Prop 6’s failure shows racial discrimination no longer a motivator for Californians | Opinion
California’s political center has shifted and the topics of concern no longer include racial reconciliation with the Black community.
Nothing made that more clear than seeing Proposition 6 fail at the ballot box. It would have banned forced labor in prisons and jails as a form of punishment. Proponents liken such punishments to vestiges of slavery, but California voters rejected that argument.
More than 5 million Californians voted to preserve a form of slavery still inflicted on incarcerated people.
This is an unpopular opinion in California right now, but slavery is wrong, no matter who the enslaved may be. Every state in this country has a connection to slavery and a duty to reconcile with it. California is choosing a political future that excludes racial reconciliation as a major concern. This is the wrong path.
Ending slavery is not a complex issue
In 2022, Tennessee voters easily passed an initiative that removed forced labor as a form of punishment from the state constitution. The conservative stronghold of Tennessee even knew that slavery should be abolished. Why not liberal California? Well for starters, California squandered momentum around racial justice and reconciliation when they had it a few years ago. A movement to launch a full Reparations came from that momentum but it went no where.
Abolishing such a cruel practice that has caused so much pain to Black Americans should have been a no-brainer in California. Proposition 3 enshrines the right to same-sex marriage in the California constitution. It passed easily, as it should, because just like abolishing slavery, it’s a no-brainer.
But the reality is that Californians have moved away from racial reconciliation. It doesn’t appear to be a civil rights interest to them. The failure of Proposition 6, coming on the heels of a failure by California’s legislature to pass meaningful legislation proposed by the Legislative Black Caucus, demonstrates how the momentum around justice for Black people has evaporated in our state. It was the California Legislature and Gavin Newsom himself that advanced reparations in California by agreeing back in 2020 to study the matter. Newsom could have put the full force of his office behind Prop. 6. He did not.
Though it was not a slave state like those in the American South, the effects of slavery impacted California as well.
Ending racism isn’t sexy anymore
Four years ago, when the acronym “BLM” (Black Lives Matter) was seen on literally every social media profile, Americans wanted to be on the right side of history. They wanted to end the racism in systems like housing and healthcare that oppressed Black Americans.
Now, we can’t even abolish the vestiges of slavery in our criminal justice system. This is a reflection of the current state of race in America. There is a perception that if Black Americans get the resources that they need, if they achieve the justice they deserve it is somehow diminishing other groups of people.
We’re in a post-racial America, but not in a good way. Instead of moving on from race by reconciling with our dark past, Californians are choosing turn away from the very real problem of systemic racism.
It will be our undoing going forward.
This story was originally published November 8, 2024 at 2:00 AM.
