(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) With crime soaring, illegals overrunning the Big Apple and a fiscal calamity looming, New York lawmakers have approved legislation to join the reparations bonanza.
Democrats with majority control of the state legislature approved a bill last week to create a commission to concoct a way to fund reparations to address what leftist lawmakers said was the lingering, negative effects of slavery. The bill was sent to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who is widely expected to sign it into law.
When New York lawmakers were previously sniffing around the reparations trough, Democrats howled that it would be a “slap in the face” to the black community if Hochul refused to rubber-stamp an exploratory commission.
The approved reparations bill was part and parcel of a flurry of legislation that would, among other initiatives, “compel the city’s Commission on Racial Equity to create a ‘truth, healing and reconciliation commission’ – reminiscent of the restorative justice commission formed in South Africa after apartheid,” reported The Gothamist.
“As a result, reparations and remedies will be studied and established for African American communities who have felt the brutal and unjust generational impacts of the institution of slavery,” according to state Democrat Sen. James Sanders Jr., who co-sponsored the bill.
Republican state lawmaker Andy Gooddell said he “supports existing efforts to bring equal opportunity to all” and would like to “continue on that path rather than focus on reparations,” reported the Associated Press.
“I’m concerned we’re opening a door that was closed in New York State almost 200 years ago,” Gooddell said.
The commission is tasked to reveal “the City’s historic involvement in slavery” and “to establish historical facts about slavery in the City of New York; to protect, acknowledge, and empower affected persons and communities; and to recommend changes for government and institutions to prevent recurrence and perpetuation of harm.”
The legislation does not make clear if the aim “to establish historical facts about slavery in the City of New York” would include mention of the nearly 500,000 Union soldiers from New York who fought to end slavery, or the 50,000 from New York who died for the cause.
Along with studying “reparations and remedies,” Democrats approved a New York City measure to plot the removal of public art works that depict individuals “who participated in the institution of slavery or other crimes against humanity.”
The Gothamist reported that, “Plaques would go up alongside works that could not be removed, describing their connection to enslavement or other dark history.”
