After 18 months, the City of Los Angeles Reparations Advisory Commission released its executive summary of its reparations inquiry.
In the 56-page report, complete with more than 60 community engagements, 600 survey responses, and 18 focus groups with black Los Angeles residents, the commission identified 12 areas of harm that such residents have suffered from, stemming from slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, and more.
The authors offered dozens of solutions to solve inequities, including launching compensatory efforts for housing inequity, overpolicing and “unjust” convictions, and endorsing state and federal reparations. However, the report does not include an estimate of how much these measures would cost the city. The full 400-page report is expected to be published next month.
Reparations for slavery have been pushed to the forefront of the national discussion following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, with reparation task forces popping up in cities all over the country.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) commissioned a statewide reparations task force in 2020.
While California was not one of the states with a large reliance on slaves and fought on the Union’s side during the Civil War, the commission highlighted how Los Angeles black residents have been affected by discriminatory housing practices, intimidation and violence by the Ku Klux Klan, and a wide variety of other abuses.
“All told, billions of dollars in unrealized wealth have been denied to Black families in Los Angeles that make it difficult for them to remain in wealthier westside neighborhoods,” the report stated. “Simultaneously, authorities and public officials across many agencies have delivered a century or more of appalling infrastructure, substandard schools, unsafe neighborhoods, dangerous levels of exposure to pollution, and harmful environmental conditions to the working class and poor.”
The report included a 2016 study titled “The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles,” which found that the average white family in Los Angeles’s net worth was $355,000 compared to a black family’s net worth of $4,000.
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“Without exceptional government intervention, it is likely that the wealth gap will continue to grow until the dreams of a life of safety, comfort, and freedom from financial ruin are limited to all but a few,” the report stated.
The commission also suggested that the city issue an apology for the “injustices of enslavement and Jim Crow” and also pass legislation that would properly document the history of slavery.
