Football great Herschel Walker has accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of “pandering” by signing first-of-its-kind legislation establishing a task force to develop reparations proposals for Black residents.
“I’m upset about it, because all they’re doing is pandering for a vote,” Mr. Walker said Thursday on Fox’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum.” “Because, let me tell you, why are you paying African-Americans off instead of empowering African-Americans?”
The bill, AB 3121, signed Wednesday by the Democratic governor, directs the University of California Board to Regents to assemble a task force to “Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans with a Special Consideration for African Americans Who are Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States.”
“Our painful history of slavery has evolved into structural racism and bias built into and permeating throughout our democratic and economic institutions,” Mr. Newsom said. “California’s rich diversity is our greatest asset, and we won’t turn away from this moment to make right the discrimination and disadvantages that Black Californians and people of color still face.”
Mr. Walker, a Trump supporter, said California Democrats are taking the wrong approach by seeking to redistribute money instead of improving education and promoting business investment in minority communities, as President Trump has done with his Opportunity Zones program.
“They don’t have an answer for what Donald Trump is saying for trying to empower African-Americans by putting jobs in those areas, by putting better education in those areas, by going out, putting small businesses, African-American-owned businesses, in those areas,” Mr. Walker said. “What they’re trying to do now is pander for a vote.”
Herschel Walker Slams Democrats’ Pandering Pay-Off of Reparations https://t.co/vHdQdAQw95
— RedState (@RedState) October 2, 2020
California was founded in 1850 as a free, or non-slavery, state, although Southerners during the Gold Rush brought slaves to the state, according to historians.
California also has a relatively small Black population at 6.5%, or half the national average of about 13%.
Assemblymember Shirley Weber, who sponsored AB 3121, cheered California as “the first state in the nation to mandate the study and development of proposals for reparations.”
“California has historically led the country on civil rights,” the Democrat said in a statement. “Yet, we have not come to terms with our state’s ugly past that allowed slaveholding within our borders, returned escaped slaves to their masters, and actually had slavery by another name in the form of a ’contract labor’ system.”
Any recommendations by the task force would have to be approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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