“The purpose of this press conference is to discuss current efforts undertaken by members of the CBC to continue to address systemic racism,” caucus chairwoman Karen Bass, a California Democrat, said.
“The difference this time is that CBC members will be supported by a national movement that is beginning to penetrate into the consciousness of Americans, that systemic racism, first of all, exists and how the manifestation of systemic racism impacts not just the lives of black people, but the entire nation.”
Look, most Americans would agree that African Americans got a raw deal for a long time. But probably no Americans agree on the proper remedy.
The situation is complicated but for the Dems to truly sell this as a solution to the American people they will have to admit that all their policies have had the opposite effect. They would have to admit they made it worse. They won’t do that.
Instead of creating a community of homeowners, they created people dependent on the state for housing vouchers. The Dems will never admit this as it would mean they acknowledge finally that they failed. At everything. And it would cost them their political patronage army.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus outlined a list of legislation aimed at ending racial injustices, including a reparations measure that one lawmaker said will come up for a House floor vote in the future.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told reporters Wednesday that Democratic leaders have promised to advance a measure that would establish a commission to study reparations for slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other policies that have hurt blacks and other people of color over the decades.
“The leadership in the House and the Senate Democratic leadership are certainly supporting this legislation,” Lee, a Texas Democrat, told reporters. “And we have a commitment for a markup and a commitment for the floor.”
A top House Democratic leader on Wednesday would not provide a firm date for consideration of the reparations measure or any of the other bills the caucus promoted at its press conference an hour earlier.
“They are all under consideration,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat.
Lee’s measure would create a 13-member commission to “address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery,” as well as racial and economic discrimination against African Americans.
The panel would make recommendations to Congress.
The measure has been introduced in Congress many times over the past 18 years but did not receive a formal hearing until last year in the House Judiciary Committee.
The measure moved back into the spotlight in the wake of widespread civil unrest over the deaths of black people in police custody.
“It is the government’s sanctions that denied African Americans their equality,” Lee said. “And as well, the government’s responsibility, with this 13-member commission, to design the responses to the continued death, murder, and inequities in our community.”
