by Joel D. Joseph
Recently, a panel in California was created to consider reparations for black residents. The panel voted to approve recommendations for the payments of reparations to Black Californians for injustices and discrimination stemming from slavery. These recommendations are not justified for many reasons.
First, and most importantly, California was not a slave state. However, where it is proven that the government took discriminatory action, fair compensation should be paid. This is what happened recently in Manhattan Beach, California. Charles and Willa Bruce purchased beachfront property there in 1912 and operated a resort for black residents. The property was known as Bruce's Beach. In 1924, the city of Manhattan Beach condemned the property under a false pretense of developing a park. The city never used the property as a park. In 2022 the County Board of Supervisors in Los Angeles returned ownership of the beachfront property to the living heirs of the Bruces.
Second, California has discriminated against Jews, Native Americans and Asians, who are at least as entitled to compensation as Black Californians.
Restrictive Covenants
All throughout California there are thousands of restrictive covenants against Jews written into deeds for land. I purchased property near Lake Tahoe years ago that had a restrictive covenant against Jews. I had it removed. In La Jolla, California, where I now live, Jews were banned. According to the book American Jewish History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), "La Jolla had an unwritten understanding, a 'Gentleman's agreement' regarding Jews in the 1950s. La Jollans wanted to keep Jews out their town because of class fears as well as anti-semitism." Roger Revelle, the scientist who championed the establishment of the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, said: "You can have a university or an anti-Semitic covenant. You can't have both." In 1960, Dr. Jonas Salk was given 27 acres of land in La Jolla for the Salk Institute by the City of San Diego. The same year UC San Diego was formed. These two events broke down the anti-semitic walls around La Jolla.
Japanese-American Internment Camps
In 1942 during World War II 112,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up in California, as well as in a few other western states. These American citizens were sent to relocation centers (including the Manzanar War Relocation Center) in desolate eastern California. Among the promoters of this unconstitutional internment was Earl Warren, then the Attorney General of California. Warren, who became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, years later lamented his support for detaining Japanese-Americans. Warren said that he "deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony advocating it, because it was not in keeping with our American concept of freedom and the rights of citizens." The United States belatedly compensated Japanese-Americans who were interned and paid them each $20,000, a modest sum considering even that most of them lost their homes and businesses. California did not contribute a single penny to compensate Japanese-Americans rounded up in the state.
Native Americans
In 1850 California passed a law called "An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians." This law did not protect Native Americans, it provided them instead with forced labor. Historian James Rawls said, "The name of this law sounds benign, but the effect was malign in the extreme degree. Any white person under this law could declare Indians who were simply strolling about, who were not gainfully employed, to be vagrants and take that charge before a justice of the peace, and a justice of the peace would then have those Indians seized and sold at public auction."
Chinese and Mexican Workers
In 1852, the California legislature passed the Foreign Miner's Tax, a tax on the earnings of Chinese and Mexican prospectors, making it impossible for them to compete financially with the white miners. The state also imposed an alien poll tax--a tax of a fixed amount, in this case $2.50 per month--on each Chinese adult working in the country. Additionally, the Chinese were often allowed to seek gold only in mines that had already been abandoned by white prospectors. Because of the actions taken against them by the state government, most Chinese miners during the gold rush were forced to work as cooks and launderers.
About 10,000 to 15,000 Chinese workers came to the United States to build the Central Pacific Railroad. Chinese workers found some economic opportunity, but also experienced hostility, racism, violence and legal exclusion. Many came as single men--others left families behind. Railroad companies considered Chinese migrants a source of cheap, unskilled labor. In America in the 1800s, Chinese workers were seen as racially inferior to white workers. Employers used this prejudice to justify paying Chinese workers less than other workers and to relegate Chinese workers to the most undesirable jobs.
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