Free Republic

A reparations committee in California has suggested that descendants of slaves in the state should be compensated $223,200 each for 'housing discrimination'. The nine-member Reparations Task Force was formed by California Governor Gavin Newsom as part of the country's largest ever effort to address reparations for slavery. A focus of the California task force has been 'housing discrimination' - it has estimated the 2.5 million Black Californians require compensation of around $569billion, according to the New York Times.

Black Californians could be due hundreds of thousands of dollars for housing discrimination, incarceration, and health disparities alone, consultants said at reparations task force hearings.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued an executive order Tuesday to establish a “Racial Equity Commission” to tackle the issue of “structural racism” in the deep-blue, liberal state. The order follows the recommendations of the state’s task force on reparations for slavery earlier this year, which recommended not only cash payments but also the establishment of racially segregated schools, described as “described as “African American/American Freedmen owned and controlled” institutions.

LOS ANGELES - The leader of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has been accused by former colleagues of stealing more than $10 million in donations from the organization for his own personal use, according to a lawsuit filed in court this week. Shalomyah Bowers was called out in the court filing as a “rogue administrator, a middle man turned usurper” who syphoned contributions to the nonprofit activist group to use as his own “personal piggy bank,” according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday. “His actions have lead (sic) (Black Lives Matter Global...

A new video shows the moment a Sesame Street theme park employee allegedly snubbed a five-year-old black girl as her father sues for $25 million. Quinton Burns claims four employees dressed as Sesame Street characters ignored his daughter, Kennedi, and other black guests during a meet-and-greet on June 18. The video opens with the costumed characters dancing in a parade as the employee dressed as the Telly Monster walked over to wave and shake the hands of several children. Among the kids in the group was Kennedi, who tried reaching out to the character before he walked away and waved...

A day after the mother of two young Black girls called out Sesame Place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for an incident over the weekend in which a character at the theme park appeared to deny and pass by her girls, an attorney for the family said the event has had a devastating effect on them. "Their hearts were completely shattered by a character," attorney B'Ivory LaMarr told NBC10 in an interview Tuesday. "And tickets are not cheap. This is something these young girls were looking forward to. Words can't describe the type of grief they are going through right now."...

Three months have passed since the national Black Lives Matter group announced the launch of an art fellowship program used to justify its secret purchase of a $6 million Los Angeles mansion, but the charity hasn't even begun to accept applications for the program. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation announced the fellowship program just days before New York magazine revealed in early April the charity had secretly purchased the property with donor cash in October 2020. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors filmed videos at the property for her personal YouTube channel, held private events at the compound, and stayed at...

BOSTON (AP) — A Connecticut woman who says she’s descended from slaves who are portrayed in widely published, historical photos owned by Harvard University can sue the school for emotional distress, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Thursday. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court partly vacated a lower court ruling that dismissed a complaint from Tamara Lanier over photos she says depict her enslaved ancestors. The images are considered some of the earliest that show enslaved people in the U.S. The court concluded the Norwich resident and her family can plausibly make a case for suffering “negligent and indeed reckless infliction of emotional...

SAN FRANCISCO - California’s first-in-the-nation task force on reparations will release a report Wednesday documenting in detail the harms perpetuated by the state against Black people and recommending steps to address those wrongs, including expanded voter registration, making it easier to hold violent police accountable and improving Black neighborhoods

Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted this week that she used the group’s $6 million property to host personal parties, igniting further suspicions of BLM leaders misusing funds for personal gain. Cullors made the admission in an interview with the AP, in which she denied overt wrongdoing when it came to the mountain of funds the group received after the George Floyd protests in 2020. While she admitted that the group was ill-prepared to handle the wave of funds, leaders ultimately purchased a $6 million compound in Los Angles, which has continued to spark criticism:

Police in Syracuse, New York, were caught on camera arresting a young black boy for stealing a packet of chips. The shocking video was caught on camera as at least four officers on the upstate force were seen dragging the 10-year-old boy, forcing him into a waiting patrol car. The youngster appeared to be deeply traumatized by the entire incident and was crying and screaming as he had his hands placed behind his back and was frog-marched towards the waiting police car. The person filming the arrest could not believe what he was witnessing and screamed at officers to let...

The Ivy League university will establish the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality, and Social Policy. The program will allow Harvard researchers to “better understand and address the causes and consequences of wealth inequalities in different populations around the world,” the Kennedy School stated in a news release.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors has spoken against a report that reveals her organization’s purchase of a $5.8 million mansion in southern California, calling the story a “racist and sexist” attack on the movement.Patrisse Cullors attends an event in West Hollywood, Calif., on Feb. 13, 2020. According to the April 4 report by New York Magazine, the 6,500 square-foot California estate was bought in October 2020 using money that had been donated to Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which acts as a fundraising umbrella for BLM activism. It’s unclear who leads the foundation since Cullors stepped down...

A Los Angeles mansion frequented by Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart was bought by a real estate developer working for BLM founder Patrisse Cullors and her partner for $3.1 million, and then purchased by BLM's foundation just six days later for $5.8 million in cash, it has emerged. The rapid price inflation 'raises serious questions,' ethics experts said. The purchase of the 6,500 square-foot, six-bedroom property in Studio City was first revealed on Monday by New York Magazine, amid growing questions about BLM's finances. The organization in February 2021 said it had taken in more than $90 million in 2020...

A Black Lives Matter activist and her husband both pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that they defrauded donors who gave to their nonprofit and spent most of the $1 million raised for their own personal gain. Monica Cannon-Grant, 41, and Clark Grant, 38, used the funds from the charity to pay for restaurant meals, vacations and trip to the nail salon, an 18-page indictment handed down by a federal grand jury earlier this month alleges. They're also accused of illegally collecting an estimated $100,000 in pandemic unemployment benefits and lying on a mortgage application. The couple founded nonprofit Violence...

After more than six hours of debate Tuesday, California’s reparations task force voted that only Black Californians who can prove a direct lineage to enslaved ancestors will be eligible for the statewide — and first-in-the nation — initiative to address the harms and enduring legacy of slavery. The nine-member task force voted 5-4 in favor of defining eligibility for reparations based on lineage “determined by an individual being an African American descendant of a chattel enslaved person or the descendant of a free Black person living in the US prior to the end of the 19th century,” the motion read....

California’s first-in-the-nation task force on reparations is at a crossroads, with members divided on which Black Americans should be eligible for compensation as atonement for a slave system that officially ended with the Civil War but reverberates to this day. Some members want to limit financial and other compensation to descendants of enslaved people while others say that all Black people in the U.S., regardless of lineage, suffer from systemic racism in housing, education and employment. The task force could vote on eligibility on Tuesday after putting it off last month.

<p>Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), a member of the squad, highlighted the bigotry of soft expectations with a Saturday evening tweet promoting The Freedom to Move Act, which she introduced with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) last April.</p><p>Black and Latinx commuters are disproportionately criminalized by fare evasion policies.</p>

A federal grand jury has indicted Monica Cannon-Grant, a high-profile local activist in Boston’s racial justice movement, and her husband on allegations they defrauded donors of the nonprofit they founded, Violence In Boston; committed unemployment fraud; and lied to a mortgage lender, prosecutors announced Tuesday. Cannon-Grant, 41, and Clark Grant, 38, were charged in an 18-count indictment alleging the couple spent financial donations to the nonprofit on themselves, using the cash to pay for hotel reservations, gas, restaurant meals, food deliveries, nail salon services, and personal travel, while concealing their transactions from bookkeepers, directors, and financial auditors.

Black Lives Matter co-founder and “trained Marxist” Patrisse Cullors — who resigned from BLM amid controversy about her personal wealth — says she has visited hate crime hoaxer and disgraced actor Jussie Smollett in jail, where she found that he has been “sleeping on a restraint bed,” which she called “unacceptable.” Cullors is now urging the public to call the jail and demand that Smollett be freed. “I’m in Chicago and was able to see Jussie today, and he’s strong, but what’s happening inside is just — it’s just unacceptable,” Cullors said in a recent video. “Today is the first...