A survey conducted this week indicates that California voters are opposed, by a margin of two to one, to the idea of the state providing monetary payments as reparations to those who are descendants of African Americans who were slaves.
This look at how people reacted to the proposals of cash settlements shows that state lawmakers will face problems when they start to think about the idea, which has already been planned for next year.
A study by the UC Berkeley Institutes of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times discovered that 59 percent of voters don’t like the idea of cash payments, while 28 percent do. More than four out of ten people who voted “strongly” against cash compensation made it clear that they did not want them.
“As far as the public is concerned, it has a difficult uphill struggle,” according to Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. From the Times report:
“In 2020, California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom and state officials set up the Reparations Task Force. Their goal was to find a way to pay reparations that could be used as an example for the rest of the country. After debating for two years, the task group sent its final report and suggestions to the state Capitol this past summer. Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature are going to determine how the state should make up for slavery.”
“Based on health inequalities, mass imprisonment, excessive policing, as well as discrimination regarding housing that has harmed Black citizens relative to White Californians, the organization proposed giving financial rewards to all descendants.”
The poll results force Democrats to do something they have been working on for years, even though people are strongly against it.
The Times story talks about some of the amounts that are already being thought about.
“A comparison of life expectancy that exists between Black and White non-Hispanic residents of California was used to arrive at the task force’s recommended $13,619 for every year of their residency in California in order to address health inequities.”
“For every year that qualified descendants lived in California between 1971 and 2020 throughout the drug war, the task committee suggests paying $2,352 to make up for mass imprisonment and excessive police presence.”
“A descendant living in California from 1933 to 1977 got $3,378 in compensation regarding housing discrimination for every year they lived there.”
When people who don’t agree with payments were asked why not, the two primary answers they gave most often had to do with the idea of “fairness.”
“It is unreasonable to expect current taxpayers to cover past wrongs,” as expressed by 60% of voters, and “it is inappropriate to single out a particular group for reparations while other racial as well as religious groups have also suffered injustices in the past,” as expressed by 53% of people.
Only 19% said it was because the plan would cost too much for the state, which shows that money is not the primary factor.
43% of Democrats were in favor of cash compensation, while 41% were against them. Ninety percent of Republicans were against the idea, while only five percent were for it. 65 percent of independents were against it, and 22 percent were for it.
Online surveys in English and Spanish were conducted from August 24 to 29, 2018, with 6,030 registered California voters participating in the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.
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