“I think once we get mainstream America to say, whether they say it grudgingly or belatedly or whatever, ‘Yes, we must,’ then you can have a better discussion about how we pay,” he said. sharpton. “I don’t think we’ve gotten mainstream America to have to come to the question of ‘Should we?’”

Critics of reparations argue that the United States has already made amends for historic injustice by passing landmark civil rights and voting rights laws in the 1960s and by establishing a social safety net, including welfare programs and affirmative action on admissions. universities and in hiring, to lift people out of poverty. . They say it is morally wrong to force Americans whose ancestors had no role in slavery or Jim Crow to atone for the past, and have raised the possibility of legal challenges. The Supreme Court is expected to ban race-based college admissions in a decision this spring.

The legal argument from conservative critics of reparations is that race-based government payments violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause. In California, the task force decided that eligibility should be tied not only to race but also to direct ancestry, determining that any descendant of enslaved African-Americans or of a “free black person who lived in the United States before the end of the XIX century” should receive repairs. Some legal scholars have said that the use of direct lineage has a better chance of withstanding court challenges.

Sen. Tim Scott, who is the only black Republican in the Senate and who announced a presidential run on Monday, has dismissed the idea of ​​reparations and has been framing a message in early GOP-nominated states that America is a post-racial society.

“I am living proof that America is the land of opportunity and not the land of oppression,” Mr. Scott said while announcing his campaign in his hometown of North Charleston, South Carolina.

The California Remedies Task Force’s proposals will go to lawmakers in Sacramento, where they face steep political and economic hurdles in becoming law, even in a Democratic-dominated state. For one, the state, whose tax structure leaves it open to big swings in revenue from year to year, faces a projected budget deficit of more than $31 billion. Hearings on the proposed laws will not take place until next year.

Although the task force considered various methods of distributing repairs, such as tuition or housing subsidies, it settled on direct payments to offset economic inequality. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louisthe typical black family in the United States is worth $23,000, compared to $184,000 for white families.