What Black New Yorkers Say They’re Owed: Highlights From a State Reparations Hearing
“It shouldn’t only be a check, but it should start with a check. Then we can start addressing education issues, redlining issues, policing issues. …”
In 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation creating the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies. The commission would explore the state’s role in slavery, its “lasting effects … on people of African descent,” as well as possible reparative measures.
On Saturday, the commission held a public hearing to solicit feedback from black New Yorkers on what reparations should look like in practice, including who should be eligible, what forms of compensation should take, and how the state should address the enduring effects of slavery and discrimination.
To say the least, the state may not have been prepared for some of the demands that were made.
Although more than 160 years have passed since the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, some black New Yorkers maintain that they are owed compensation from Americans whose ancestors never owned slaves, arrived on these shores decades after emancipation, or fought — and even died — in our nation’s bloodiest war to end it.
Fox News put together a video (below) highlighting key moments from the hearing as well as their own interviews with some of the attendees.
[Emphasis added.]
One man, whose claim to black identity was not immediately evident from his appearance, suggested reparations of $800,000 for “each foundation of black Americans.” While the phrase itself was ambiguous, his subsequent comments, along with testimony from other attendees, indicated that he was calling for an $800,000 payment to each black American.
“We need $800,000 for each foundation of black Americans,” he said. “That’s simple. In New York, that’s about the cost of living that’ll get you a home or a small business or for you to recover from any financial duress.”
“It shouldn’t only be a check, but it should start with a check,” Brooke Lean told the commission.
Speaking to Fox afterward, she elaborated on her remarks: “Now there are a lot of badges and incidents of slavery that also have to be covered under reparations, but it needs to start with payments. Because our ancestors worked how many years for free? … If you worked at a job, and they did not pay you, you would have to get back pay for that.”
Lean added, “Then we can start addressing education issues, redlining issues, policing issues, all of these other issues that are badges and incidents of slavery.”
Rex Burns, who spoke at the hearing, told Fox, “Cash, cause it’s tangible. Uh, it’s right in front of you, you know. It’s something you have.”
In her testimony, Caprice Reins argued that black Americans are “owed a debt.” She said, “And my grandfather, his father, and his grandparents were slaves here. And so, I think that we are owed a debt. Reparations is very important.”
An unidentified woman claimed, “It’s about the blood, sweat, and tears of my ancestors. My grandparents, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my great-great grandparents.”
It’s about her wallet.
For one young man, clad in a hoodie emblazoned with the US Freedmen Project logo, the key words were “direct cash payments.” He testified:
But from the state of New York, what we can see is because of their intricate dealings with slavery, when we talk about [inaudible —possibly “Walsh”], we talk about the stock exchange, and those first stocks and bonds being people that were in bondage right? And in chains. And so, New York is uniquely positioned to be one of the states that could, based on this budget, have the funds to actually pay direct cash payments.
Most of the states, they’re not in the position. But, in that instance, I think both the state of New York and the federal government, it has to start with direct cash payments.
Tanasia Poke told the panel that “financial compensation is really the only way, I think, to really get true justice. It’s been the greatest impact to our community overall — generationally. And, so, by policy and finance, it’s how it’s been institutionalized in the first place, it’s the way to repair it.”
In interviews with Fox News Digital at a hearing on New York reparations, some Black residents discuss what kind of financial compensation they believe they deserve and where identity comes into play. The push comes as New York weighs how — and whether — to compensate descendants… pic.twitter.com/yM1WUJ5X3J
— Fox News Flash (@FoxNews_Flash) May 30, 2026
By creating this commission in 2023, Gov. Hochul raised expectations among many black constituents in New York. The concept of reparations evidently passed political muster because, after three years of study and deliberation, the commission is now holding public hearings to help shape its recommendations on how to “close the racial wealth gap.”
While her political base may have well received the initiative, one has to wonder whether anyone stopped to consider how many potential claimants there might be in a state as large and diverse as New York, or who, precisely, would qualify for compensation.
Beyond the questionable political wisdom of taking the idea of reparations seriously, did Gov. Hochul and members of the New York State Legislature give any thought to the fiscal implications? The state is already facing multibillion-dollar budget gaps in the years ahead. Yet some speakers at the hearing proposed reparations payments that, if implemented, could saddle the state with costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
But the hearing made one thing abundantly clear: for many advocates, reparations are not about symbolic gestures, educational initiatives, or community investments. They are about cash payments, and large ones at that. By creating this commission, state leaders opened a door that may be difficult to close. After raising expectations and encouraging New Yorkers to imagine what they believe they are owed, Albany may soon discover that the political appeal of reparations is far easier to embrace than the staggering cost of delivering them.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn.
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Comments
Com’n, Sam Cooke, give us that old time favorite, Griftin’ the Night Away,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTArYTvpLZA
Griftin’?
Yes a lot of grift would be involved in disbursing of reparations. In order to ensure that everything is on the up and up, you would need some Somalis from Minnesota to administer the program.
First American slave owner – black Anthony Johnson. Hypocrites, grifters, and parasites all!
Beware the jungle bunnies!
What they are owed is a swift kick in the pants for being the losers that most appear to be and for the degenerate culture many are a part of and promote. As for reparations…NO! Just NO.
You’ve already gotten reparations in the form of preferential treatment in admission, hiring and promotion for the last 45-50 years and gross government handouts for the last 60 years. The fact that most of you still can’t spell cat when spotted with three correct letters is a testament to your laziness and stupidity,
Immigrants both illegal and legal seem to do quite well in this country when they apply themselves. Most start with only the clothes on their back, Most of them are non-white. Why can’t you?
These free loaders have been getting payment for several decades now. These certain type of grifters, calling for payments will never be satisfied. They will be back for another payment, when they have foolishly spent the money given to them. They are to lazy to work for a living. They do not care about America, just bankrupting the country is their goal.
They want money for nothing and their bitches for free….
now subtract what blks have done via crime and destruction..and then subtract what blks have been directly paid in housing food and education
Immmm waiting………
500 million usd alone in just the 2020 riots
add in riots from the 60s /70’s/80/90s etc
no story on mummdummi. not attending the israel parade???
yeah..b/c what he did was CORRECT AND IT MAKES THE JEWS WHO VOTED OFR HIM “IN UNITY” LOOK even stupider than they are for supporting him in the first place!
“Pay Me!”
Yep, this argument of ‘y’all owe me, pay up’ isn’t persuasive. Hochul and other politicians who set up these ‘reparations commissions’ seriously miscalculated the political calculus. The advocates of reparations ain’t interested in amorphous pledges they want cold hard cash. Tangible $, not empty rhetoric. Refuse to come up with funding to pay what amounts to self inflicted extortion to parties you told were owed ….bad things happen.
How odd the “Gimme Class” just wants more money. Free housing, SNAP, Welfare, preferential hiring, none of it is enough. Just give up money, whitey. How about a one time $500k payment to all who claim it that can prove ancesters were slaves and in return never again can you or any descendent be able to claim any government money.
I’m all for giving them a check, and a one way ticket too never return.
Go away losers.
We could offer tickets to Liberia, but I strongly suspect Liberia wouldn’t want them.
It’s moral education that they’re missing.
They want a dignity that they’re withholding from themselves.
The day that blacks take up a collection for poor whites is the day that blacks will discover dignity.
Taking more gives the opposite.
Maybe this is how it will work…..
NY State: Greetings, you poor unfortunate, here’s your check for $1000!
Black Guy: Alright, Thanks…!!!!!
NY State: And…. here’s your “Windfall Reparations Tax Bill.”
Black Guy: Hey…..this a bill for $999 dollars…!!!!!
NY State: Yes…!!! The state is letting you keep $1 dollar…! But don’t worry, we will be investing your tax money in investing investments…!!!!!!!!
Black Guy: Thanks for nothing…!!!!!
NY State: You Are Very Welcome…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“it should start with a check”, and it would never end.
All effective checks start with a fingerprint card.
Step right up here, Brooke, and sign in please!
“It shouldn’t only be a check, but it should start with a check. Then we can start addressing education issues, redlining issues, policing issues. …”
Naw. Start with addressing education issues – namely, the fact that Democrat-supported teachers’ unions are the ones perpetuating the failing public (government) schools which are destroying black children’s futures.
And there you have it. The vague promise that reparations would be a one-time event is officially over. Instead, the extortion will go on year after year until economic collapse or civil war (or both). All adults with an IQ over room temperature know this to be true.
Like amnesty was a one-time event. Good times.
Let’s balance the books: Amounts paid out due to EBT, Welfare, Crime, ….
Entitled to everything.
Ashamed of nothing.
#blackvictimhoodfatigue
#blackgrievancefatigue
#blackcomplainingfatigue
#blackdependencyfatigue
#blackinfantilismfatigue
#blacknon-agencyfatigue
The United States suffered 700,000 deaths during the Civil War to eradicate slavery.
The United States has spent more than $25 trillion (with a “t”) on Great Society programs over the last six decades.
The plight of the American black is bleaker than it was in 1960 because progressive government programs bought off the black community, subjugating it to the Democrat Party.
Reparations? Are you (bleep) kidding me?
Never mind the simple economic problems involved – where would the money come from, etc – if you were to give the average poor person a million dollars (black or otherwise) that person would burn through that money so fast it would make your head spin. Think: pro athletes who become suddenly rich then bankrupt once their careers are over.
If you want to tear a hole in the social fabric so big that it’ll never be repaired, make people who never owned slaves pay people who never were slaves money they were never owed.
I had the opportunity to walk the hills of Manassas Creek (Bull Run) battlefield last February. While there, I had a profoundly spiritual epiphany. See, I have thought the same as you, that our glorious dead have already paid the price of chains and slavery.
But that morning on that hill where the South won the first battle, I realized that God let the South win for a few years. Why? To break the South. So that the chains of slavery would have ABSOLUTELY no chance of being reforged. Think about it – if the North had won that first battle and taken the main Confederate rail line, if they had kept Sumpter, the South would have been slapped with a few sanctions, but slavery would have persisted.
Instead the South persisted until almost the whole generation of young men were broken, until the North was so annoyed with the whole business of losing their young men, then and only then were the conditions ripe to end slavery. No one in the north cared at the beginning, not as a cause to fight a war over; but after 4 years? oh yeah.
Not to mention, as a whole, the north was not innocent of the crime of slavery: the mariners of New England ran the ships in the triangle trade, the factories of New York depended on the cotton.
No, the south had to win a few years, but they needed to be broken.
And THAT generation of slave holders paid for the sin. And the Northern blood paid for the sin of our country for allowing it for so long.
We have paid. This generation of blacks and whites have no skin in this old game.
Let’s not overlook there were several slave States in the Union; Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, West VA. Plus in a very real sense every State was a ‘slave State’ when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act compelling cooperation of State/local officials to find/return escaped slaves.
The larger point is that no State/Territory in existence at the time of the Civil War can reasonably claim clean hands about slavery. All were complicit to one degree or another at level of leadership class that set policy, made laws, held positions of influence and made profits or owed family or institutional wealth to slavery in prior years.
It would be an interesting topic to get into, seeing what those states’ reactions were to the Emancipation Proclamation and other developments as the trend toward ending slavery as an outcome of the war was building. And beyond – what their postwar Reconstruction-era experience was like.
The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to Confederate States/areas under control of Union forces. Many people mistakenly believe that it ‘freed the slaves’ everywhere all at once. It was designed to punish the economic leadership class of the Confederates while not directly undermining Union support for the War within the five Union slave States.
It’s always interesting to me when folks want to assert that this/that State was pure of heart and didn’t profit from slavery. Its bunk. Just as today some folks buy cheap consumer products from China made in part with slave labor or ‘green’ rechargeable batteries made with ores mined by at best a neo peonage workforce in third world Nations.
The hands of some States/Territories (in existence at the time) were dirtier than others re slavery in the USA but none had clean, pristine hands.
“The doctrine of ancestral fault is similarly presented as a tradition of immemorial antiquity in ancient Greek religion by Celsus in his True Doctrine (2nd-century AD), a polemic against Christianity. Celsus is quoted as attributing to “a priest of Apollo or of Zeus” the saying that “the mills of the gods grind slowly, even to children’s children, and to those who are born after them”. The idea of divine justice taking the form of collective punishment is also ubiquitous in the Hebrew Bible, e.g. the Ten Plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Shechem, etc., and most notably the recurring punishments inflicted on the Israelites for lapsing from Yahwism.</em"
K. That’s obviously true. Not sure what you imply. Most of us don’t believe in collective guilt much less ancestral guilt b/c we’ve evolved our culture beyond that sort of foolish commitment to tribalism. Once we start playing in diversity/oppression olympics there’s no good way to disentangle from it. Every group has at least one reason to hold a grudge against at least one other group. Bringing feuds into play that no one alive today had anything to do with (for most not even our great grandparents or beyond had jack squat to do with) seems like a bad idea.
I finally signed up just to be able to like this comment. This is, I think, a serious insight. It lines up, of course, with Lincoln’s comment about every drop of blood drawn by the lash being paid for with another drawn by the sword, but I think you’ve hit on something further.
Yes indeed. The National atonement for the evil institution of slavery in the USA was settled in the payment of blood, death, maiming and destruction that was the Civil War and in the immediate aftermath passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
Pushing Culture Marxism
There are hudreds of different ways to say “gibsmedat,” and they all mean “gibsmedat.”
“In New York, that’s about the cost of living that’ll get you a home or a small business or for you to recover from any financial duress.”
To paraphrase Jeff Cooper, owning a small business doesn’t make you a businessman, any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.
“when we talk about [inaudible —possibly “Walsh”], we talk about the stock exchange,”
Obviously, “Wall Street.”
As long as any reparations are only paid for by New York, I am in favor of them doing it, until every white person who stays there is bankrupt..
Just in passing, I am about done writing a family history from when my dad came here from China, 12 years old, alone, and not speaking English. He was not, under American law, considered a human being as far as the government was concerned. By 1926 or so he had become a master chef, a restaurant owner, and spoke, read, and wrote English. We Chinese-Americans do not want reparations. All we want is an equal chance.
Subotai Bahadur
thank you
Reparations won’t stay confined to New York – or to “descendants of slaves”. Like Affirmative Action it will rapidly expand to politically-sacred groups encompassing well over half the population. Lefty women, illegals, homosexuals, DIDs (Dudes In Dresses) – they will be included in the cash grab. And since New York does not have enough to pay even a fraction of what it will cost, the efforts will quickly shift to the Federal level to try to get non-Communist states to foot the bill.
The irony is that just about everyone in the groups I mentioned above will likely not see even a penny. Instead, the bulk of the reparations money will be funneled to lefty NGOs and “non-profits”, which will then kick back some to the Communist politicians and satraps and pocket the rest. The most efficient aspect of Communism is how quickly and thoroughly it can steal (the most efficient is in killing lots of people).
Slavery reparations should be limited to reimbursing the ancestors of slave owners whose slaves were freed without making any payment.
…ancestors?
Not ancestors. Applicants.
I say do it.
They’re alleging that the state of New York is racist, specifically the government. I agree.
The state government of New York is totally racist, is run by racists, and employs racists. It should be punished. Take the $800k/person out of the NY state employee salary budget. Make them work without pay so they can see what slavery is like. And if they try to quit, don’t let them. Bring them back to the plantation…I mean government office building. Don’t like it? Tough. Shouldn’t have been racists.
The U.S. federal government has spent trillions of dollars since LBJ’s presidency, on Medicaid, Section 8 housing vouchers, TANF, SNAP/food stamps, free cell phones, and myriad other obscenely profligate, bloated, fraud-ridden and dependency-inducing welfare/entitlement programs.
The sum total of spending on these entitlement programs is fairly deemed to represent “reparations” to black Americans, in all but name.
Jimmy Conway in “Goodfellas” would opine, “Why pay guys demanding their cut of a score when you can just whack them and keep the money for yourself?”
Jimmy Burke–the real guy– would probably agree.
robert harper:
Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,”
said in reference to not paying bribes
Thing is, it’s not even a bribe. There’s no promises that bad behavior stops if payment is made.
well it is a bribe
but you are 10000% correct that the natural /bad behavior would continue
For once you have paid the danegeld, you will never get rid of the Dane.
Any way you cut it, getting rid of the Dane is not even on the table.
Are crime victims entitled to a rebate?
Forty acres and a mule as (allegedly) promised to their ancestors would have come with a great deal of hard labor and no guarantee of success. They want reparations based on estimations of family wealth that may have been transferred generationally to them. But the amounts they believe due assume that every post-Civil War black dirt farmer would be wildly successful and accumulate wealth that could have been passed down, when this would have been a very low-probability circumstances. Most of them would have gone bust. Most of the rest would probably have remained subsistence farmers. Many of the remainder would have likely sold out in order to move north for a “regular” job. It’s like very little money would have been transferred generationally and then only in a relatively few families. And how much would have been lost/destroyed in the depression and during the Dust Bowl? I think the amount of wealth that would have reached today’s blacks is being wildly inflated.
Don’t offer them money. Offer them free higher educations and free job training. (God knows they don’t want 40 acres and a mule!) To these offers would attend the “hard work” that would have attended 40 acres and a mule. Let them find out for themselves how little of such largesse translates into generational wealth. And to those who refuse the offer, they can consider their “reparations” offered and refused.
Meh, BLM holds a great deal of Federal land…..handing out 80 acres (marginal farmland at best) plus the present value of a mule and tools (calculated from 1865) while applying the same provisions and requirements as the homestead act seems fine to me. Offer it up with simple claim requirements; absolute proof of lineage from freed slaves. Many will not bother to apply, some won’t qualify, others will fail in the attempt… but the argument/demand gets removed in the minds of most Americans, certainly enough to stop cold any further demands.
“Offer them free higher educations”
First, start by offering to hold them back until they pass their free lower educations.
>Offer them free higher educations
Why? So they can complete their Marxist training?
Everyone remember those bribery payments that certain Dhimmi-crat cities had proposed paying — or actually paid — to recidivist criminal felons “of color” who had been released from prison, as an enticement to induce them to abide by the law, and to refrain from engaging in more criminal activity?
If we’re going to have racial reparations, it should start with easier to prove wrongs and more direct wrongs. Each race has to pay the victims of crime for crimes committed by members of that race.
And if that seems unfair, how much more unfair is it that people who didn’t even have ancestors in the country, or whose ancestors died in the Civil War, or inherited nothing from their ancestors, pay for sins over a century ago?
My g-g-grandfather joined the 72nd Ohio in ’61, was captured at the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads in ’64, and spent the rest of the war in Andersonville. We think he may have been one of those too ill to move when they started cleaning the place up in early ’65; he had life long health issues and a medical pension, as well as mustering out well after most of the rest of his unit.
Add in Irish ancestors who came over because of the famine, back when the Irish were treated worse than free blacks, and I’ll think about “reparations” after I get mine for all my ancestors’ suffering and mistreatment. Two can play at that game.
The problem is theirs to fix. Like many if not most here, I am the product of public schools, K – 12, at virtually no cost to me. All that was required of me was to do the assigned work, show up regularly, and stay out of trouble. I had little problems with “policing” because I didn’t violate the law…. as an adult, anyway. (Boys will be boys). “Red-lining I assume is ability to live in certain places. All that restricted my ability to get a place to live was the amount of money I earned. That “red-line” is still in place, but not a problem. I think that is a thing of the past.
The problem is that the education system is there to give us the tools we will need to become successful in the world. Everyone has their own definition of success, so results will vary. One thing the education of today is not equipping students with is the concept of deferred gratification. No one has taught them that you can avoid “policing issues” by simply obeying the law. None of us is owed anything.
If Lincoln had compensated slave owners while abolishing slavery, I think the Civil War would have been avoided.
But if these jokers do this immoral thing now, I think we’ll have another civil war.
“If Lincoln had compensated slave owners while abolishing slavery, I think the Civil War would have been avoided.”
I don’t. Read the secession proclamations of the individual Confederate states.
Redefining reparations as something owed to descendants of certain slaves indefinitely, is similar to the UNRWA’s redefinition of refugee applying to descendants of certain refugees indefinitely.
All I know is that if this goes through I’m opening up a Bojangles in NYC
Oh, by all means pay them their reparations. Make sure you take the money out of every registered Democrat in the state, and no changing your registration in order to avoid paying.
Why don’t black americans ever claim reparations from the african tribal chiefs that sold their ancestors to the european slave traders?
Pathetic doesn’t begin to describe reparations; effed up “descendants” of slaves does though.
the ” government ” has been contributing / supporting / compelling my contributions to black’s real or perceived ” disadvantages ” for the majority of my adult life–enough
the ” benefits ” of such policies have been negligible and, in truth, detrimental to our country–sixty years of lbj’s scam to buy votes and establish the race card grift has cost us dearly–enough
am all about a hand up to those in genuine need of help as it is our obligation to our countrymen but am done with hand all the hand outs
Free Colt 45 quarts for all! And a pack of Kools!
“Forty Colt 45 bottles and a pack of Kools!”
Pawn Shop Stars
“sorry, the best we can do is a one way ticket back to Africa”.
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