New York City Mayor Eric Adams has expressed that he supports the “spirit” of the bill that would lead to reparations given on behalf of slavery to its Black residents.
The mayor’s official support for possible reparations for Black New Yorkers was shared in a statement by his Office of Equity commissioner, as reported by the Daily Mail. However, despite believing in its intentions, the government official also signaled that the legislation should be modified to prevent overlapping language with two current state bills seeking reparations for Blacks in the entire state of New York. Adams has previously supported reparations on a state level.
The commissioner, Sideya Sherman, shared these concerns in a city council hearing on Sept. 19, stating that a task force initiated by the bill must spend at least one year to study the effects of racial discrimination before any payments could be allocated.
The bill itself was created by Councilwoman Farah Louis and has the encouragement of Mayor Adams and the Office of Social Equity in its pursuit of legislation that dismantles and resolves the systemic racial injustices that plague New Yorkers of color.
While the decades-long federal effort for reparations has seemingly stalled, the fight for reparations is ongoing on a local level, as other cities are beginning to recognize the validity of reparations for Black Americans. Evanston, Illinois, was the first city to ever pay its Black residents on behalf of their disenfranchisement due to enslavement. This monetary allotment gave $25,000 to Black current and potential homeowners for repairs or a down payment on their property, funded through a tax on marijuana sales, per NewsNationNow.
Consideration of financial racial justice is growing in all parts of the United States, such as in cities and counties within Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Michigan.
However, the biggest and most current plan to officially enact reparations is in California, where a two-year report by its reparations task force was detailed with the state’s legislature back in June. The 1,200-page document was finalized by the nation’s first-ever slavery reparations panel. The group hopes that lawmakers will believe the findings justify reparations to those impacted by the horrors of slavery and the institutionalized racism that derived from it.
California’s Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, addresses that while California did not legally have slavery, its pervasive impact across the fabric of the country is one that must be remedied for true justice to occur on behalf of the Black people who have always felt its deeply ingrained discrimination.
“Reparations is due whether you’re in Mississippi or you’re in California,” she said, as reported by CBS News. “We have done it for others, but we have not done it for African Americans who have probably suffered the most harm.”
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