KQED: California Reparations Task Force Meets in Oakland to Weigh Eligibility Requirements
After more than a year delving into history and studies to make its case for reparations to California descendants of enslaved Black people, a first-in-the-nation task force is meeting again for deliberations at Oakland City Hall on Wednesday and Thursday to quantify how financial compensation might be calculated and what might be required to prove eligibility.
Conversations on how to determine payments are in the early stages, with task force members acknowledging they have more questions than answers. Economists hired by the task force are seeking guidance on five harms experienced by Black people: government taking of property, devaluation of Black-owned businesses, housing discrimination and homelessness, mass incarceration and over-policing, and health.
California’s task force met Wednesday at Oakland's City Hall. Oakland was the birthplace of the Black Panthers but has lost some of its African American population as rising home prices have forced people out.
