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Sen. Padilla on Reparations: ‘We Can Walk and Chew Gum’
Padilla says it’s the right thing to do
(CBM) — California’s newest and first Latino Democratic Senator, Alex Padilla, says he supports reparations for Black American descendants of enslaved African people. He made the statement during an online news briefing with members of California’s ethnic press organized by Ethnic Media Services.
“It’s the morally right thing to do,” said Padilla. “For me, it’s not a difficult conversation.
Padilla said reparations would go a long way to “address institutional injustices.”
A shift in attitudes
For nearly two centuries now, Black American descendants of enslaved Africans have been making the case to an unbudging U.S. government for reparations. Advocates say payments would compensate for centuries of unpaid labor and an opportunity for the federal government to make good on its promise to provide 40 acres and a mule to each formerly enslaved Black person after the Civil War.
A shift in the national consciousness last year — some attribute to organizing around Black economic and political empowerment led in part by the American Descendants of Slaves Movement and the national reckoning on race that began last summer after the killing of George…
