Kamala Harris Supports ‘Some Type of’ Slavery Reparations

In an interview with the “Breakfast Club,” a radio show on New York City’s Power 105.1, host Charlamagne tha God asked Kamala Harris about reparations.

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“Where do you stand on some form of reparations for black people? Here you see Mayor De Blasio saying the marijuana economy could be a form of reparations. Marianne Williamson says black people should get a hundred billion in slave reparations–like, where do you stand on it?” Charlamagne asked.

Harris responded:

Well look, I think that we have got to address that again, it’s back to the inequities. There, through–look, America has a history of 200 years of slavery. We had Jim Crow. We had legal segregation in America for a very long time. The Voting Rights Act was only strong for 50 years and then they wiped it out with this United States Supreme Court in the Shelby decision, to the point that 22 states immediately thereafter put in place laws that one court found were crafted with surgical precision to have black people not be able to vote.”

So we’ve got to recognize, back to that earlier point, people aren’t starting out on the same base, in terms of their ability to succeed and so we have got to recognize that and give people a lift up. And, there are a number of ways to do it. Part of my initiative again around the ‘Lift Act’ is that same point–you lifting people up who are making less than a hundred thousand dollars a year. What I want to do about rent is the same thing. What we need to do around education and understanding disparities, what we need to do around HBCUs. But we have a history of racism in America.

Charlamagne asked again, “So you are for some type of reparations?”

“Yes I am, yes I am,” Harris responded.

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