This California U.S. Senate candidate has a reparations plan. Here’s what it would do
Deon D. Jenkins knew he wanted to be the president of the United States as an elementary school student in the Bay Area.
At that point, there had never been a Black president. Jenkins kept his dream quiet. He said he wanted to go into hip hop or the National Football League, where he thought he could make a difference through speech and protest.
“A white little boy can say ‘I can be the president one day’ and not be seen as a someone with a pipe dream,” Jenkins said in an interview. “But if a Black little boy says he wants to be president, then he’s ostracized.”
“And the reason why he’s going to be ostracized is because everybody around him thinks that’s a pipe dream,” he added. “Not just because he’s Black, but because he’s a Black boy who descended from American slaves.”
Now Jenkins, 41, is running for the U.S. Senate from California against incumbent Sen. Alex Padilla.
His campaign centers on reparations for Black descendants of enslaved people through a four-pronged plan he developed in 2018 called “D.M.L.G.,” or “Defense, Money, Land, Grants.” It includes a $3.1 million check.
Through “defense,” Jenkins would create special military, law enforcement and court systems for Black people. Several decades of research show racial bias across the criminal justice system, which Jenkins pointed to in saying Black descendants of slaves are not being protected under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“That’s taxation without representation in politics for Black people who descended from American slaves,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins calculated a $3.1 million check for “money” by adding the U.S. gross domestic product each year between 1865, the year the Civil War ended, and 2018 — he said that reached about one quadrillion dollars. From there, he low-balled an estimate that at least 3% of people are Black descendants of slaves and thus accounted for that percent of the quadrillion dollars.
He divided that amount among the population of descendants, which he approximated as at least 10 million people, to reach the $3.1 million per person with interest.
Jenkins stressed that this was the lowest possible number of individuals who could qualify based on population data.
Subsequent checks would make up for inflation and changes in annual GDP. He said people would get about $60,000 yearly.
Jenkins’ plan would offer each person the storied 40 acres, a Civil War promise that was reversed by former President Andrew Johnson, for “land” by allocating unused space and, in some cases, using eminent domain, which allows the government to take over private property with compensation for public use.
As part of “grants,” Jenkins would establish a board where Black descendants of slaves could pitch ideas to the government and get funding in a venture-capital setting.
“If I am elected, I have a constitutional duty to uphold everybody’s rights,” Jenkins said. “However, right now, I think everybody in this country should be on the same page of prioritizing this because it’s also an American pain.”
In 2009, a nearby shooting that sparked international outrage solidified to Jenkins that Black people were not being protected under the Constitution. The first Black president was sworn into office the same month that an officer killed a young Black man in Oakland.
In the first wee hours of 2009, Oscar Grant was shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer. Bystanders captured videos of the moments around the shooting that were widely shared across the globe. In the days after, protesters, including Jenkins, lined streets.
The officer, Johannes Mehserle, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years minus the time he had served. Jenkins and others have cited the widespread protests for holding the officer accountable.
Grant’s death and protests, which were portrayed in the 2013 film Fruitvale Station, helped propel the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Grassroots movements were able to change a lot, but now we have to infiltrate that same movement into politics,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins joined the Bay Area hip-hop scene while mulling a presidential run. He ran for president in the 2016 and 2020 elections as a Democrat. He is running for Senate without a party preference.
He is one of 23 people vying for the Senate term that starts in 2023. Padilla, who Gov. Gavin Newsom tapped to finish Vice President Kamala Harris’ unfinished Senate term, is heavily favored to win. A Democrat, Padilla was California’s secretary of state.
In the wake of the Buffalo shooting in a Black community that left 10 people dead, Jenkins said that the government’s failure to identify white supremacists as terrorists shows that it does not protect its people equally.
“The apparatus of American government is being ran by a majority white population, which is a violation of the 14th Amendment: equal protection of the law in equal representation,” Jenkins said. “And we are not. The representation is not equal.”
This story was updated on May 20, 2022, at 9:07 a.m. Pacific Time to include a social media video.
This story was originally published May 19, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
