Black New York residents spar over who should receive reparation payments

Black New Yorkers have conflicting ideas over who deserves reparations as a commission will soon begin to discuss the issue. In December, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that established a commission to research the best ways to offer reparations to descendants of slaves in the state. By February, she announced the members who would make up the commission.  Although the commission has yet to meet, some Black residents were already concerned that it would be limited only to direct descendants of slaves, similar to what California’s reparations commission announced. “That’s a false narrative,” Bertha Lewis, head of the Brooklyn-based Black Institute, told The New York Post. “I don’t give a f–k what California did.” In February, New York announced members of its new commission to study methods to provide reparations to the descendants of slaves in the state. (Photo by Manny Ceneta/Getty Images) REPARATIONS EXPERT SAYS SAN FRANCISCO’S APOLOGY TO BLACK RESIDENTS ‘DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING’ WITHOUT ACTION She continued, “You can’t just say, `only descendants of slaves from the South.’ Black people faced the effects of slavery — discrimination — simply because they’re Black.” Lewis also emphasized that it could be difficult to pinpoint direct descendants of...