LETTER: California moves toward reparations
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for reparations for Black residents took a step forward recently. News reports revealed that a 500-page report recommends implementation of a “comprehensive reparations” scheme. The governor’s office boasts: “Once again California is leading the nation … on issues of racial justice and equity.”
The details remain to be ground out in the legislative sausage grinder, but this taxpayer-funded windfall to Black Californians can’t happen soon enough.
In 2018, 75,000 Black residents left California, according to calmatters.org — and this was before oppressive COVID lockdowns and $8 a gallon gasoline. The percentage of Black residents in the state dropped from 7.7 percent in 1980 to 5.5 percent in 2018. If something isn’t done to halt this exodus, all of California could become as lily white as Portland, Oregon — the whitest major city in America. We all saw the destructive impact during the summer of 2020 of too many delusional white people in Portland.
Black Californians with common sense who favor sound family economic policy and prefer liberty to totalitarian dictates are — like those of all races — bolting the Golden State. Gov. Newsom knows that cash is a powerful motivator, and reparations might stem the tide of out-migration.
Some Blacks may stay. Some may move back. Of course, the impact on California’s Black billionaires — such as Oprah, Ye and Jay Z — will be minimal. But apparently, LeBron is on the cusp of the three-comma club, and a little reparation might put him over the top.
Heck, if the price is right, I might consider “Going Back To Cali.” Is it politically correct to self-identify as Black?
