California Reparations Commission Demands Formal State Apology for Reagan's Use of 'Welfare Queen'

Dennis Cook

In this episode of The Insanity Continues in the No-Longer-Golden State…

As the power-drunk California Reparations Commission continues its ridiculous demands on the Democrat-controlled state to make amends for slavery and racism, the task force is now demanding a formal state apology for former Gov Ronald Reagan’s use of the term “welfare queen.”

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Never mind that California never in its history allowed slavery. Never mind that the task force claimed Reagan used the term while he served as governor from January 1967 to January 1975, but in reality, he used it during the 1976 presidential campaign after he left the governor’s mansion. And never mind that Reagan’s reference to “welfare queen” referred to one person — a bi-racial woman named Linda Taylor, who was prosecuted for welfare fraud and reportedly abused the system.

Nonetheless, as reported by Fox News, the task force claims “welfare queen” is a racist term primarily used to denigrate single black women who live on government benefits. The committee wrote, in a recent report:

This terminology conjures stereotypes of single Black women as hypersexualized, aggressive, and dependent on government income with frivolous spending habits. Despite that the majority of welfare recipients are white, this racist label blamed African American women for shortfalls in the United States’ social safety net and suggested they were more responsible for their poverty than others.

The only conjuring going on here is the so-called “reparations” task force “conjuring” its ass off and wrongly blaming Ronald Reagan for a ridiculous “sin” he didn’t commit — regardless of how the term is used nearly 50 years after he used it.

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In another part of the commission’s wish list, it also called on California to apologize for other “barbarities,” including “disproportionately” fewer black doctors and lawyers in the state.

African American physicians are underrepresented in California’s medical field, further exacerbating the inequities in the healthcare system. White people comprise 39% of the state’s adult population yet are 66% of California’s active licensed attorneys, while African Americans are 6% of the adult population in California and only 3% of all attorneys.

Clearly, this is a false argument — at the very least without conclusive data to support the claim.

Such data would include proof that the same percentage of black California residents pursue medical and legal careers as white Californians. I’m not claiming they don’t, but if they do, then produce the data to prove it. This is a classic Democrat tool: the use of half-truths in an attempt to “prove” a larger assertion.

The task force also called on the California State Assembly to establish a government body to:

[F]acilitate listening sessions that allow victims and their relatives to narrate personal experiences and recount specific injustices caused by the state of California. [These listening sessions] should inform the language of the legislature’s apology and the methods enacted by the legislature to satisfy victims.

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Nonsensical, every bit of it. And there’s just one “slight” problem.

As reported by my colleague Jerry Wilson on Wednesday, California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom — who ironically signed the 2021 bill that authorized the Reparations Task Force and appointed five of its nine members — declined to back reparations checks, saying slavery’s legacy “is about much more than cash payments.”

The Reparations Task Force’s independent findings and recommendations are a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing. This has been an important process, and we should continue to work as a nation to reconcile our original sin of slavery and understand how that history has shaped our country.

Newsom also told Fox Digital he would continue to “advance systemic changes that ensure an inclusive and equitable future for all Californians.”

Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that mumbo jumbo came straight from the “articulate” mouth of the Word Salad Queen, herself — Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, last Saturday, one California reparations activist made the most ridiculous demand, yet — in reference to the famous “40 acres and a mule” promise (emphasis, mine):

You know that the numbers should be equivocal to what an acre was back then. We were given 40, OK? We were given 40 acres. You know what that number is. You keep trying to talk about now, yet you research back to slavery and you say nothing about slavery, nothing. So, the equivocal number from the 1860s for 40 acres today is $200 million for each and every African-American.

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Would it be inappropriate to ask how much for just the mule?

The Bottom Line

So-called “reparations” has been where this whole thing has headed from the beginning, foremost including “Critical Race Theory,” “white supremacy,” “systematic racism,” and the Black Lives Matter movement.

And, by “this whole thing,” I mean the demand for the largest wealth redistribution scam in the history of mankind.

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