The California State Legislature just announced a meager $12 million as a first step toward funding reparations-related efforts in the nation’s most populous state. The funding was announced months after a groundbreaking reparations task force released a detailed report around state compensation to Black Californians in 2023.
The question of what was stolen and what is owed to Black Americans is central to the United States as whole. In a new book, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, activist and writer Brea Baker explores a crucial and very tangible facet of this question. She spoke with YES! Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES! Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about her book.
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Sonali Kolhatkar joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name. |
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