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California lawmakers pass groundbreaking bill to redress racism, but hold off on appropriating funding to take action

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers this week passed a few of the most ambitious bills within the country aimed toward repairing a legacy of racist policies that created inequality for black people in the whole lot from housing to education to health care.

Neither bill would offer universal direct payments to African Americans. Instead, the state legislature approved proposals that might allow land restitution or compensation to families whose property was unjustly seized by the federal government and issued a proper apology for laws and practices that harmed blacks.

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But lawmakers have omitted two bills that might create a fund and an agency to implement the cash, seen as key components of the trouble to take action. California Legislative Black Caucus Chairwoman Lori Wilson said Saturday that the Black Caucus had withdrawn the bills, adding that the proposals still needed work.

“We knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a tough fight. … And we also knew from the very beginning that this was going to be a multi-year effort,” Wilson told reporters.

Senator Steven Bradford, who authored the measures, said the bills weren’t passed out of fear that Gov. Gavin Newsom would veto them.

“We are at the finish line and we, as the Black Caucus, owe it to the descendants of slaves, to black Californians and black Americans to move this legislation forward,” Bradford said, urging his colleague to reconsider Saturday afternoon.

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The Democratic governor has not commented on a lot of the bills, but a budget of $297.9 billion was signed in June, which included up to $12 million for reparations lawsBut the budget didn’t specify which proposals would receive the cash, and his administration has signaled opposition to a few of them. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to resolve whether to sign the bills into law.

Democratic Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who’s black, has called his bill to issue a proper apology for discrimination a “labor of love.” His uncle was amongst a bunch of black students who were escorted by federal troops past offended white mobs into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, within the Nineteen Fifties, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that college segregation was unconstitutional. The students became generally known as the “ Nine Little Rock.”

“I think my grandmother, my grandfather, would be incredibly proud of what we’re going to do today,” Jones-Sawyer said before the vote on the laws passed. “Because that’s why they fought in 1957, so that I could — and we could — move our people forward.”

Newsom approved laws in 2020 to create the nation’s first task force to study reparations proposals. New York and Illinois have since followed suit with similar laws. The California group the ultimate report was published last yr with greater than 100 recommendations to lawmakers.

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Newsom signed laws last month that requires school districts receiving state funding for a profession education program to collect data on the performance of participating students by race and gender. The bill, a part of repair package supported by the California Legislative Black Caucus, goals to help address student achievement problems.

Return of seized property

The state Senate has overwhelmingly approved a bill to return land or compensate families whose property was unfairly taken through racial discrimination using the law of eminent domain.

The topic has once more attracted attention in California when Los Angeles-area officials returned the beach property in 2022 to a black couple, a long time after it was taken from their ancestors.

The Newsome administration’s Department of Finance opposes the bill. The agency says the associated fee of implementing it’s unknown but could “range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to several million dollars per year, depending on the workload required to receive, review, and investigate applications.”

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It’s not immediately clear how the initiative can be implemented, even when Newsom signs it into law after lawmakers withdrew an initiative to create an agency to implement it. The proposal would create a genealogy office to help black Californians research their family lines and confirm their eligibility for any reparations that develop into law.

Formal apology

California would take responsibility and formally apologize for its role in perpetuating segregation, economic inequality and discrimination against black Americans under one other bill approved by the Legislature.

The regulations require the Secretary of State to send a final copy of the apology to the National Archives, where it might probably be viewed by the general public.

The apology said the state “reaffirms its role in protecting the descendants of slaves and all black residents of California, as well as their civil, political and sociocultural rights.”

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California American Freedmen Affairs Agency and Fund

Two rejected bills would have established an agency that might be liable for implementing reparations programs if passed in California.

According to the California Government Operations Agency, the prices of operating a reparations agency could range from $3 million to $5 million per yr.

Another proposal would create a fund for reparations programs, which might develop into law in California. The money can be used to address state policies that harmed Californians descended from enslaved blacks or free blacks living within the U.S. before the late nineteenth century.

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Politics and Current

The latest order of Trump is addressed to Smithsonian for “Divorial, focused ideology on the race”: “Critics repel:” We cannot remove our past ” – essence

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The latest order of Trump is directed to Smithsonian in

ISions of America/Universal Images Group by Getty Images)

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In the extensive ordinance issued on Thursday evening, President Donald Trump directed comprehensive restructuring of the Smithsonian institution’s approach to the historical representation, particularly focusing on exhibitions and narratives related to race, gender and national identity. Order, entitled “Restoring truth and mental health to the history of America” He tries to generally transform how national museums present historical narratives.

The order is managed by the Vice President of JD Vance, as a member of the Smithsonian Regent Council, supervising the removal of what the administration specifies “the dividing, ideology focused on the race” from all real estate of the institution. Vance is instructed to refuse to finance any exhibitions or works of art that allegedly “degrade common American values.”

As an example of what the administration takes into consideration “Incorrect ideology” The order is particularly criticized by the current exhibition The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition, which examines the role of sculpture in “understanding and constructing the concept of a race in the United States”, has develop into the point of interest of the cultural policy of administration.

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The order range goes beyond racial narratives. It also goals at the efforts of the Museum of Women’s History Smithsonian American Women on the recognition of various experiences, especially difficult shows, akin to exhibition 2022. This program was celebrated by women in sport and clearly contained a T-shirt worn by a transgender, non-bine skateboard Leo Baker-representation seems that the order seems to be seen as problematic.

After the currently known political strategy, the order will instruct Vance to cooperate with Congress, to link future Smithsonian funds directly with the administration directives. In addition, he tries to appoint recent “members of citizens” to the Regent Council, who’re clearly “obliged to develop the policy of this order.”

In response to the order, rep. Jasmine Crockett condemned this movement, calling it part of a wider effort to erase marginalized voices from each the present and the past. “The first Trump removes all reference about the diversity from the present – now he is trying to remove it from our history,” wrote Crockett on X. “Let me be completely clear – you can’t remove our past and you can’t stop us from fulfilling our future.”

This directive is greater than an easy administrative change. This is a deliberate attempt to transform the way American cultural institutions interpret and present historical narratives, especially those who query traditional, often whitened versions of national history.

“Museums in the capital of our nation should be places where individuals learn – not subject to ideological indoctrination or dividing narratives that distort our common history,” said Trump in an announcement that represents the form of ideological positioning itself.

The order raises concerns about which stories will prioritize and what can mean for understanding of future generations of American identity and our collective memory.

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This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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Politics and Current

Booker beats the Senate Speech Register on segregation, which has opposed the black residents’ laws

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US Senator Cory Booker, dn.j., broke the record of the longest speech delivered on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, when he protested to the first 71 days of administration of President Donald Trump. Booker officially broke the record at 19:19, paradoxically, Booker exceeded the previous record – 24 hours and 18 minutes – organized by Senator Stroma Thurmond, a segregation that used the Senate procedure generally known as a filibuster to dam the adoption of regulations regarding breakthrough civil rights for Black Americans.

Almost 70 years ago, Thurmond, the White “Dixiecrat” from Southern Carolina, began to the floor of the Senate to stop the adoption of the Act on civic rights of 1957, which was the first draft bill on civic rights transferred by law after restructuring. Ultimately, Filibuster Thurmond didn’t win. Although the law intended for equal voice rights for Black Americans had little influence, he also established key mechanisms for the protection of civil rights by establishing the US Civil Rights and the Department of Citizenship of the US Department of Justice.

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Composed to the rehearsal of the Act of 1957, security for the Black Americans deprived of defense rights, Democrats indicate that the protest of Senator Booker was an motion that may harm black and other sensitive communities.

“Senator Booker is on the floor, he talks about everything that comes from the Movement for Civil Rights … When we talk about what came out of the 1960s, such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, protecting economic possibilities,” said Brown. He emphasized these social programs “they actually help people keep on the surface and equalize opportunities.”

Booker called the alarm by a message that “we can no longer act under the understanding of business as usual,” says Antjuan Seawright, a democratic strategist that advises several democratic members of the congress. Seawright said that the senator from New Jersey showed “unusual business … not only leadership, but also setting an example of how we need to color outside the line.” He continued: “Not only black Americans, but all those who care about keeping democracy on the right track, as we know, must be and should be.”

Diversity, justice, integration, thegrio.com
New York, New York – 04 January: National Action Network members to protest in front of the Bill Ackman billionaire office on January 4, 2024 in New York. (Photo of Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Democrats indicate that it is usually symbolic that the black man beat a record of white segregation equivalent to Thurmond. “He is able to do it in a body that has not been built to us to serve, to be honest,” said Brown. He added that the “act of courage” strengthens “the resistance of the black community in our country.”

“We had to withstand many things in this country, regardless of whether it is physical, regardless of whether it is socio-economic or political attacks,” brown contested. “Speech that Senator Booker uses his body, just like black people in this country, to fight for the development of other people, the fight against the oppression of a group of people is quite significant for black experiences in America.”

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He also doesn’t surprise democrats that Booker can be a senator who would break such a record. “He was always a man on a mission. He always had granularity, Grind and was always a man on the mission of providing results for his community and our country,” said Seawright, who also noted that Booker is a member of the Congress Black Club, which is understood at Hill Capitol as “Congress’s conscience.”

He explained: “I think he understands the importance of strong, wide arms on which he stands, and the opportunity to remain faithful to the mission.”

Just before breaking the Thurmond record on the Senate floor, Booker confirmed the segregation heritage for somebody who “tried to stop the laws on which I am standing.” He added: “I am not here because of his speech. I am here despite his speech. I am here because as powerful as he was stronger.”

Critics see Trump's attacks on

(Tagstranslate) Cory Booker

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Politics and Current

Voters receive checks of USD 1 million from Elon Musk before the election in Wisconsin

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The BBC reports that Elon Musk’s billionaire has donated $ 1 million to voters from Wisconsin before loud elections in the Supreme Court in a state in the state despite calling the prosecutor general to stop him.

Musk announced the award at the end of March 2025 before the Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin on Tuesday, April 1. Just just a few hours earlier, the General Prosecutor Josh Kaul argued in the trial that the gift violated state law prohibiting in exchange for voices. However, the judge in Pennsylvania said that the gift was legal, claiming that prosecutors didn’t prove that it was an illegal lottery.

During the rally, it took place on March 30, Musk said: “We just want the judges to be judges,” before they distributed two high checks to voters who allegedly signed a petition to stop the judges of “activists”. The race could Reverse the control over the state of the Supreme Court For Republicans and have become the most costly court elections in America’s history.

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According to the price exceeding $ 90 million, the conservative judge of Waukesha, Brad Schimel, supported by President Donald Trump and the Doge leader, acts against the Susan Crawford, who was against the judge of the Ferrity, who was supported by liberal judges of the Supreme Court Wisconsin.

The winner will replace the liberal judge Ann Walsh Bradley, who retires at the end of his term.

Despite the transfer of $ 14 million to Schimel’s campaign, justice apparently tried to scale back the ties with the owner of Tesla, claiming that he was not planning to be at a rally. “I have no idea what he is doing. I have no idea what this rally is,” said Schimel.

Kaul was not the just one who protested against the hand. The inhabitants of Wisconsin gathered in front of the Green Bay town hall, protesting against its appearance and competition.

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When the clips of the rally began to flow into on social media, the recipients of the check value $ 1 million were exposed, and allegedly Nicholas Jacobs was. A political analyst of the press nation published a photograph of Musk and a young man, claiming that Jacobs resembles the chairman of Wisconsin College Republicans, who has the same name.

The second control went to the graphic designer of Ekaterina Diestler. This isn’t the first time the owner of SpaceX escaped with wealthy gifts. In 2024, he gave a money prize of USD 1 million per day to voters in seven states of battlefield, including Wisconsin, in the event that they signed a petition supporting the rights of first and second amendments.

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(*1*) (Tagstranslate) judge Brad Schimel

This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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