(Headline USA) Minnesota Democrats introduced a bill this week that would require the state to pay black residents a total of $100 million in reparations and formally apologize to the family of George Floyd.
The bill, introduced by state Rep. Samakab Hussein, claims the “structural institutionalized racism in Minnesota and all of American society has led to overwhelming Black-white disparities in housing, business investment, economic prosperity, health and wellness, life expectancy, and infant mortality.”
As such, $100-million in reparations are necessary to break down “the societal structure related to power, money, and access to resources.” Indeed, reparations “may be the only solution that can be applied intergenerationally that would be an investment in the future and in reducing disparities,” the bill claims.
The bill then lists several other items that Minnesota must take action on, including apologizing for the deaths of Floyd, Philando Castile and Jamar Clark.
“The tragic murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has stirred a local, national, and international reckoning of the immorality of the racial hierarchy that exists under our democratic institutions and defies the founding values of this nation,” the bill says.
Minnesota must also “issue an apology for the past occurrence of chattel slavery and notable slave owners in Minnesota.”
And lastly, the bill would form an advisory council to “determine what form of compensation to African Americans who are descendants of persons enslaved in the United States can be achieved.”
Members of this council “must be chosen with an emphasis on appointing members who are descendants of persons believed to have been enslaved in the United States, or members of the American descendants of chattel slavery with lived experience of racial discrimination and who were impacted by policies which have caused intergenerational trauma,” the bill adds.
