Despite setbacks, state is making progress on reparations

Erin Aubry Kaplan

By Erin Aubry Kaplan

Guest Columnist

How do you advance Black reparations when the federal government has fully embraced anti-Blackness and is hellbent on wiping out racial justice and Black history itself?

That’s become much more daunting than usual, even for Black people who have grown used to persevering through backlash and uphill battles.

Not so long ago, in the aftermath of the nationwide racial reckoning prompted by the murder of George Floyd, California became the first state to convene a task force to make the case for statewide Black reparations, compensation for the financial and other damage to Black people wrought by slavery and its aftermath. The task force spent a couple of years amassing details of California’s racial transgressions and formulating re