Do you have a special talent you’d like to share with the community? The San Bernardino County Fair is seeking competitive entries for categories including fine arts, wood carving, photography, ceramics, cooking, and much more! Deadline to apply is April 15. The fair will run May 28-June 5 at the Fairgrounds in Victorville. Learn more and apply here.
HESPERIA, CA— Several law enforcement agencies, including Hesperia Police, Victorville Police and CHP Victorville attended Hesperia Christian School’s First Responder Day last week. It was so wonderful to see deputies interacting with the students and inspiring them to pursue careers in public safety!
Easter will be celebrated on April 17 this year, and the First District is planning several fun family activities to honor the occasion.
In Apple Valley, don’t miss the annual Easter Egg Hunt and Eggstravaganza on April 16 at the James Woody Community Center. The event will include an egg hunt, food, games and more. For more information, call (760) 240-7880.
Town of Apple Valley will host its Bunny Run 5K and 10K at 7 a.m. April 16. The event will kick off at the James Woody Park and Community Center at 13467 Navajo Road. For more information, call (760) 240-7880 or visit them online.
Burning Bush Church will host a community event in Victorville from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 16. All are welcome to enjoy free bounce houses, games, food, music, covid testing (with a free gift card for everyone who tests), vaccinations (with free food from a food truck), a photo booth, and vendors. For more information, please call (760) 241-6221 or visit them online.
Calico Ghost Town’s Easter Celebration returns to Yermo on Sunday, April 17. Guests can enjoy photos with the Easter Bunny and a special pancake breakfast with eggs and bacon at the Calico House Restaurant. Learn more by calling 760-254-1123 or visit them online.
City of Victorville will host its annual Spring Festival on April 16 at Hook Park. Visitors can enjoy egg hunts (for kids 3-9 and special needs families), a kids zone, carnival games, visits with the Easter Bunny, vendors and more. The event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 14973 Joshua Street. For more information, call (760) 245-5551 or visit them online.
Hesperia Recreation and Park District will host its Kids Easter Egg Hunt at 10 a.m. April 16 at Hesperia Community Park, located at 10200 Datura Road. In addition to the egg hunt, guests can enjoy bounce houses, carnival games, car show, vendor booths, food trucks and photos with the Easter Bunny. For more information, call (760) 244-5488 or visit them online.
High Desert Second Chance is hosting its annual Easter celebration from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 16. Enjoy free family activities, giveaways and prizes, and a classic car show and contest. The event will take place at 16666 Smoke Tree Street, Building B4, Hesperia. Public parking is available on Chestnut, C Avenue and Smoke Tree streets. For more information, call 442-267-4444.
By Joe W. Bowers Jr. | California Black Media
What happens when you’re a vocal critic of bad decisions made by administrators at your local school district?
If Inglewood Unified is your local school district, you might receive an email from one of their highest priced lawyers questioning your intelligence and warning you that he is determining if you’ve engaged in actions that could be interpreted as threatening to people. The following is the email I received:
Dear Mr. Bowers:
I am in receipt of your email to Dr. Torres demanding a response to your Public Records Act Request (“PRAR”) concerning contracts or communications with TSS. The District’s response which was sent 41 minutes prior to your email was fully compliant with its obligations. I cannot tell if you took the time to review the website contained in the District’s response. Assuming it took you 15 minutes +/- to draft your email to Dr. Torres you certainly did not have time to conduct a thorough review of the material to which you were directed. Either way, the District has responded to your PRAR, and your email correspondence is moot.
On a different but related note, I have been advised that you have been in communication with TSS and made various threats or comments or statements which could be interpreted as threats. I am waiting for confirmation of the timing and content of those communications before taking any further action. I would, however, caution you that First Amendment rights do have limits and that in the heat of the moment people say things and/or threaten actions which take themselves outside of that protection. I suggest you consider keeping that in mind.
Finally, in the future please direct all further communications to the District to my attention. Your communications are increasingly hostile and District staff and administrators are entitled to perform their duties without fear of harassment or threats no matter how much you a person may disagree with their actions.
Thank you for your attention to this matter and compliance with my request.
David
David M. Orbach, Esq.
Orbach Huff & Henderson LLP
Recently I wrote an op-ed titled “Opinion: Closing Warren Lane Elementary in Inglewood Is a Terrible Decision.” The school district has experienced a significant decline in enrollment and closing some schools is fiscally responsible. The criteria they’re using to select which schools to close deserve scrutiny and criticism because they are not employing California Department of Education best practices.
Warren Lane has more attributes justifying keeping it open than shortcomings that justify closing it.
Conducting research for the op-ed, I made a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request for information about Total School Solutions (TSS), the consulting company that recommended closing Warren Lane Elementary School.
I wanted to review the TSS contract because, according to the California Secretary of State’s website, their business license was suspended by the Franchise Tax Board. When a company’s business license is suspended, technically, they can’t legally transact business until it is resolved.
The school district waited the maximum time CPRA allows to respond to requests and then informed me the information I was requesting could be found on the school district’s website.
The information I was seeking is not there. So, I notified County Administrator Dr. Torres that the school district was not being responsive to my public records request and demanded that they provide the records requested.
Rather than complying with my request, the school district is playing hardball and doubling down on withholding the information. And, to rub it in, sent the email that you just read.
Orbach, a lawyer Inglewood Unified has on retainer, seemed fascinated by how fast I answered the email they sent me about my public records request. He calculated my response time and concluded that no way was I capable enough to review the website as quickly as I did and conclude it did not have the information I requested.
I don’t know if Orbach is a racist, but I find his timekeeping stunt and comments about my response time are. If he intended to insult me, he failed because I don’t care what he thinks. Also, my correspondence was not “moot” because Inglewood Unified is hiding the TSS contract in violation of
CPRA.
But what is more disturbing and insidious about Orbach’s email was his disclosing that he had “been advised” that I have “made various threats” and he’s “waiting for confirmation”. I regard his disclosure as trying to be intimidating and bordering on character assassination.
Now, if he is referring to anything I’ve written about the closing of Warren Lane, no one has commented that I’ve said anything threatening.
My contact with TSS was only to confirm the status of their suspended business license on the Secretary of State’s website.
It’s clear to me what the school district lawyer is trying to do. Dog whistle phrases like “increasingly hostile”, “heat of the moment”, and “before taking any further action” say to me, “you’re an out-of-control angry Black man and if you don’t back off, the law is coming after you.”
It looks like criticizing Inglewood Unified about closing Warren Lane touched a nerve, although the email does not mention Warren Lane. But implying that my communications have been threatening to people, I feel, is a veiled attempt at getting me to stop criticizing a terrible decision.
Orbach’s aggressive action on behalf of the school district needed to be exposed and rebuked, that’s the reason I wrote this op-ed.
Taxpayer dollars are involved. He is directing me to send any communications I have with the school district to his attention and he’s surely not reviewing them pro bono.
The Los Angeles County Office of Education has oversight responsibility for Inglewood Unified. The public deserves to know why a school district which is in state receivership is permitted to pay a lawyer to try to silence a community member exercising their First Amendment rights.
The San Bernardino County Workforce Development and Victor Valley College are teaming up to host an Industrial Maintenance Mechanic Job Fair on April 14. Planned from 10:30 a.m. until 1 p.m., the event will include the following employers: Mitsubishi, Rio Tinto, Arden Companies, Robertson’s Ready Mix, UFI, Tree Island Wire, Amazon, CEMEX and CalPortland. The event will take place at 13313 Sabre Boulevard, Suite 2, Victorville. Register here.
LOS ANGELES, CA— PAFF announced the full lineup for the 30th annual Pan African Film & Arts Film Festival, the largest Black film festival in America, taking place April 19 – May 1, 2022. This year the festival will make its return to the Cinemark Baldwin Hills for in-person screenings, featuring over 200 films from 55 countries, in 18 languages, including 58 World and 32 North American premieres. Of the films selected for the festival, 46% are helmed by female, queer, or non-binary filmmakers, and 80% are directed by filmmakers of African descent. Many titles will also be available virtually for in-home screenings via the festival’s streaming platform Eventive to audiences worldwide.
The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza will once again host its renowned Artfest, featuring over 100 established and emerging fine artists and quality craftspeople from all over the Black Diaspora. Festival Passes and individual tickets are on sale now and can be purchased at www.paff.org.
BIG NIGHTS
The 30th Pan African Film & Arts Festival opens Apr. 19 at the Directors Guild of America with REMEMBER ME, a poignant look into the life and rise of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and starring Grammy-winning singer Ledisi. The Centerpiece presentation are the winning films from the JOHN SINGLETON SHORT FILM COMPETITION. Inspired by the legacy of the late Los Angeles-born legendary African American filmmaker, John Singleton, the competition is the result of a partnership between the City of Los Angeles and PAFF under L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson’s embRACE L.A. initiative and is designed to honor Singleton’s cinematic legacy while simultaneously celebrating his unapologetic approach to filmmaking. The Festival will also host the premiere of FX Network’s hotly anticipated “Snowfall” Season 5 finale and Showtime’s “The Man Who Fell From Earth,” starring Chiwetel Ejiofo. The full schedule is available in the online Festival Program.
Click here to download PAFF’s 2022 Quick Facts and Highlights
CELEBRATING 30 YEARS
7,200 miles away from Los Angeles in Ougadodo, Burkina Faso, the idea to showcase Black film and filmmakers in Los Angeles was born. It was 1989, the 20th anniversary of FESPACO also known as The Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, the largest film festival in Africa. There, Ayuko Babu, Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Lethan Weapon), and others with the help of then-Chairman of the U.S. Subcommittee on Africa Rep. Mervyn Dymally and Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré conceived a plan to bring African cinema to the U.S. Thirty years later, the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF), is still going strong and is the largest Black film festival in America.
Ticketing
Festival Passes and individual tickets are on sale now and can be purchased at www.paff.org.
Festival Sponsors and Partners
PAFF is sponsored in part by the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell through the Department of Arts and Culture, LA Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, LA Councilmember Curren Price, LA Councilmember Herb Wesson, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, LA Arts COVID-19 Relief Fund with the California Community Foundation, and the LA County COVID-19 Arts Relief Fund administered by the LA County Department of Arts and Culture.
The 30th Pan African Film & Arts Festival’s sponsors include major Festival sponsors: Stocker Street Creative, FX Networks, and Glassdoor.
About the Pan African Film & Arts Festival
Established in 1992 by Hollywood veterans Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Lethal Weapon), the late Ja’Net DuBois (“Good Times”), and Ayuko Babu (Executive Director), the Pan African Film Festival is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that has remained dedicated to the promotion of Black stories and images through the exhibition of film, visual art, and other creative expression. PAFF is one of the largest and most prestigious Black film festivals in the U.S. and attracts local, national, and international audiences. In addition, it is an Oscar-qualifying festival for animation and live-action films, and one of the largest Black History Month events in America.
For media inquiries please contact press@paff.org.
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2022 PAFF MEDIA
CREDENTIALS APPLICATION
2022 PAFF TALENT SUBMISSIONS APPLICATION
Life is full of ups and downs, and you never know how your plans can be easily turned around. It’s a given that racial trauma causes pain, strain and distress, but it is often suppressed.
Lisa Collins, Ed.D is an educational researcher who planned to study trauma, but instead explored her lived experiences. She became her own research subject after her medical doctor demanded she take time off from work. The outcome? Dr. Collins examined her racial trauma and found a solution and healing for herself and others. She recently reflected on healing from racial trauma at a TEDx Carioba Studio event, an independently organized TED event, released March 2, 2022.
Dr. Collins has an interesting backstory and comes from a loving family. Fostering healing was ingrained in her throughout her life. Her grandfather was a sharecropper in rural Arkansas and worked until he could have enough money to have his own land.
“I believe that my grandfather, mother and my ancestors racially fought for me, and they did. And now I’m fighting for the racial well-being of my children, and their healing,” she recalls.
The request to take time off from work was a wake-up call for Dr. Collins. In the middle of researching trauma for her doctorate, she started looking at herself and reflecting on her own life. After her primary care doctor suggested taking time away from work, Dr. Collins began her journey through racial healing. When she heard a small voice say, “You’re the subject of your research,” she listened and an autoethnography was born.
Dr. Lisa Collins’s research on Healing from Racial Trauma: A Consciousness Journey in Autoethnography, examines the ever-going frustrations of people of color that generate racial trauma and health implications, silenced by ignorance and avoidance. During her TEDx talk, she describes instances of microaggression in predominantly white institutions as the catapult for her research on racial trauma, and her experiences as the basis of that research.
Dr. Collins wrote about her lived experiences in three organizations. She gathered data, pictures, poems, written reflections, experiences, and discerned each one. She coded them. Coding and qualitative research are how she defined and understood each artifact. She looked at each artifact and highlighted parts or all of it.
“So, my research consists of 61 artifacts and 178 highlighted quotes,” she explained. “Six themes emerged. Organizational trauma, racial trauma, systemic oppression, settler colonialism, white supremacy, and racial healing. The most prevalent experience was racial trauma. The one with the least amount was racial healing. Racial trauma happened five times more than racial healing.”
Racial trauma, according to Dr. Collins, is unlike other forms of trauma. She believes that most black people experience racial trauma regularly. She said that many of us have learned how to suppress it and because of that, we are confronted with unforeseen health complications.
As a black educator, racial trauma cumulated the inevitable stress, anger and anxiety that she felt throughout her career. The lack of racial trauma awareness for people of color shut the door to healing and confronting generational trauma that exists in BIPOC communities.
Dr. Collins’ research yielded a call to action for greater community well-being and racial healing groups for BIPOC and NON-BIPOC people. Her research and her healing led to a coaching model that will help people of color to be able to recognize, learn, heal and pass it on to other people. Using her research, Dr. Collins aims to coach people of color on how to live in white spaces
without losing their sense of self and identity. She currently facilitates racial healing spaces at various times during the year. With a resulting goal to help others build community and heal from the past, she is well on her way to creating a better future for us all.
About Lisa Collins
Lisa Collins is an educational professional with over 25 years of experience. She holds degrees in psychology and education and works as an assistant professor at Lewis and Clark College and the Director of her small business, Education Through Engagement, LLC. As a learning and development professional, she supports talent management and business partners to solve workforce challenges. She brings a gender and equity lens to her working environments and her communities as a person of color. She uses Conscious Freedom and Interpersonal Neurobiology frameworks to enhance her consulting. Dr. Collins brings multiple perspectives, creates community, and studies racial healing to her work. She serves on the Oregon Assembly of Black Affairs, the advisory board for Strategies of Trauma Awareness and Resilience with Eastern Mennonite University, and On The Inside, a creative outlet and healing for incarcerated women.
Creatively, Dr. Collins is a playwright and filmmaker with works produced in New York (Manhattan Repertory Theater) and Portland (Hipbone, Portland Center Stage, and the Armory). Her short film, Be Careful What You Ask For has won selection in the Fertile Ground New Work Virtual Festival 2021, Manhattan Repertory Short Stories Film Festival 2021, Pacific Northwest Multicultural Film Festival 2021, and Portland Film Festival 2021. She is also currently the host of her own Podcast, Love and Light with Dr. Lisa. The show is designed to identify and find the need for a life of peaceful love-filled existence and engagement with tough topics by leaning in and incorporating healing. The Podcast is featured on the #1 positive talk network, streaming live on www.transformationtalkradio.com.
For more information on Dr. Lisa Collins and her research, please call 971-238-9608 or visit www.educationthroughengagement.com.
By Lou Yeboah
Well, Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida, says the Lord. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you [Luke 10:13-15] Over and over again, I have sent My warnings to you, but they have gone unheard. How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? How long will you keep ignoring the warning signs and live for your own ways and desires as if there are no consequences for doing so? I’ve warned you, Repent before it is too late!
“And in Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.” [Luke 16:27-28].
A lesson for all of us. “Being in torment” – “He cried” – “Have mercy on me.” That tells us two things; one, there is no mercy in Hell; second, there is torture, pain and suffering in Hell. He asked for just one drop of water on his tongue. I am tormented in this flame. There is no water in Hell. A great gulf is fixed so there will be no leaving it once a person gets there. No way to escape after arriving there. How could anyone ignore such a place as Hell? How could anyone not be concerned about their soul and the fact that they will be in Hell someday unless they come to the Savior?
Every lost person – lost without Christ will someday be in Hell for all eternity. They are headed for Hell as sure as if they were already there. For [John 3:18] says, He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. The word “believeth” used here means to have placed your trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. Those who have not done that are already condemned to Hell. “Too Little Concern About Hell!”
Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. [Romans 1:28-32].
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. [Galatians 5:19-21].
A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.”
To Little Concern About Hell – What tragedy!
By Aldon Thomas Stiles | California Black Media
Over the last two months, Gov. Gavin Newsom has met with some of the state’s counties to promote CARE Court.
CARE Court – the acronym stands for Community, Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment – is a mental health framework the state created to help people who are suffering from mental illness and substance use disorder by providing alternatives to arrests and jail if they have run-ins with the law.
Newsom announced the initiative at a press conference in San Jose last month. At the event, the governor said the new statewide initiative will receive funding from his administration’s multi-year mental health budget proposal totaling nearly $10 billion per year in behavioral health programs and services.
“CARE Court is about meeting people where they are and acting with compassion to support the thousands of Californians living on our streets with severe mental health and substance use disorders,” said Newsom. “We are taking action to break the pattern that leaves people without hope and cycling repeatedly through homelessness and incarceration. This is a new approach to stabilize people with the hardest-to-treat behavioral health conditions.”
Similar programs called collaborative courts focusing on specific problem-solving solutions for offenders have already been established in a number of counties across the state.
Teiahsha Bankhead, Executive Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) said the courts work.
“In some counties these courts have demonstrated very positive outcomes. They are most successful in communities that are not obsessed with over-policing and harsh punishment,” said Bankhead.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lawrence G. Brown, who has extensive experience with cases that come through these types of courts, asserted that the model has been helpful in his community.
“In our three mental health treatment courts in Sacramento, which serve between 150-200 participants at any given time, it would be a conservative estimate that well over half of those coming into our courts are either homeless or have housing instability,” said Brown.
“Based on our experience, if a person can be connected to meaningful treatment services, coupled with judicial oversight, there can be a profound impact on recidivism and hospitalizations,” he continued.
Rhonda Smith, executive director of the California Black Health Network, is pleased to see the gap that CARE Court is closing but she is concerned about people the criminal justice program might miss.
“If someone doesn’t pass the screening test, what happens to that person? What kind of safety net is there for them?” Smith asked.
Bankhead believes CARE Court is a necessary measure in a society that has been rethinking crime and punishment.
“In a humane, civil society members take into consideration disabling health considerations without punishing people for consequences of illnesses beyond their control,” points out Bankhead.
“A CARE Court should result in lower costs for custodial care of people who have caused harm as additional resources and treatment alternatives will mean fewer people serving time in county jails and state prisons for charges that are essentially health violations,” continued Bankhead.
While the US accounts for 5% of the world’s population, it accounts for almost 25% of the world’s prisoners, according to the American Psychological Association.
According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Black people make up almost 40% of the nation’s incarcerated population, although they are about 13% of the population.
In California, the imprisonment rate of Black men alone is almost ten times higher than the rate for White men, according to numbers provided by the Public Policy Institute of California.
“Because of the disproportionate incarceration of Black, indigenous and other people of color we would expect overall reductions in incarceration rates with accompanying improvements in community health and wellbeing,” said Bankhead.
“In CARE Court the criminalization of young Black men and women will hopefully be eliminated, shifted and lifted as seriously mentally ill people of color will be evaluated more comprehensively for mental illness and offered real support, treatment, alternatives and opportunities to heal,” she continued.
Experts estimate that about 10% to 25% of the nation’s prison population suffer from severe mental illness and 42% struggle with substance addiction.
According to California Health Policy Strategies, open mental health cases in California increased by 42% between 2009 and 2019. During that period, the yearly average of daily intakes of open mental health cases increased by 62%.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated in 2015 that 45% of the nation’s homeless population suffered from mental illness.
“There’s nothing compassionate about continuing to allow the current cycle of homelessness and incarceration to continue. My Administration will continue hosting CARE Court roundtables across the state listening to impacted Californians and stakeholders about their experiences and needs,” Newsom said.
By Antonio? ?Ray? ?Harvey? ?|? ?California? ?Black? ?Media?
A day after the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans decided who would be eligible for compensation, the nine-member panel approved a framework for calculating how much should be paid — and for which offenses — to individuals who are Black descendants of enslaved people in the United States.
The task force voted 8-0 to consider a blueprint of 13 “harms,” titled “Model 2: State Specific Harms/Atrocities Framework,” presented by an expert team it appointed.
“The Task Force will give us some directions and what to pursue to use this framework to figure out a procedure to have calculations,” said Dr. Kaycea Campbell, a member of the expert team. “(It) will allow us to identify specific atrocities or harms for which California should compensate.”
The expert panel reported that a “conservative estimate” of two million African Americans in California have ancestors who were enslaved in the United States. According to the US 2020, there are about 2.6 million Black Californians in a state that has a total population of nearly 40 million residents.
The expert team identified 13 “categories” that would be the “methodology” and “procedure to calculate damages” to determine what constitutes harms and atrocities, Campbell said.
Those harms include unjust property taking by eminent domain, intellectual property deprivation; homelessness; unwarranted police violence; segregated education; denial of representation on estate commissions; and housing discrimination; labor discrimination; environmental harm; mass incarceration; and sentencing; public health harms; transgenerational effects; among others.
The inflictions are prioritized to establish the case for compensation, with specificity to California, based on evidence gathered during witness testimonies over a course of nine months.
“The list is in no way final, can be expanded, and can be shrunk,” Campbell told the task force on March 30. “But we wanted to give an idea of these particular atrocities, as they are identified, and have the task force direct us as to what we should be looking at.”
Campbell says the five-member unit is tasked with providing an economic perspective of the work the task force is doing, helping to quantify past economic injustices African Americans faced in the state and elsewhere, and determining what or how much compensation should be for Black people living in California.
The expert team includes Williams Spriggs (former Chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University. He currently serves as chief economist for the AFL-CIO), and Thomas Craemer (Public Policy Professor at the University of Connecticut).
Spriggs and Craemer testified in front of the task force last October.
Rounding out the panel of experts are William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr., the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, and Kirsten Mullen, a writer, and lecturer whose work focuses on race, art, history, and politics.
Darity is a Samuel DuBois Cook professor of public policy, African and African American studies, and economics at Duke University. His research focuses on racial, class and ethnic inequality and stratification economics; education and the racial achievement gap; North-South theories of trade and development; and the economics of reparations.
Darity and Mullen co-authored the book, “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century.” They testified before the task force during the first meeting in June 2021.
The task force chose the Model 2 framework over Model 1, called the “National Reparations Framework.” The first option captures all the “opportunities and losses” linked to enslavement, Jim Crow laws, elements of lost wages, and others.
The expert team expressed their concerns about the national model because many of the atrocities, discrimination, and wage gap only relate to southern territories that did not happen in California.
“The national strategy of attempting to eliminate the racial wealth gap is something that is not replicated at the state level given the resources that the state of California currently possesses,” Darity said. “The second issue is the condition of racial wealth and equality in the state of California is not exclusively a consequence of a chain of events that took place solely in the state.”
On March 29, the task force voted 5-4 in favor of lineage over race as the determining factor for compensation. The members of the expert team suggested that a “reparations tribunal” would be one approach where individuals and families could establish residency and file claims of harm based on lineage.
Task Force chair Kamilah Moore said the community eligibility portion will be based on lineage “determined by an individual being African American, the descendant of a (person enslaved as chattel) or descendant of a free-Black person living in the United States prior to the end of the 19th century.”
By statute, the task force will issue a report to the Legislature by June 1, 2022, which will be available to the public.
Model 2 of the Framework for Reparations and Calculations could “potentially” arrive with modifications when the expert team reports back to the task force during the next meeting, Moore said.
After the expert team’s presentation, testimonials were provided on the “War on Drugs” and the crack-cocaine epidemic during the March meeting.
Those harms could be added to one of the categories.
“I am just putting that on our radar as a potential and distinct harm,” Moore said of the injuries not currently listed in Model 2.
The Task Force will hold its next meeting at San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church on Wednesday, April 13 at 9 a.m. and Thursday, April 14 at 9 a.m.
Third Baptist Church is at 1399 McAllister in San Francisco.
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