A California lawmaker has unveiled plans for a ‘Genealogy Office’ to decide which residents are genuine descendants of slaves and could get life-changing benefits payouts.
Steven Bradford, a Democratic state Senator for LA County, proposed bill SB 1403 to create a controversial genealogy unit to ‘confirm reparations eligibility’ of applicants.
The state’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force last year decided that some residents should win $1.2 million payouts as compensation for injustices from the slavery era onwards.
But lawmakers have struggled to turn those plans into reality, and have advanced several bills to devise a working reparations scheme amid fears of spiralling costs in a cash-strapped state.
Bradford’s bill, which was amended this month, aims to solve the problem of working out who is in line for a payout.
Its planned genealogy team would ‘support potential reparations claimants by providing access to expert genealogical research to confirm reparations eligibility,’ says the bill.
It would also offer ‘expedited assistance with the reparations claims process.’
Bradford’s office sent DailyMail.com a factsheet with further details of who would be eligible for payouts.
It refers to ‘restitution specifically to the descendants of chattel enslaved persons and free black persons living in the US prior to the end of the 19th century.’
The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month.
The planned genealogy bureau would be part of a California American Freedman Affairs Agency.
Genealogy is the study of ‘family trees’ and the lineage of families.
Experts use oral interviews, historical records, DNA, and other records to establish lineage.
The reparations task force decided at a series of hearings that lineage — and not race — would determine who receives benefits under the scheme.
The panel voted that compensation was limited to black people who had descendants in the US during the 19th century.
Black people who migrated to the US in the 20th and 21st centuries, and their descendants, would not be eligible.
This was controversial, as some task force members said all black people had suffered from comparable types of discrimination — even though their forbears were not themselves slaves.
The genealogy office also raises further questions about the process that remain unclear.
Conservatives has asked whether a white Californian who had a forefather who was enslaved could claim reparations benefits.
By one analysis, more white Californians could qualify for reparations than black residents.
Critics on X/Twitter branded the scheme ‘abhorrent’ and ‘just another day in California’s Orwellian paradise.’
One called it a ‘huge WASTE of taxpayers’ money,’ another said it the state was ‘bankrupt but they’re building more government.’
Reparations campaigners say it’s time for America to repay its black residents for the injustices of the historic Transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow segregation and inequalities that persist to this day.
The sums are eye-watering — black lawmakers in Washington seek at least $14 trillion for a federal scheme to ‘eliminate the racial wealth gap’ between black and white Americans.
Critics say payouts to selected black people will inevitably stoke divisions between winners and losers, and raise questions about why American Indians and others don’t get their own handouts.
Reparations are popular among the black people who stand to benefit from them, but unpopular among the whites, Asians, and others who would foot the tax bill without themselves benefiting.
A survey last year of 6,000 registered California voters found that only 23 percent supported cash reparations, while 59 percent were opposed.