It looks like the Legislature will pass the bill from Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages (D-Nassau) and state Sen. James Sanders (D-Queens), to create a commission to study just how much taxpayers allegedly owe descendants of slaves in the Empire State.
It’d be pure pointless posturing if it weren’t so poisonous.
Ever since Ta-Nehisi Coates revived talk of reparations a decade ago, it’s been about an open-ended focus on grievances, not healing or justice.
Thus this bill’s backers are already saying it will be about far more than slavery. As in California, it’s to also take up alleged discrimination in housing and incarceration rates.
That is, the standard newest-left litany: All social disparities are racism, end of discussion.
And the exercise is guaranteed to end in tears: Also as in Cali, the commission would just issue non-binding recommendations that the Legislature would have to codify and pass for signature by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
And the state — already facing a budget crisis in coming years — would also have to pay for it.
When push came to shove, even ultra-woke Gov. Gavin Newsom told Cali’s reparations-mongers to go pound sand. (The price tag of as much as $800 billion made it easy.)
No doubt that’s why Solages has already claimed it’s really about conversation: “Reparations is not just about a paycheck, it’s much more,” she said. “It’s atoning, it’s talking about what we can do to support and uplift Black New Yorkers throughout this great state.”
Since it won’t lead to any paychecks, why jump through that hoop at all? Just talk about the practical stuff, not that “atoning” etc. is all that practical.
Indeed, the Golden State exercise did nothing but poison race relations; New York would only get the same.
Then again, poisoning race relations is a proven path to power for some politicians, and a profitable one for various con artists.
Yes, fully face history, with all its warts. But society as a whole, and African-Americans (descendants of slaves or not), gain nothing from empty political stunts.
If the Legislature really wanted to improve the lives of black New Yorkers, it’d be looking at commissions on the failure of public education and the crisis in public safety. But honest investigations would point fingers right at Albany, so virtue-signaling is all we get.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
