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sports Diahuebs 31 Maart 2022

California panel OKs reparations limit for slave descendants

(AP) - California’s first- of slavery and its harms and sation and restitution plan
in-the-nation task force to educate the public about based on genealogy as op-
on reparations has decid- its findings. posed to race has the best
ed to limit state compen- change of surviving a legal
sation to the descendants Reparations efforts at the fed- challenge. They also opened
of free and enslaved Black eral level have not gone any- eligibility to free Black people
people who were in the where, but cities and univer- who migrated to the coun-
U.S. in the 19th century, sities are taking up the issue. try before the 20th century,
narrowly rejecting a pro- The mayor of Providence, given possible difficulties in
posal to include all Black Rhode Island, announced a documenting family history
people regardless of lin- city commission in Febru- and the risk at the time of be-
eage. ary while the city of Boston coming enslaved.
is considering a proposal to
The vote Tuesday split 5-4, form its own reparations Others on the task force ar-
and the hours-long debate commission. gued that reparations should
was at times testy and emo- include all Black people in hind us.” yet separate harms, such as
tional. Near the end, the Rev. The Chicago suburb of Evan- the U.S. who suffer from slavery, Jim Crow laws, mass
Amos Brown, president of ston, Illinois, became the first systemic racism in housing, But Kamilah Moore, a lawyer incarceration and redevel-
the San Francisco branch of U.S. city to make reparations education and employment and chair of the task force, opment that resulted in the
the NAACP and vice chair of available to Black residents and said they were defining said expanding eligibility displacement of Black com-
the task force, pleaded with last year, although some say eligibility too soon in the would create its own fissures munities.
the commission to move the program has done noth- process. and was beyond the purpose
ahead with a clear definition ing to right a wrong. of the committee. Compensation could in-
of who would be eligible for Civil rights attorney and task clude free college, assistance
restitution. California’s task force mem- force member Lisa Holder “That is going to aggrieve the buying homes and launch-
bers — nearly all of whom proposed directing econo- victims of the institution of ing businesses, and grants to
“Please, please, please I beg can trace their families back mists working with the task slavery, which are the direct churches and community or-
us tonight, take the first to enslaved ancestors in the force to use California’s esti- descendants of the enslaved ganizations, advocates say.
step,” he said. “We’ve got to U.S. — were aware that their mated 2.6 million Black resi- people in the United States,”
give emergency treatment to deliberations over a pivotal dents to calculate compen- she said. “It goes against the The eligibility question has
where it is needed.” question will shape repara- sation while they continue spirit of the law as written.” dogged the task force since
tions discussions across the hearing from the public. its inaugural meeting in June,
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed country. The members were The committee is not even a when viewers called in plead-
legislation creating the two- appointed by the governor “We need to galvanize the year into its two-year process ing with the nine-member
year reparations task force in and the leaders of the two base and that is Black peo- and there is no compensation group to devise targeted pro-
2020, making California the legislative chambers. ple,” she said. “We can’t go plan of any kind on the table. posals and cash payments to
only state to move ahead with into this reparations proposal Longtime advocates have make whole the descendants
a study and plan, with a mis- Those favoring a lineage ap- without having all African spoken of the need for mul- of enslaved people in the
sion to study the institution proach said that a compen- Americans in California be- tifaceted remedies for related U.S.

White House: Intel shows Putin misled by advisers on Ukraine

(AP) — U.S. intelligence offi- the White House. now persistent tension between him sian prestige lost by the fall of the So-
cials have determined that Rus- and senior Russian military officials. viet Union.
sian President Vladimir Putin is The intelligence finding, which was
being misinformed by advisers recently declassified, indicates that The U.S. believes Putin is being “What it does is underscore that this
about his military’s poor perfor- Putin is aware of the situation on in- misled not only about his military’s has been a strategic blunder for Rus-
mance in Ukraine, according to formation coming to him and there is performance but also “how the Rus- sia,” Bedingfield said of the intelli-
sian economy is being crippled by gence finding. “But I’m not going to
sanctions because again, his senior characterize how ... Vladimir Putin
advisers are too afraid to tell him the might be thinking about this.”
truth,” White House communica-
tions director Kate Bedingfield said Meanwhile, Biden told Ukrainian
Wednesday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dur-
ing a 55 minute call that an additional
Earlier, President Joe Biden said in an $500 million in direct aid for Ukraine
exchange with reporters that he could was on its way. It’s the latest burst in
not comment on the intelligence. American assistance as the Russian
invasion grinds on.
Asked about the latest intelligence,
The administration is hopeful that Secretary of State Antony Blinken
divulging the finding could help prod suggested that a dynamic within the
Putin to reconsider his options in Kremlin exists where advisers are un-
Ukraine, according to a U.S. official. willing to speak to Putin with candor.
The official was not authorized to
comment and spoke on the condition “One of the Achilles’ heels of autoc-
of anonymity. The war has ground racies is that you don’t have people
to a bloody stalemate in much of in those systems that speak truth to
the country, with heavy casualties power or have the ability to speak
and Russian troop morale sinking as truth to power, and I think that’s
Ukrainian forces and volunteers put what we’re seeing in Russia,” Blinken
up an unexpectedly stout defense. told reporters during a stop in Algeria
on Wednesday.
But the publicity could also risk fur-
ther isolating Putin, who U.S. offi- The unidentified official did not de-
cials have said seems at least in part tail underlying evidence for how U.S.
driven by a desire to win back Rus- intelligence made its determination.