In 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom formed a nine-member Reparations Task Force to travel across the state and develop reparation proposals and recommend appropriate remedies to its findings. Among those members is Jovan Scott Lewis, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, appointed by the governor.
Last week, The New York Times reported that the team would release a final report to state lawmakers next fall. Legislators would then decide how to act and determine the funds for reparations, which is estimated to exceed the $223,000 per person figure.
Speaking to Newsweek, Lewis discussed which considerations the force is debating, how Californians could qualify for eligibility and what lies between the recommendations and compensatory reparations for Black citizens.
Where does the task force stand on the recommendations that it plans to make to Governor Newsom?
“We are currently working on those recommendations. What The New York Times reported was an early and preliminary presentation from the economics team that is working on what potential costs might be. Basically, between now and March, the task force will be coming up with—and then finalizing—the recommendations that we will send on to the state in our final report this coming summer.”
Are you still looking at the three key areas of housing, discrimination and incarceration?
“We’re looking at all of the 12 areas that came up in the preliminary report. So, the interim report that we issued this summer covers 12 areas of harm that we’ve determined the African community in California has historically faced. There are five areas that we have identified as being able to be supported through some sort of compensatory framework because those are the areas that we have data on.
“Of the 12 areas, there are 5 at the moment that the economics team has determined could be responded to through financial compensation, but this is just preliminary reporting from the economics team. In no way has that risen to the level of recommendation from the task force. We’ll be taking everything into consideration over the next few months. As it stands, we have no formal recommendations, no formal decisions made on what the reparations package will be.”
In terms of eligibility, the report from the economics team says that the eligibility being considered is a person who is a descendent of an enslaved African American person, or somebody who was a descendent of a free African American person who was living in the U.S. before the end of the 19th century—is that still the eligibility you’re looking at?
“What we’re talking about is a Black individual who can claim descendence from one of those classes of individuals. We’re talking about people, who today, are recognized as African American and who can also establish lineage to African American persons enslaved in this country or free persons prior to the 1900s.”
Have you guys discussed how people would go about that? Would Ancestry.com be used or would there be a formal committee that would look into each case?
“That would be part of the recommendations that we’ll make as part of the work we’ll do over the next few months. For example, if you look at the interim report we issued in the summer, there are some preliminary recommendations. In those preliminary recommendations, it mentions some guidance for creating a potential bureau that would help establish these claims, that would help determine lineage based about descent to an African American enslaved person or a free Black person prior to the 1900s in the U.S.
“What we are doing as a task force is coming up with a set of guidelines and proposals that might help determine these things. but ultimately, at the moment, we’re not stating what precise relationships there might be with particular companies to do anything like that.”
Are there any concerns about there being a cost burden to identifying this lineage or some people having been affected by not being able to prove their lineage?
“That was an issue we debated when we came to the eligibility discussion in March of this year. We had various genealogists testify about how this process works. Many of them were supportive of the fact that this could actually be done with little to no costs.
“There are existing services that can actually help people trace their records. There was a real-time example provided about how one person could find their ancestors in the census without much difficulty. So, we will work out what the appropriate measures are for determining lineage, we will make recommendations based upon what we think will help individuals establish their claims.
“But I don’t think the task force has the responsibility for thinking totally about the cost burdens at this point, that would be for the state legislature to take up and determine what they are willing to provide as a form of compensation and as the finances for facilitating the terms for people to establish their claims.”
In the report from the economics council, the eligibility didn’t mention race although it was mentioned throughout the report. Are you planning on carrying lineage-based requirements with race-based requirements?
“There’s a little trouble to not think about race, to not think about Blackness or think about the terms around this process. It’s important to remember what we’re talking about is reparations rooted in the phenomenon of slavery, but are traced through the lingering effects of slavery.
“In California, what we are looking at is everything from Jim Crow racism and discrimination up through contemporary issues with political disenfranchisement, mass incarceration, ongoing threats against Black communities over policing. So, in a way what we’re talking about is a series of harms that are identified as the lingering effects of slavery.
“When we’re thinking about “race-based,” we are seeing there is a way in which those harms are following particularly raced individuals. But with it being rooted in the phenomenon, industry and practice of slavery, what we’re talking about is about deciding eligibility based on lineage and lineage alone. However, because of the way racism works in society, it is fairly easy to follow those harms based upon race.”
Once the task force determines what to recommend, will that be given to the governor, and then the governor will have to present that to the state legislature to pass it?
“It gets passed along to the state, and then there will have to be a bill that is created. Ultimately, the governor will have to sign off on that bill.”
Is there anything that the task force is currently debating that you think is truly critical to the bill? Is there any true dissent about how to move forward with the recommendations?
“No, at the moment, the task force really seems to be on the same page on every issue that we’re dealing with. Once we meet later this month, we’ll have a better sense as to what exactly we’re hoping to bring to the final recommendations. If there’s anything that will spark debate amongst the task force, it will follow from this next meeting. But this will be the beginning stage of us being able to debate what ultimately ends up being in the final report and recommendations that we bring to the state. Prior to this point, we haven’t discussed any concrete plans.”
