KPBS Midday Edition

SDSU Professor Makes The Case For Reparations

By Jade Hindmon / KPBS Midday Edition Co-Host

Published February 17, 2021 at 11:31 AM PST

This story was published more than 3 years ago.

In this June 11, 2020, file photo, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, wears a face mask as she calls on lawmakers to create a task force to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans, during the Assembly session in Sacramento, Calif.

The state of California has started a commission to study reparations for African Americans Adisa Alkebulan is a professor of Africana Studies at SDSU. He joined Midday Edition to talk about the statewide effort and make the case for reparations.

For African Americans, America has bad credit. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out in his “I Have A Dream Speech” nearly 50 years ago, the country defaulted on its promise of 40 acres and a mule along with liberty and justice for all.

Now, the state of California has started a commission to study reparations.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who was previously a state assemblymember for the 79th district in San Diego authored Assembly Bill 3121 to appoint a task force to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.

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Adisa Alkebulan is a professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University who makes the case for reparations beyond enslavement and extends the conversation into addressing contemporary forms of oppression on Midday Edition.

Professor Alkebulan also discusses whether America has the moral integrity to right the wrongs of the past and the political courage to address the contemporary forms of oppression facing African Americans today.