the report. It will be officially released at our

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Speaker 4: last hearing, which will be on June twenty ninth in Sacramento.

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Speaker 4: After that, the report will be delivered to the legislators,

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Speaker 4: and it'll be up to the state legislator, the State Assembly,

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Speaker 4: and the State Senate to you know, study the report

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Speaker 4: in good faith, meaningfully consult with us if needed, and

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Speaker 4: implement our proposals and turn them into actual legislation, and

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Speaker 4: then it will be up to Governor Newsom to sign

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Speaker 4: any reparations legislation into law. Some activists are saying that

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Speaker 4: legislators can introduce reparations legislation as early as fall winter

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty three or early twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: And do you think this is going to be successful?

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Speaker 2: Do you think California will approve reparations in one form

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Speaker 2: or another?

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Speaker 3: I do.

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Speaker 4: I already see some conversations online from state legislators who

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Speaker 4: are enthusiastic about even some of the more controversial aspects

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Speaker 4: of the report. So there are legislators who literally just

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Speaker 4: got elected so they have some time to be in

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Speaker 4: the legislator, which is a good thing. That are you know,

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Speaker 4: enthusiastic about introducing legislation for cash payments for dissentance of

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Speaker 4: slaves And so I think that's a good science to

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Speaker 4: see very early on, even before or the report is finalized,

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Speaker 4: legislators willing to be bold and you know, taking aspects

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Speaker 4: of the report that some deemed to be the hardest

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Speaker 4: to accomplish, They're already looking into ways to partner with

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Speaker 4: their other elected officials to make it a reality.

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Speaker 2: And then looking further down the road. Do you see

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Speaker 2: your effort as a model for other states and maybe

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Speaker 2: even the federal government for national reparations.

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Speaker 4: I definitely see to the extent that states and localities

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Speaker 4: would like to also atone for any state or local atrocities.

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Speaker 4: I definitely see what the state has done as a model.

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Speaker 4: Also in our final report, there will be the final

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Speaker 4: recommendation to transmit our final report to Congress and to

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Speaker 4: the Biden administration, and that was in our introim report,

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Speaker 4: but we've kind of beefed up the recommendation to say, Okay,

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Speaker 4: here's our final report. You know, you can implement full

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Speaker 4: reparations without a comprehensive study because California has done that

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Speaker 4: work for you already. And also to the An administration,

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Speaker 4: you can create a commission for reparations by executive order

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Speaker 4: committing to full effective reparations with a truncated study period

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Speaker 4: because California.

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Speaker 3: Has done so much work on this already.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm optimistic that our state has done the

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Speaker 4: work to set precedent for what reparations could look like

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Speaker 4: on state level and then nationally as well. And then

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Speaker 4: I'll just lastly say there have been many different people

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Speaker 4: around the world from marginalized communities that have been inspired

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Speaker 4: by the work of our task force and has personally reached.

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Speaker 3: Out to me.

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Speaker 4: People from Namibia and Africa, Surinam in South America and

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Speaker 4: so many other places who are inspired and looking to

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Speaker 4: California for this.

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Speaker 3: Work as well.

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Speaker 2: Share a person coming Alamore. Thanks so much. I appreciate

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Speaker 2: your time.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: After the break, we dig into the details of the

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Speaker 2: task forces recommendations. Now let's bring in my colleague, Karen Breslaw.

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Speaker 2: She's Bloomberg's California a bureau chief and she's been covering

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Speaker 2: the reparation's task forse Karen. Over the years, there have

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Speaker 2: been any number of reparations efforts, but Californias is different.

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Speaker 2: Can you talk about why that is so?

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Speaker 1: Wes.

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Speaker 5: There were policies, there were practices, there were laws that

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Speaker 5: codified discrimination that contributed really since the day California became

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Speaker 5: a state in eighteen fifty, really up until the current day,

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Speaker 5: we're very familiar with some of those having to do

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Speaker 5: with discriminatory application of federal law and federal programs.

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Speaker 6: Going back to the.

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Speaker 5: New Deal, the GI Bill, Urban renewal projects in the

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Speaker 5: nineteen seventies in which black homes and businesses were taken

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Speaker 5: through eminent domain or devalued or unjustly seized, and so

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Speaker 5: there are definitely ways to track and to assign value

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Speaker 5: value to the wealth gap. They looked not only at

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Speaker 5: wealth gaps, but also health gaps. They looked at educational gaps.

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Speaker 5: They looked at harms affecting Black communities in California that

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Speaker 5: go well beyond numbers, that don't really lend themselves to

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Speaker 5: monetary compensation, and some of those have to do with

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Speaker 5: intergenerational traumas.

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Speaker 2: Tell us more about this task force, How did it

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Speaker 2: come to be and who's in it, how does it operate?

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Speaker 5: So in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 5: a then Assembly member named Shirley Weber introduced a bill

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Speaker 5: to establish a Reparations task Force to look at not

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Speaker 5: only the health, wealth, educational gaps, but also the police

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Speaker 5: practices and differences that led to George Floyd's murder. Shirley

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Speaker 5: Weber has since been elevated to Secretary of State of California,

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Speaker 5: and the task Force is made up of a variety

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Speaker 5: of experts. They tend to be civil rights advocates, attorneys,

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Speaker 5: not surprisingly economists, a couple of members of the current

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Speaker 5: legislature appointed by the governor and the Speaker pro tem

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Speaker 5: of the Senate, and they were given a mandate to

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Speaker 5: study this issue for two years and to deliver a

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Speaker 5: report to the Legislature by June of this year.

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Speaker 2: Karen, and you're reporting you talked to several people who

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Speaker 2: are on the task force and are involved in this effort.

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Speaker 2: Can you tell us about them?

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Speaker 6: Yes, two in particular.

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Speaker 5: One is Reverend Amos Brown, who is a longtime civil

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Speaker 5: rights advocate in San Francisco and leads the oldest African

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Speaker 5: American congregation in San Francisco. He was born in Mississippi

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Speaker 5: in nineteen forty one, the same year as Emmett Till,

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Speaker 5: not far from mm Atill, and his political awakening came

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Speaker 5: when Emme Attil was murdered and he saw his photos

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Speaker 5: in Jet magazine, and he went to the NAACP right

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Speaker 5: there in Jackson, Mississippi, and met Medgar Evers, who was

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Speaker 5: the organization's field director and went on obviously to have

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Speaker 5: a tremendous role in the American civil rights movement. Amos Brown,

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Speaker 5: as a young man, was mentored by Edgar Evers. He

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Speaker 5: comes to it from a place of history and incredible

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Speaker 5: personal connection.

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Speaker 6: And he is also the descendant.

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Speaker 5: Of a great great grandfather who was enslaved in Mississippi.

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Speaker 2: Let's listen to part of your interview with him.

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Speaker 1: California, San Francisco, a loge squeaky clean. Even in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o eight, Reverend Alan Allensworth tried to establish a community

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Speaker 1: down there near Bakersfield that became known as Alan's were

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Speaker 1: the water was Paul the politicians were able to get

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Speaker 1: the railroad track re rooted to kill the town. So

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Speaker 1: it looks like every time we make progress, in spite

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Speaker 1: of what we have been able to achieve, there is

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Speaker 1: this alliance of a movement to say, no, you're not

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Speaker 1: going in further. We're gonna stop you. If it means

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Speaker 1: suppressing the vote, if it means unjust police practices, if

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Speaker 1: it means making sure that you don't get equality of

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Speaker 1: opportunity or employment, if it means that you don't get

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Speaker 1: healthcare those who are handicapped. We got measures through Congress.

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Speaker 1: So wherever a particular group our population has been wronged,

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Speaker 1: we made efforts, you know, through the land and tears

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Speaker 1: up the community, we make funls available to have businesses.

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Speaker 1: We'll all received there none of us lives by bull

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Speaker 1: lamb steps up whole bootstraps.

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Speaker 2: And so you've described the various ways that the task

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Speaker 2: Force has tried to quantify all the various legacies of racism.

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Speaker 2: How do they go about doing that?

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Speaker 6: Well, let's take an example, home ownership.

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Speaker 5: They can track rates of homeownership through a variety of

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Speaker 5: federal and state data over time. They can look at

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Speaker 5: lending practices, they can look at the actual mechanism of redlining.

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Speaker 5: And so another thing the task Force did was to

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Speaker 5: look into historical examples of reparations on very large scales,

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Speaker 5: Germany's reparations to Israel after the Holocaust, more recently, the

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Speaker 5: nine to eleven Victims Compensation Fund, and they looked at,

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Speaker 5: if you want, examples of wrongdoing by the US government,

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Speaker 5: the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two.

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Speaker 6: The US government.

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Speaker 5: Compensated the survivors of the Tuskegee Syphilist Study on black

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Speaker 5: men by the US Public Health Service, and that continued,

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Speaker 5: if you can believe it, until nineteen seventy two. So

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Speaker 5: there are definitely historical frameworks here there's also an entire

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Speaker 5: body of international law and standards set forth by the

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Speaker 5: United Nations, and all of that factored into their report.

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Speaker 2: In your story, you write that after the task force

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Speaker 2: started doing all of this work, they did come up

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Speaker 2: with hard numbers for any number of things. Can you

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Speaker 2: just run through what some of these numbers are that

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Speaker 2: spell out what people are owed.

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Speaker 5: One calculation looked at the statistical value for a year

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Speaker 5: of human life, and they looked at the differences in

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Speaker 5: life expectance affecting Black Californians and came up with a

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Speaker 5: value of thirteen thousand, six hundred and nineteen dollars per

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Speaker 5: statistical year of missing life expectancy. Another was wealth missing

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Speaker 5: due to lower rates of black home ownership one hundred

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Speaker 5: and forty eight thousand, ninety nine dollars, the average devaluation

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Speaker 5: of a black owned business seventy seven thousand dollars for

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Speaker 5: each year of disproportionate incarceration factored by race, combining lost

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Speaker 5: wages and freedom one hundred and fifty nine thousand, seven

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Speaker 5: hundred and ninety two dollars. What they're doing here is

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Speaker 5: preparing recommendations that are going to go to the legislature

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Speaker 5: so that the lawmakers can have a frame of reference,

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Speaker 5: can have some data to set up a reparations framework.

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Speaker 2: And so where would that revenue come from, would they

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Speaker 2: raise taxes, would it come from specific places.

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Speaker 5: One proposal that a member of the task force made,

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Speaker 5: who's Stephen Bradford, a state senator, is to set aside

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Speaker 5: zero point five percent of the state's operating budget into

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Speaker 5: an annuity, which would create about a billion and a

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Speaker 5: half dollars in annual funding. And some of these reparations

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Speaker 5: do not have monetary value attached. Some include something like

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Speaker 5: an official apology by the state of California, or discounted

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Speaker 5: tuition or free tuition to eligible descendants of enslaved people

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Speaker 5: who want to go to the University of California or

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Speaker 5: any public university, greater healthcare, greater investments in healthcare.

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Speaker 2: What's the public's response been to the idea of reparations

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Speaker 2: in California.

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Speaker 5: It's been very divided, not only by party, with Democrats

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Speaker 5: who have an overwhelming majority in the state legislature, and

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Speaker 5: also among voters. I think open to the concept, but

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Speaker 5: very fuzzy on the details. And then there are those

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Speaker 5: who are opposed to the concept of reparations that current

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Speaker 5: generations should essentially pay the tab for generations. I think

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Speaker 5: we're going to see a lot of movement in public

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Speaker 5: opinion as this task Force report gets studied and discussed

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Speaker 5: in the legislature. Public opinion can move pretty quickly, but

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Speaker 5: both the concept of reparations and the staggering totals are

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Speaker 5: going to give a lot of people pause.

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Speaker 2: When you say public opinion is going to move, which

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Speaker 2: direction do you anticipate it with moving?

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Speaker 5: I think it will move with understanding that reparations doesn't

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Speaker 5: always mean a check. We saw that with the Japanese

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Speaker 5: American Internment. Those survivors were compensated with twenty thousand dollars,

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Speaker 5: which could not come close to the suffering and the

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Speaker 5: losses and led to an apology whether US Congress and

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Speaker 5: led to the funding of a number of public education initiatives.

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Speaker 2: When we come back, we hear from another member of

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Speaker 2: the task Force. Earlier we heard Reverend Amos Brown and

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Speaker 2: other members of the task Force also told their stories.

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Speaker 5: The other amazing story was Reggie Jones Sawyer, who's a

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Speaker 5: member of the State Assembly from Los Angeles, and his

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Speaker 5: family came from Arkansas from Hope Arkansas.

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Speaker 6: He is related to one of the Little Rock Nine.

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Speaker 2: Karen sat down with the assemblymen. Let's hear part of

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Speaker 2: their conversation.

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Speaker 7: You know, ever since I was a little boy, I

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Speaker 7: used to hear stories about my uncle being one in

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Speaker 7: Little Rock nine. When the nine kids integrated Central High

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Speaker 7: School in nineteen fifty seven, I used to hear stories

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Speaker 7: of him being beaten and kicked all sorts of disparaging

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Speaker 7: names just for him to try to get into high school.

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Speaker 7: There's a picture of him standing next to a fence

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Speaker 7: pole and he's by himself, and across the street you

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Speaker 7: can see the angry white mobs yelling at him. One day,

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Speaker 7: they forgot to pick him up from school, so they

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Speaker 7: all got in the car, raced down there, and he

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Speaker 7: was standing next to this post and they went. When

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Speaker 7: it got to him, he had to spit. Somebody urinated

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Speaker 7: on him. I mean, it was pretty bad. And we

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Speaker 7: asked him what happened, and he said that the kids swarmed.

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Speaker 7: The white kids just went around him and just called

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Speaker 7: them name Martin Luther King and Reverend Lost and had

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Speaker 7: taught him non violence, not to let anybody see you panic.

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Speaker 7: And he said in the middle of the crowd. This

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Speaker 7: young kid came out and said, hey, leave him alone.

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Speaker 7: He's not doing anything, and he said and then they dispersed.

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Speaker 7: He said he saw the kid the next day thanked

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Speaker 7: him and said, wow, you're really you know your parents

441
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 7: raised your right. It was a really Christian of you.

442
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 7: And the kid looked at him, he said, we're atheists.

443
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 7: I just did it. It was the right thing to do.

444
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 7: The barriers that those nine kids went through. I don't

445
00:27:58,000 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 7: know if I could have gone through all of that,

446
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:02,880
Speaker 7: with all that I know now at my age, if

447
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:05,159
Speaker 7: I could have gone through that kind of trauma at

448
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 7: that age, But I owe them a debt of gratitude

449
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 7: because if it wasn't for them, I had absolutely no

450
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 7: problem of getting into the University of Southern California, and

451
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 7: now I'm in the doctoral program at SC. And it's

452
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 7: because of them I was able to fulfill my academic

453
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 7: dreams with absolutely no problem whatsoever. And so I'm standing

454
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 7: on their shoulders. And so when this opportunity came up,

455
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 7: I realized, it's really important that I do everything I

456
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 7: can to reverse what institutional slavery has done to African Americans,

457
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 7: not only in America, but let's start here in California.

458
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 7: You know, when we talk about history and try not

459
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 7: to repeat history, when we talk about critical race theory,

460
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 7: which is really about telling the truth of history and

461
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 7: what really happened, not what was whitewashed, but what really happened.

462
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 7: And what you'll find is not only were there governors

463
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 7: who actively worked to send slaves back to the South

464
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,959
Speaker 7: here from California, that there were laws that prohibited African

465
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 7: Americans from marrying outside their race, That there were laws

466
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 7: that were put in place so that we couldn't live

467
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 7: in areas that we wanted to. That the GI Bill

468
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 7: restricted us even though we went to war, fought for

469
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 7: this country and laid our lives down, That we didn't

470
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 7: have the same opportunities as our white counterparts to the

471
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 7: GI Bill, and education and think of nature, and that

472
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 7: California participated in it just as much as they did

473
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 7: in the South. We may be the benchmark not only

474
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 7: for California or what reparations will be or should be,

475
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 7: but the nation in any city or state in this

476
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 7: country will then take all this data and use it

477
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 7: as the floor for what they will or will not

478
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 7: do in the future. That is an unbelievable responsibility. I

479
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 7: don't think it's about paying, it's about reversing the harms

480
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 7: that are now placed upon every African American in California.

481
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 7: If you can stop redlining, and you can do it

482
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 7: without any financial responsibility, without having to implement any money,

483
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 7: I think that works just as well. If we're talking

484
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 7: about education, somehow we can make schools equal in the

485
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 7: inner cities for African American kids who are performing at

486
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 7: a lower level. If we can level that playing field

487
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 7: in a way that is not a overly burdensome on

488
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 7: the educational budget, then let's do that. It's more important

489
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 7: to have success than spend money. When it comes to

490
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 7: mass incarceration, I have a bill right now where if

491
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 7: you close to prisons, it's a savings of two hundred

492
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 7: and thirty million dollars a year. What if we could

493
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 7: plow that money back into recidivism programs, mental health program

494
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 7: We'll pour it back into trauma inform care because a

495
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 7: lot of kids see things on the street that then

496
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 7: get them into the school to prison pipeline. Then we

497
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 7: save eighty thousand dollars a year to one hundred thousand

498
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 7: dollars a year incarcerating people and that's money that we save,

499
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 7: which means that's not an extra burden on us. We're

500
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 7: now working on the savings and we're looking at an

501
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 7: ROI return on our investment. What if we start looking

502
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 7: at it that way. Yes, on the ledger, it may

503
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 7: look like it's two hundred and thirty one million dollars

504
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 7: that we're spending, but really not, this is the money

505
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 7: we saved. What if that two hundred and thirty million

506
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 7: dollars turn into we close ten prisons instead of two.

507
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 7: How much savings is that over a long period of

508
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 7: time that we could say was part of reparations, reducing

509
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 7: the amount of people who are innovating going back and

510
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 7: forth like a turnstile into prison. How much money could

511
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 7: we save there? Now we're talking about a robust system

512
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 7: that does look like is billions and billions of dollars,

513
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 7: where there really is billions and billions of savings. Everybody's

514
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 7: basing everything on money. I think changing policy is just

515
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 7: as important as the financial remuneration. In fact, I think

516
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 7: if we are to remove some racial disparity barriers, they

517
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 7: will go a lot further than cash payment.

518
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 2: Karen, do you think ultimately there will be some form

519
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: of reparations at the end of this long process.

520
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 6: I do, Wes.

521
00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 5: I think it's going to be a range of monetary

522
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 5: and non monetary measures. I think the public apology will

523
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 5: come rather soon. I think public education programs will come soon.

524
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 5: I think the notion of greater investment and health access

525
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 5: to higher education, into HOMEOWNIP programs, I think all of

526
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 5: that is readily within reach. I think the concept of

527
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 5: individual compensation remains distant, and I don't expect that for years.

528
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 2: Karen, thanks so much for speaking with me today.

529
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 6: Thank you, Wes.

530
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.

531
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 2: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more

532
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,920
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533
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,000
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534
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 2: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

535
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 2: dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is

536
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 2: Vicky Bergolina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Our producers

537
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:45,440
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538
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,440
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539
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 2: We'll be back on Monday with another big take, have

540
00:33:52,400 --> 00:34:00,880
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