California
‘As Goes California, Goes The Rest Of The Country,’ Except On Black Reparations
Through a series of films in the 1990s, from Boyz n the Hood to Menace II Society and Friday, the perception of Black Los Angeles became ingrained in the minds of people of all backgrounds across the nation. Palm trees and hood politics became synonymous with the neighborhoods. But in a rarity, the films also showed entire communities in a large American city where Black families owned homes for generations.
Today, nearly every majority-Black haven in the city brought to the big screen, like Watts, Compton, Inglewood, and Exposition Park, looks different. These areas across South Los Angeles, which was once 80% Black and home to upwards of 75% of all the Black folks in the city, have since become more than two-thirds Latino. In all, the city’s share of Black residents has dropped from nearly 20% to less than 8%.
It wasn’t by chance, residents and researchers say. “Black People are keenly aware,” said Khansa Jones-Muhammad, an LA resident who often goes by Friday Jones. “There’s a sense of feeling that people are being moved out. Black people know when we are being abused.”
On Tuesday, the city of Los Angeles released a policy report outlining why reparations should be enacted and funded for Black Angelenos.
The report, which took roughly three years to complete and included the surveying of Black Angelenos, found a series of policy decisions — aided by the housing crash of the mid-2000s, the rising cost of living, and the war on drugs — have made life untenable for many Black residents. The report explicitly named policy decisions like redlining, building highways through Black neighborhoods, unequal placement of hospitals, a 1996 law that eliminated the city’s ability to combat discriminatory hiring practices, and several policies around policing and incarceration that specifically hurt Black Angelenos.
Read More: Why the LA City Council Scandal Is About More Than Racist Slurs
A report with specific policy recommendations is expected later this year, although the city has already compiled an analytic report on how to fund the venture. It will come a year after similar assessments were released by the city of San Francisco and a California statewide policy task force. Currently, 14 reparation-based bills born from the statewide task force sit in the California legislature.
California has put forth the nation’s strongest reparations plans, with Los Angeles and San Francisco following suit. But California is not alone in implementing policies that have stunted Black life outcomes. How it proceeds could be a model for the rest of the country.
At a reparations event earlier this month, Cheryl Tawede Grills, the director of Loyola Marymount University’s community-based Psychology Applied Research Center, posed a simple question: “Where in the U.S. are outcomes for Black residents equal to their white neighbors? Think about it.”
“The answer is nowhere,” she said.
In California, Black activists, residents, and policy advocates argue that reparations are an electoral issue that can make or break Black participation in the voting process. Yet, despite a nationwide conversation around reparations in the aftermath of 2020, they believe national leaders have abandoned the fight because they don’t see the issue as a legitimate electoral priority.
“There’s a history of reparations in the United States. It’s just Black people have been excluded from that,” explained Rashawn Ray, a reparations scholar and director of the University of Maryland’s Social Justice Alliance. “It feels like Democrats think that by focusing on reparations, it will be political suicide for the party.”
He noted that many past champions of Black reparations are no longer in power or alive, such as former U.S. Reps. John Conyers Jr., Karen Bass (now LA’s mayor), and Sheila Jackson Lee.
But the national movement, he said, is “here and momentum has built up.” The various examples of California-based commissions have crafted a blueprint for making the local case for reparations nationwide, he added.
In California, a statewide survey released earlier this month found that more than 90% of Black residents say a politician’s support of reparations or lack thereof will dictate their likelihood of voting for them.
Are reparations “political suicide”?
Following the murder of George Floyd, both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called for a federal examination of enacting Black reparations through a formal study. Yet despite this, policy around reparations has failed to advance this election season.
While a bill outlining the creation of a Black reparations commission and study has sat idle in Congress since 1989, the Biden administration failed to use executive orders to propel the movement.
Outside the Democratic National Convention last week, activists wearing bright orange shirts with the text “Reparations Now! We are far past 40 acres and a mule” called on Black Americans to withhold their vote without serious commitments from the Harris-Walz campaign. The campaign has not outlined a plan to conduct a formal study.
“Nothing happened after Biden was given all the tools to make something happen, and so now here he is stepping down, and Kamala Harris is the party nominee, and we have valid questions for her,” explained Jones-Muhammad, who is vice chair of Los Angeles’ reparations committee.
“We know that as goes California, goes the rest of the country, and we are at a historical moment where we can set the tone for what repair looks like,” explained Kevin Cosney, cofounder of the California Black Power Network. New York is the only state to join California at the state level in advancing task forces, reports, and legislative priorities around reparations.
The question that remains, he said, is: How can national policymakers and candidates “leverage and take the opportunity of reparations, interest, and motivation from Black Californians.”
California vs. America
A bill requiring a newly formed state agency, the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, to implement some of the 115 policy recommendations by the state’s task force is being deliberated in California’s Senate. The bills currently in the legislature would do things like establish a fund for “community-driven solutions to decrease community violence” in Black communities, eliminate barriers for formerly incarcerated people to obtain business licenses, and craft a formal apology from the governor’s office for “human rights violations” against African slaves and their ancestors.
Read More: California’s Reparations Plan Exposes Deep Divides in Black Communities
Still, at the state’s current pace of closing the racial equity gap, it would take over 248 years until a Black child would have the same average life outcomes as a white one, according to a recent report by the University of California, Los Angeles. Experts say this slow progress underscores the urgent need for immediate and effective policy changes.
A 2020 statewide poll found that most state residents support at least some reparations-based policy shifts. As expected, the survey also found that Black and younger Californians supported reparations more than their counterparts of other races and ages. Still, while much of the state supports more structural elements of reparations, more than half oppose direct payouts for Black residents.
Still, last year, San Francisco abruptly axed its reparations office, effectively ending any legislative work around it.
Some activists and researchers have said the overwhelming concentration of Black people experiencing homelessness in the state and nationwide is the “strongest case for reparations.” Los Angeles’ reparations report found that about 60% of Black residents report being impacted by environmental injustices. The report also found that over 75% of Black residents say the city policies and law enforcement practices negatively impact them.
Read More: The Quiet Toll of Oil Drilling on Black Los Angeles
But not everyone is sold on the likelihood of reparations. Brooke Floyd, the co-director of the Jackson People’s Assembly, a social justice organization in Mississippi, said the federal government is unlikely to pass reparations for slavery because it means federal agencies, like the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency, would also be forced to acknowledge their modern-day failures in protecting Black people.
“These are whole communities that have been, over time, divested from and disinvested in, and these have led to things like lack of investment in education, health care, and housing with crippling effects over time,” said Floyd, a prominent activist around Jackson’s water crisis.
“When you have this happen, have these long-term ramifications for whole races of people, acknowledging it and providing reparations is going to open a whole can of worms. I don’t think the federal government wants to do that because it shows these things are all linked together.”
The post ‘As Goes California, Goes The Rest Of The Country,’ Except On Black Reparations appeared first on Capital B News.
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California
Liquor store worker pulls gun on mob of bicyclists surrounding California store after they attack him
![Liquor store worker pulls gun on mob of bicyclists surrounding California store after they attack him Liquor store worker pulls gun on mob of bicyclists surrounding California store after they attack him](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/newspress-collage-zukqa683t-1724823234681.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&1724808884&w=1024)
A horde of laughing bicyclists attacked a California liquor store worker before fleeing the area and screaming as the worker pulled a gun on his attackers during a chaotic scene caught on video.
The unidentified employee was standing outside Golden Hours Liquor on International Boulevard in Oakland on Saturday where he confronted over two dozen bicyclists who had surrounded the area outside of the store.
The worker attempted to get in the face of one of the bikers who was punching his fist against his other hand in a taunting manner, video posted to Instagram captured.
As the two were talking another biker slapped the worker across the face forcing the worker’s hat to fly off as he backed up from his off-camera attacker.
Another biker, wearing a balaclava, rushes up behind the worker and punches the unsuspecting victim in the side of the neck before landing another punch on the worker’s head prompting others to follow suit.
The bikers’ attack quickly turned the area outside the store into a melee as dozens of people jumped the worker, landing punches and slaps on their target.
“Get him, Get him,” multiple people shout.
Several of the laughing bikers landed punches on the worker’s head and torso as they backed him into the store’s entrance.
The worker, with his back bent as he took the punches being thrown at him, pulled out a handgun sending the once tough bikers into a frantic dash to escape the area.
The armed worker positioned himself with his back close to a wall as he aimed his sights on one of the attackers, before dropping his arm and chasing them on foot.
“Where you at, where you at,” the worker shouts as the cameraman had trouble grabbing his bike on the ground.
A separate video captured the worker chasing down one of the bikers in a gray hoodie and face mask before swiping at him, forcing the biker to fall down.
Oakland police responded to the area around 4:15 p.m. to investigate a “ShotSpotter activation,” the Oakland Police Department told the Daily Mail.
“ShotSpotter” is a gunshot detection system that alerts first responders when it picks up gunfire.
Officers “located evidence of a shooting” but there were no reports of any injuries, according to the outlet.
No arrests were made in Saturday’s melee.
The employee put his gun away but remained outside the store as several people attempted to confront him after he pulled out the gun.
The Post has reached out to the Oakland Police Department.
California
California officials get aggressive on homelessness after Supreme Court ruling
![California officials get aggressive on homelessness after Supreme Court ruling California officials get aggressive on homelessness after Supreme Court ruling](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107078085-1655738650041-gettyimages-1241237546-971383-me-summit-of-americas-and-homelessness-6-ajs.jpeg?v=1724784936&w=1920&h=1080)
Los Angeles, CA – June 10: After his homeless encampment under the 110 Freeway was removed by the city of Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, Calvin Hall, 63, who has been homeless for four years, returns from grocery shopping through a fenced-off area to a new area near the 110 Freeway and the Los Angeles Convention Center. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
Across California, homeless encampments on city streets, in public parks and beneath highways have become among the most visible symbols of the state’s overwhelming challenges with affordable housing. Government officials are now using their newfound power to take on the problem.
In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3, with the conservative majority voting together, that cities are allowed to enforce fines and make arrests for public camping and sleeping outdoors, and to threaten jail time for those who repeatedly refuse to move indoors and accept assistance.
The decision overturned a 2022 ruling by an appeals court, which favored a group of homeless people in the small Oregon city of Grants Pass.
After the decision, California Governor Gavin Newsom applauded the clarity outlined in the ruling and put out an executive order in July pushing local governments to “develop their own policies to address encampments with compassion, care, and urgency.”
The order included guidance for cities and counties in a state that had more than 181,000 homeless people in 2023. Newsom said in a statement in June that the court’s decision “removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities.”
On Tuesday, Newsom signed two new laws. One will make it easier for service providers to place unhoused people into privately owned hotels and motels for more than 30 days, and the other speeds up the process for local governments to construct junior accessory dwelling units for shelter.
California accounted for nearly one-third of the country’s unhoused population last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Over the past five years, the state has invested $27 billion to address the homelessness crisis, including $1 billion in encampment resolution funds.
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) reacts as he speaks to the members of the press on the day of the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Marco Bello
Marco Bello | Reuters
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who’s in the midst of a tight reelection campaign, has responded to the executive order with sweeps to clear encampments, and offered bus tickets out of town. Breed’s order cited data from this year’s Point-in-Time Count, which found that 40% of the homeless population in the city came from elsewhere in California or from out of state, up from 28% in 2019.
Breed’s challengers, including Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie and former interim Mayor Mark Farrell, have told CNBC about the need to increase safety on the streets and move away from public camping. Lurie said he would plan to build 1,500 shelter beds in his first six months of office. Farrell has called for an increase in police enforcement in areas struggling with both drugs and homelessness, and increased incentives for small businesses and affordable housing.
‘Real kick in the gut’
The changing approach has its share of critics.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the Supreme Court ruling “must not be used as an excuse for cities across the country to attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail.”
Bass has publicly called for more housing and shelter beds for homeless individuals, coupled with supportive services, and said that criminalizing the actions or trying to push them away “is more expensive for taxpayers than actually solving the problem.”
Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the San Francisco-based Coalition on Homelessness, called the ruling “a real kick in the gut.”
Her group’s goal is to seek permanent solutions for homelessness via advocacy and ballot measures. Prior to the Supreme Court decision, unhoused public campers couldn’t be fined without the offer of shelter.
“This [was] a protection that at the very least there would be some attempt that the local municipalities had to do to try to offer them someplace to sleep,” Friedenbach said. “They literally have nowhere to go so when these operations happen, the [sweeps] typically exasperate homelessness and make it worse.”
Breed and Bass have both advocated for more access to affordable housing and shelter. In 2022, the California Department of Housing and Community Development found that by 2030, at least 2.5 million new homes need to be built, with at least 1 million of those going to lower-income families.
Inaction has broad economic repercussions. The National Alliance to End Homelessness found in 2017 that a chronically homeless person costs the taxpayer an average of $35,578 per year, costs that are reduced by nearly half when the person is placed in supportive housing.
One solution is more interim housing, said Adrian Covert, senior vice president of public policy at the nonprofit Bay Area Council.
“We know that we cannot build permanent housing in California faster than the rate at which our broken housing market is creating homeless people through our housing shortage,” Covert told CNBC. “You have to have someplace for them to go so they don’t endure that trauma on the street. And that’s where interim housing comes into play.”
WATCH: California responds to Supreme Court ruling on encampments
![California responds to Supreme Court ruling on encampments](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/108026132-17247808151724780812-36005980557-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1724780814&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
California
Elon Musk endorses California AI regulation bill: 'Tough call'
![Elon Musk endorses California AI regulation bill: 'Tough call' Elon Musk endorses California AI regulation bill: 'Tough call'](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.com/content/uploads/2024/08/0/0/Elon-Musk-12.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sarah Ponczek and Luke Lloyd discuss their tech and A.I. outlooks, the impact on airfreight and shipping rates from Shein and Temu, and the Fed’s handling of rates.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said that California should pass a controversial bill that would regulate artificial intelligence (AI) through having tech companies and AI developers be responsible for safety testing and implementing safeguards against cyberattacks.
Musk, who owns the social media platform X, wrote in a post on the website that endorsing California’s SB 1047 AI safety bill was not an easy decision.
“This is a tough call and will make some people upset, but, all things considered, I think California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill,” Musk wrote. “For over 20 years, I have been an advocate for AI regulation, just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk to the public.”
The bill would require developers who spend more than $100 million to build an AI model to implement safety testing and safeguards, while also allowing the state attorney general to take civil action against the developer of AI models that cause “critical harm,” which the bill defines as causing mass casualties or at least $500 million in damages.
DOJ TARGETING AI RENTAL PRICING SOFTWARE IS MISGUIDED, CONSERVATIVES WARN
Elon Musk said it was a “tough call” to endorse California’s SB 1047 AI safety bill. (Chesnot/Getty Images, File / Getty Images)
The bill would also require developers to enact a protocol that can “enact a full shutdown” of the AI model at any time and provide for whistleblower protections.
AI SCAMS ARE PROLIFERATING. A NEW TOOL IS ATTEMPTING TO COMBAT THEM
SB 1047 is just one of 65 bills that California state lawmakers have attempted to introduce regarding AI during the legislative season, Reuters reported, adding that many of the bills were already dead.
Constellation Research founder R ‘Ray’ Wang discusses the benefits of the artificial intelligence revolution on ‘Barron’s Roundtable.’
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As the 2024 U.S. presidential election nears, experts have warned about the potential spread of misinformation that artificial intelligence and other tools can produce.
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