Aside from bankrupting the state, it would have to survive court challenges.
The nine-member panel concluded that black Californians whose ancestors were in the US in the 19th century are due $223,200 each due to housing discrimination practices utilized from 1933 to 1977, the New York Times reported.
DB2
There will be a partial voluntary settlement or act by the CA legislature possibly giving out education and housing grants. Something seriously is owed. The Japanese and others have had reparations. The strong bias against reparations for African Americans is not because it was so long ago or the cost. The reason is victim blaming. That is our culture.
That said the amount has to be practical.
Those payments were to survivors of the internment camps. There aren’t any survivors left from the slavery days.
As to legal challenges:
"It is unconstitutional to give people money based on their race for what happened a long time ago. Giving people money based on their race generally violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause, even when the recipients are a minority group.
"Courts have struck down affirmative action programs that were designed to remedy discrimination that occurred over 20 years before the affirmative-action plan, because that’s too long ago. For example, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an affirmative-action plan for black people where the discrimination occurred more than 17 years before the plan, in Hammon v. Barry (1987). The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an affirmative-action plan for women where the discrimination occurred 14 years before the plan, in Brunet v. City of Columbus (1993).
“The Supreme Court has said that race-based remedies are only allowed when they target the present effects of the government’s own widespread discrimination in the relatively recent past. The government cannot provide race-based “remedies that are ageless in their reach into the past,” according to Supreme Court’s decision in Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989). Moreover, race-based remedies can only be used to remedy the government’s own discrimination…”
DB2
The CA university systems last I heard went to a non SAT entrance process. That was an important remedy. People from birth have advantages and disadvantages in the process.
Housing for many is up against government neglect as far as law making goes. Food deserts because of poverty ridden crime is attributable to local governments locking up African Americans at very young ages for crimes that white Americans in the next town over would have been attributed to teen growing pains. In the process all sorts of commercial red lining happens. The circumstances spiral into higher car insurance rates and higher interest rates relative to credit scores for borrowing. The entire ball of wax is here and now.
While this topic is based on slavery the happenings today are based on the same bigotries.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/justinphillips/article/sf-reparations-black-17716918.php
AARAC calls for one-time, lump-sum reparations payments of $5 million to each eligible recipient. The amount could cover the “the economic and opportunity losses that Black San Franciscans have endured, collectively, as the result of both intentional decisions and unintended harms perpetuated by City policy,” the draft states.
DB2
The proposal is more over-the-top than I thought. In addition to the one-time payment of $5 million, they call for annual income supplement to bring household incomes up to the area medium income (currently $97K/year). For 250 years.
The city might also be the target of another gold rush. The eligibility requirements include 13 years of residency in the city. However, only two of the eight requirements must be met, so the 13-year residency does not have to be met. Thus, anyone with a slave ancestor and who has been incarcerated for drug usage would be eligible. $5 million would be a good return on investment for buying a bus ticket to San Francisco and filling out some forms.
DB2
Human beings love to negotiate.