Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), a member of the far-left “Squad” in Congress, introduced legislation on Wednesday that would provide a federal reparations program for black Americans.
The draft of the resolution claims the United States “has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm on the lives of millions of Black people” in the country. The resolution further calls for $14 trillion to be distributed to American blacks in an effort to close the racial wealth gap.
“The only way we get closer to [reparations] is if we start putting forward those bills that speak to it and are very clear about what reparations could look like,” Bush said in an interview.
Reparations packages have been introduced in Congress since Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) in 1989 and later by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), neither of which passed. Bush’s resolution would likely face the same fate, per the Washington Post:
The political path forward for Bush’s resolution also remains murky. During the 2020 Democratic primary election, The Post asked candidates if they thought the federal government should pay reparations to the descendants of enslaved people. Nearly all of the leading contenders, including Joe Biden, said that they supported a comprehensive study of the issue.
While public opinion polls have shown that the number of Americans who support reparations for Black Americans has grown significantly over the last 20 years, the idea remains broadly unpopular.
A 2021 Post poll found just 28 percent of Americans supported reparations, while 65 percent opposed paying cash reparations to the descendants of enslaved Black people. While 46 percent of Democrats favored the idea, 92 percent of Republicans opposed it. Two-thirds of Black respondents supported the idea, but only 18 percent of White respondents did.
Reparations advocate Dreisen Heath said the window of opportunity passed for such radical legislation in 2020 during the George Floyd murder crisis.
“We squandered the moment during the summer of 2020 when demands were on the table including reparations,” Heath told the Post. “Three years later, people are still dying, circumstances, economically and politically, have not changed, and we’re in economic conditions eerily similar to where we were when historic civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s.”
William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University who also consulted on Bush’s resolution, called the bill a “positive movement” forward.
As Breitbart News reported, Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said he would support a cash payment of reparations to black Americans in his state after his task force recommended it.
“The committee’s other, non-cash recommendations include overriding the will of the voters and repealing the law that prevents California from using race-based policies, such as affirmative action, in state actions,” it reported. “It is not clear how California would pay cash reparations. Newsom has seen a $100 billion budget surplus turn into a $32 billion deficit this year, and cities like San Francisco, which is also pursuing reparations, face similar problems.”
Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed on Tubi, Google Play, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
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