California slavery reparations taskforce member warns to prepare for ... trends now

A member of California's Reparations Task Force is predicting the group will put out 'breathtaking proposals' and end up with an even higher price tag than the $640billion predicted.

In 2020, California became the first state to form a reparations task force and is still struggling to put a price tag on what would be owed.

Lisa Holder, a member of the California Reparations Task Force and president of the Equal Justice Society, is now suggesting when the final plan is revealed, it could see figures higher than the proposed $360,000 per eligible applicant, which already shot up from the original $223,329.

'With specific and tangible reparations initiatives, California is on the brink of a historic and seismic shift towards finally delivering justice for Black Americans. The task force recommendations will be breathtaking. They must be nothing less,' she wrote. 

Reparations for slavery have been a topic of growing political significance and divisive debate as a number of cities and states pursue their own proposals on the issue.

It wasn't until George Floyd, a black man, was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 that reparations movements began gaining significant traction across the country. 

The most recent proposal that was made public suggested it would cost the Golden State over $640billion, according to the Washington Examiner.

'It's important that Californians understand that in order to match the scale of America's greatest injustice, we must be prepared for remedies on a scale approaching the Great Society programs of Medicare and Medicaid,' Holder said in an op-ed for Cal Matters. 

Despite the state's projected budget deficit of $22.5billion, Holder believes this project needs to shake up a system that she believes has left black people behind.

'Reparations will include programs that disrupt racism within our major institutions. These programs will be in housing, criminal-legal systems, education, health and medicine, and financial wealth and asset-building infrastructure. Fixing systemic racism and rehabilitating institutions will require major changes to these sectors,' she wrote.

She argued that monetary compensation may be given out and that eligibility could extend beyond the descendants of slaves. 

Holder also noted that California's admission to the United States as a free state and not a slave state was irrelevant, citing a task force interim report that claimed the state was 'in practice, a pro-slavery state, a Jim Crow state and a post-civil rights apartheid state.'

The final report and recommendation of the task force will be made on July 1, before the suggestions are voted on by legislature where 94 of the 120 members are Democrats.