2024: Year of Reparations?
Is the Overton Window shifting on reparations?
2023 was an interesting year for a number of reasons. It was the year of an unprecedented attack on Israeli civilians by the forces of Hamas. It was the year in which former President Donald Trump found himself facing mounting legal challenges.
It was also the year more and more cities, municipalities, and states experimented with reparations programs.
In California, lawmakers — past, present, and future — joined activists, political scientists, historians, Black studies scholars, et al to commission a monumental study on reparations.
The results were complicated.
From a price tag of $5 billion per person to free houses, the recommendations put forth by this committee and others have often run the gamut.
Unfortunately for the committee and advocates for reparations, 2023 was also the year poll support in California — that deepest of blue states — still wasn’t there for the controversial program proposal.
The good news is that a majority of Californias did declare themselves in favor of non-monetary reparations in 2023.
It’s important to note that reparations policy proposals extend beyond monetary compensation to encompass comprehensive reforms addressing systemic…