Democrats on the New York City Council have passed legislation to pay black residents slavery reparations using taxpayer money.
The passage of two bills sponsored by leftist Council members Crystal Hudson and Farah Louis, both Democrats, means NYC taxpayers will now fund a reparations commission and task force.
Fox News reported that the new “Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation Commission” will be tasked with establishing a program to hand out reparations.
According to a press release from the Democrat-controlled council, the legislation will also require city officials to place information signs at the site of NYC’s “first slave market.”
In a statement, NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said:
“The legacy of slavery and systemic racism has impacted all facets of our society today, and it’s important that our city recognizes and takes steps to redress these longstanding harms.
“By creating new processes to fully examine the present-day impacts of injustices inflicted on Black New Yorkers and communities, we are advancing necessary efforts to consider potential remedies that can lead to healing and reconciliation.”
Hudson, the radical councilmember who sponsored one of the bills, said the passage of her legislation is a major step in advancing her “Black Agenda for New York City.”
“It is my hope that as the nation’s largest city––with the biggest municipal budget––our truth, healing, and reconciliation process will work; it will identify racist, anti-black policies at the foundation of our city’s institutions, and it will yield material solutions to address these foundational cracks,” she said.
In a statement, Louis, whose bill focused on starting a reparations task force, said:
“Throughout my tenure in the Council, we have heard countless testimonies and conducted numerous hearings revealing the ongoing impacts of historical injustices.
“Black women, in particular, continue to be disadvantaged in both public and private sectors, facing systemic inequities that hinder their progress and well-being.
“Addressing these compounded injustices is essential to forming a more just municipality and society.”
Republican City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borelli blasted the legislation, however.
Borelli told the New York Post that he would move out of the city before paying reparations.
“If they can introduce me to one New Yorker who owned a slave I’d be happy to consider it,” he said.
“But until then, I am not paying a dime as a reparation for a harm I did not cause, nor condone, nor once participated in.”
In the wake of George Floyd’s overdose death and the violent Black Lives Matter-led riots that followed it in the summer of 2020, numerous cities — and the deep blue states of New York and California — have created reparations task forces.
However, many of the task forces have failed to yield any significant results.
Two members of Detroit’s reparations task force stepped down last year after expressing frustration over the lack of “progress.”
Even though slavery was never legal in California, the state’s exploration into slavery reparations has seen the most success.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a state budget in July that included $12 million for reparations legislation.
Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris has also expressed her support for reparations.
In 2019, then-Senator Harris (D-CA) said:
“I think there has to be some form of reparations, and we could discuss what that is, but look, we’re looking at more than 200 years of slavery.
“We’re looking at almost 100 years of Jim Crow.”
As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris declared that, if elected president, she would sign a bill that would provide reparations to the descendants of African slaves.
The Harris campaign refuses to say whether the Democrat nominee still supports that position.
