Reparations: #ADOS

May 4, 2021
|In Uncategorized
|By adriel

California was a slave territory – both of Indigenous Californias and of Black slaves.

California became a State in 1850, entering the Union as a “Free State” while also granting important concessions to the South which included the draconian federal Fugitive Slave Act & State pro-slavery legislation including California’s State Fugitive Laws which specifically targeted Black people who had not fled from slave states, but came to California as Freedman and Slaves, to be forcibly returned and re-enslaved down South.

California Historical Society’s Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California archives evidence, our State’s history; that slavery was socially practiced and openly upheld in spite of the State’s Constitutional ban on slavery.  Be it the San Francisco Herald & Sacramento Transcript containing ads for the purchase and sale of Black slaves, court dockets enforcing State Fugitive Slave Laws, Freedman lawsuits challenging the legality & application of California’s Fugitive Slave Laws to them, a pro-slavery State Supreme Court, and uprisings w/ the armed liberation of slaves occurring from the Sierra Nevadas through farmlands of Central Valley.

California was a slave state.  California remained a slave state for 15 years. California maintained 90 years of Jim Crow including Black Codes, sharecropping, denial of GI Benefits, social segregation, theft of black-owned land by the government or individual white citizens – via eminent domain or documented terrorist attacks, environmental injustices, & intentional denial and defunding of public services to Black Californians and in Black communities.

California upheld 3.5+ decades of racist and exclusionary social mobility practices from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s GI Bill, as well as racist and exclusionary housing practices from President FDR’s New Deal, especially the Home Owners Loan Corporation funding criteria, ie, redlining.  The California Realtors Association, locality’s realtor & homeowner associations used racially-restrictive housing covenants and blockbusting as common practice to deny Black people residence in spite of State and Federal law.  Californians voted to uphold and maintain these racially-restrictive housing covenants with Prop14, whose ripple effects continue to shape and strengthen predatory practices impact housing markets, accessibility, and common practices today which impact Black Californians the worst.  Our recent history is laced with Supremacist responses to Black People, be it at least 112 cities and some counties across the State being Sundown Towns – some of which still are; to 1960s public action from the American Nazi Party & KKKParty to ensure whites-only neighborhoods remained that way in Southern California; with a century’s worth of history of firebombings and cross burnings at Black homes and business from Shasta to Orange to Lassen to San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles Counties with the intent to terrorize and/or force residential relocation as recent as 2016.  Black Californians have endured decades long community racial cleansing campaigns, the last being prosecuted by the federal government as recent as 2011.

There’s systemic public-private partnerships which undervalue property of Black homeowners in California and across this country. And still, to this day, California’s State & local governments intentionally allow government neglect through the overt defunding of Black communities and services, and discriminatory practices that are only and consistently occur in Black communities.  Displacement of housing in Black communities by factories, sports complexes, freeways, train tracks and oil refineries without adequate replacement is a racially motivated housing issue which remains prevalent to this day in Black communities. Government and Independent study after study find homelessness disproportionately impacts Black People across this State as a direct result of localities policy, public-Private partnership & racist practices. It must be said that present day experiences are stacked upon generations of trauma from Black Californians.  Furthermore, Black Californians’ present day experiences have been the outcome of decades of active and intentional efforts to keep power, wealth & land in the hands of those who have it – which has never been Black Californians.

Oakland, Los Angeles, Fresno & other localities have federally sued major financial institutions for re-redlining practices in the last decade stemming from predatory tactics during the Great Recession and won. Care, active policy and State action must be at the forefront during our current COVID-19 and economic crises.

This is Californian history and these are our Californian truths.  Long and complex truths in the last two centuries that involves a documented Public-Private partnership of systems intentionally designed with surgical precision to deny Black Californians’ right to exist, freedom, Constitutionally protected rights, exclusionary government laws, social practices and continued legal denial of federally protected civil rights to Black People afforded through the 1964 Civil Rights Act which confine a majority of Black Californians to areas with substandard public services, stagnant property values and violence.

Present day circumstances for most Californian #ADOS are not a question of individual choice, but outcomes of deliberate and systemic action and inaction which successfully continues to deny Black Californians equality and equity under the law.

No more.

There are moral, social & economic debts that must be paid by both the State of California and the United States of America. These debts are owed to Californian #ADOS Californians and American #ADOS. The State of California and my government have an obligation to right these wrongs, beginning to make American Descendants of Slaves whole.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.

This begins with our truths, our apologies & most importantly – redress.

According to Economist and Professor Sandy Darity Jr.’s report “Resurrecting The Promise Of 40 Acres: The Imperative Of Reparations” that Federal debt comes to the grand total of $16 Trillion dollars.  In working with California’s own ADOS Redress Commission, we believe redress is possible through specific means and program details outlined below.

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government to finally commit to a new State of California #ADOS Department that utilizes the “Economics of Reparations” model of Professor Sandy Darity Jr. & Professor Dania Frank, to implement Statewide ADOS programs.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and these are the policies and the vision I believe will achieve it:

  • The creation of the State of California #ADOS Department which will coordinate and distribute services to all eligible Californian #ADOS
    • Research
    • Economic State Redress
      • Home ownership program ($300,000)
      • Business Financing Support to include:
        • One small business loan per Californian ADOS
          • Loan Benefits:
            • No down payment
            • State Government-backed loan & Federal interest rate
            • Ability to borrow up to conforming loan limit
            • Once loan is paid off, eligibility for one small business loan remains through single loan second tier entitlement
            • Loan is assumable
          • Equity licensing
          • Using the standard definition of a small business to include operations with up $7million in revenue or 500 employees. Ranges of revenue thresholds for small businesses would determine the small business loan
            • Below $100,000
            • $100,000 – $1,000,000
            • $1,000,001 – $3,000,000
            • $3,000,001 – $5,000,000
            • $5,000,001 – $7,000,000
        • Guaranteed government employment business employment contracts
    • ADOS Wills Initiative
      • 23% of all African Americans have wills, resulting in a majority of assets left as heirs’ property.  Heirs’ property leaves the estate  extremely vulnerable to developers who can use legal loopholes to acquire it. Having no will is the leading cause of AA involuntary loss of land in this country.
      • This initiative will ensure that all Californian ADOS will receive financial and legal support to complete a living will, with the goal of obtaining 100% completion by all ADOS participants above the age of 18
      • Californian ADOS wills can be updated through this initiative as often as needed;
      • This Initiative will also provide land-grant extension agents to all California #ADOS enrolled in the program for additional assistance, support & protection;
        • Land-grant extension Agents will be assigned 1:4
    • Rectifying Redlined Communities through reinvestment of housing, healthcare, re-evaluating and correcting present and long-documented devaluation of Black property and assets,
    • K-12 Curriculum & Textbook Revisionist Review & Replacement
    • Support HR 1636 which establishes a Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys,
    • Promote State legislation to close the racial wealth gap for #ADOS
      • produce asset-building policies specifically for Black Americans
    • Create an #OurCalifornia ADOS Board to compose new State Policy to benefit California’s ADOS population and advocate for Federal adoption
  • Create State legislation which extends and adjusts current GI Bill benefits to all descendants of millions of Black American Veterans who served in WWII, the Korean War, or Vietnam who were denied the benefits of GI Bill.  Such legislation would compensate Veterans and their families for the withheld benefits to which they and their relatives were legally entitled and were unjustly denied while also formally addressing the racial wealth gap.
  • Call for Federal legislation which extends and adjusts current GI Bill benefits to all descendants of millions of Black American Veterans who served in WWII, the Korean War, or Vietnam who were denied the benefits of GI Bill.  Such legislation would compensate Veterans and their families for the withheld benefits to which they and their relatives were legally entitled and were unjustly denied while also formally addressing the racial wealth gap.
  • Create state legislation affirming that California ADOS reparations do not deduct Federal ADOS reparations, nor do they detract from Federal obligations.  A Federal debt is still owed;

Using the standards set out in the paper by Prof. Darity and Prof. Frank, “The Economics of Reparations,” as a guide the criteria for Californian ADOS eligibility would be:

  • Must be born in California (or legal resident of California by a specified date)
  • Must be 18 years old
  • Must have lineage that ties them both to American chattel slavery with a 1776 to Present Window Claim

In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.