The first black Federal Reserve president said that there are “definitely merits” to reparations programs.
Raphael Bostic, who in 2017 was chosen to lead the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, made the remarks during an interview that was released on Monday. The comments come as the issue of reparations, which are payments or some form of compensation provided to the descendants of slaves, has gained traction among some on the Left.
“There are definitely merits to it in the sense that, if people have been harmed by laws, then there should be a discussion about redress,” Bostic told CNN Business in an interview. “We have African Americans today who have a lot less wealth in part because they have not been able to inherent the wealth that would have accrued had their ancestors been able to accrue that wealth.”
Bostic said that “the legacies of past racism” still exist in U.S. society and that “we have to think about what things are necessary to offset the impacts of those old systems that still flow through.”
Bostic spoke about how Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, became the first city in the country to pass a reparations program for black residents.
The first part of the plan will initially provide $25,000 in improvement and down payment grants for homes of black residents, primarily those who can prove they directly descended from someone who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 and suffered discrimination. The total plan is expected to cost $10 million over the next decade and is being funded by taxes on marijuana.
Bostic said he thinks “those sorts of ideas are quite interesting.”
Source: The Washington Examiner
