Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is promoting reparations in a bid to curb health and wealth disparities of black New Yorkers — but the effort is being met with accusations that it’s “sowing racial divisiveness,” The Post has learned.
The proposal for federal reparations is spelled out in a bombshell report released Tuesday by the city’s Department of Health and the Federal Reserve Bank entitled “Analyzing the Racial Wealth Gap and Implications for Health Equity.”
“The goal of a [federal] reparations program would be to seek acknowledgment, redress, and closure for America’s complicity in federal, state, and local policies … that have deprived black Americans of equitable access to wealth and wealth-building opportunities,” the report said.
The city’s Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan and his team offered three key recommendations including: a fresh approach to public health policy, how to improve data collections on wealth and health outcomes and getting the community more involved with health care decisions.
But moderate and conservative politicians opposed to reparations accused Adams’ health minions of turning into ideologues and social justice activists instead of doing their jobs.
“Add reparations and sowing racial divisiveness to the list of greatest policy hits by Commissioner Vasan’s and his health department, right alongside the crack pipe vending machine, heroin ‘empowerment’ signs on subways, firing unvaccinated city workers, supporting government drug dens; and banning unvaccinated kids from sports,” fumed Council Republican Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).
State Conservative Party chairman Gerard Kassar noted that New York has the most generous Medicaid program — the public health insurance for the needy — of any state in the country to level the playing field for poor residents.
“The health department is going way far afield,” Kassar said. “I don’t see a health issue associated with reparations. It’s also difficult to hold current generations for mistakes of the past. We’re not living in the past.”
The New York legislature approved a commission to address economic, political and educational disparities by black people in June and follows the lead of California, which became the first state to form a reparations task force in 2020.
New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, the first black person to hold the position, called the legislation “historic.”
Adams has previously expressed support for the commission which is awaiting Hochul’s signature.
“We have consistently brought together experts to discuss a variety of ideas to promote equity in our city and we will continue to do so,” said the Health Department’s spokesman.
“We have an obligation to help New Yorkers lead longer, healthier lives.”