Global Courant 2023-05-26 13:00:20
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“It’s time to pay.” Those four words from Democratic Rep. Missouri’s Cori Bush are heard a lot this month by Democratic politicians across the country. For Bush, the debt is $14 trillion in reparations for black Americans.
In California, activists are demanding as much as $5 million per black resident, asking Governor Gavin Newsom “where’s the money?” A member of Newsom’s Reparations Task Force demanded that the state pay his “sin bill”.
In New York and Chicago, mayors are protesting the skyrocketing costs of migrants being shipped from the border to their “places of refuge.”
CA REPARATIONS TASK FORCE MEMBER DEFENDS MILLION DOLLAR PAYOUTS: ‘SIN BILL’ FOR ‘TERRORISING BLACK PEOPLE’
After demanding $3 million per black resident in Tampa, a witness said he and others “notified white people that we want our reparations.” Bills are coming after years of political campaigning on these issues.
Reverend Tony Pierce calls for millions of dollars in reparations for every black Californian at a meeting of the California Reparations Task Force on May 6, 2023. (YouTube screenshot from California Department of Justice channel)
Reparations and sanctuary cities have long been the bread and butter of identity politics. For years, Democratic politicians have campaigned for these “moral requirements” by passing sanctuary laws and creating recovery task forces.
It is the equivalent of compound interest on credit card debt. In every election, Democrats have used these issues for short-term political gain. Now those bills are due and Democratic leaders are hesitating.
President Joe Biden and Congress are in a potentially lethal game of chicken over the impending default on our debts. It doesn’t seem like an ideal time to demand an additional $14 trillion, but Bush declared, “Black people in our country can’t wait any longer.” She was joined by members such as Reps. Barbara Lee, D-CA, Jamaal Bowman, D-NY, and Rashida Tlaib, D-MI.
It is a view expressed across the country by black citizens who have been told that these payments are an undeniable moral obligation. Years of politics on this issue have created a sense of entitlement to large cash payments. As a well-known California activist stated, “It’s a debt we have, we worked for free. We don’t ask, we tell you.”
Newsom recently opposed payment of the reparations his own task force recommended, though he has indicated that cash payments can still be made. Trying the long-awaited pivot, Newsom said, rather plaintively, that dealing with the legacy of slavery “is about much more than cash payments.” It may be too late for that spider. Recent polls show that 77 percent of black Americans now support reparations — a significant increase in recent years.
Task Force member Rev. Amos Brown said they will not accept an apology and that the state must commit to the full amount and, if necessary, “pay for it in installments.”
The late New York Governor Mario Cuomo famously said that politicians campaign in poetry but rule in prose. However, the “prose” of many Democratic leaders is not praised.
While many have denounced bus transportation of migrants to sanctuary cities, most privately admit there is an element of poetic justice. For years these cities have been telling undocumented migrants that they are welcome to come to their city where they would be protected. Then they showed up. It was a political version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” the movie about a liberal couple confronted by the visit of their daughter and her black fiancée.
Walter Foster, age 80, a longtime Los Angeles resident, holds up a sign as the Reparations Task Force meets to hear public input on reparations at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 22, 2022. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The most riveting moment occurred at Martha’s Vineyard, where residents came out to clap and wave to the migrants… as they were shipped to a military base off the island. New York City has been shipping migrants to other cities, which are going to court to stop the move. Many of these cities point out that, unlike New York City, they have never declared themselves a haven for undocumented migrants.
While these cities have received a fraction of the influx of states like Texas, mayors in sanctuary cities like Chicago have spoken out.
Like those expecting reparations, these migrants are understandably confused. They were told that Chicago was a “ciudad santuario.” Chicago reaffirmed this status in 2022 when it expanded protections and benefits.
At the time, politicians rushed to cameras to declare, like Councilor Rossana Rodríguez, that Chicago must be “a welcoming city for immigrants” and reaffirmed that “our city is responsible for acting in solidarity with the people who are most marginalized and the most affected by a system that oppresses them.”
Task Force member Rev. Amos Brown said they will not accept an apology and that the state must commit to the full amount and, if necessary, “pay for it in installments.”
Then they showed up in greater numbers and former mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded that the migrants be sent elsewhere or held in border towns that would be overwhelmed by much larger numbers of migrants.
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In some cases, there’s no other option than to quietly abandon past campaigns that have won national acclaim and wreaked havoc locally. For example, some of us criticized cities like San Francisco for boycotting states that did not adhere to their views on issues such as transgender rights.
I noted at the time that the boycott would cost the city dearly by locking 22 states off by driving up costs. It did, and the city quietly rescinded the boycott after losing millions. While the media paid far less attention to the dissolution than to the original decision, other reversals have come at greater political costs for the left.
Cities that have made efforts to pay back the police are now paying back the police after the high crime rate and high number of police retirees and layoffs. Activists in cities like Los Angeles called it a “slap in the face” given years of Democratic politicians’ promises.
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In the meantime, Newsom’s task force has demanded a range of other changes, including abolishing bail, ending prosecutions of certain crimes, subsidizing home purchases for black residents, guaranteeing a “right of return” by development projects take over to guarantee black housing. property. Some of those reforms may be approved by politicians, but there’s no reason to cover up the absence of a cash payment.
These are the Democratic Party creditors, and they now seem intent on collecting the compound interest from years of identity politics.
A version of this blog previously appeared on Jonathan Turley’s blog.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE JONATHAN TURLEY
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a practicing criminal defense attorney. He is a Fox News contributor.
