California Was Never a Slave State—So Why Reparations?
21st October 2025
Victor Davis Hanson.
Here in California—which might be a model for other states as well—Gov. Gavin Newsom has now approved a formal commission to administer reparations to black Californians. And they’re trying not to use the word reparations since it has such a bad connotation. But it’s a bad idea in so many ways.
Remember, when California was admitted to the Union, it came in as a free state. It had no prior record of being a slave state. It has never been a slave state. It has no historical baggage as, perhaps, the former Confederacies. So, there’s no argument that people who happen to be in California are owed anything from it, by the state, of any race.
The second thing is we don’t know how many black Americans that are residents of California could trace their lineage back to California. In other words, do we really believe that most of the African Americans in California, who came after World War I and during World War II, have descendants that were suffering the fallout from slavery in California? It’s really absurd.
The third thing to remember is the black population of California is about 5.4% of the 41 million people. Who are going to be paying the reparations? The so-called white oppressor, victimizer class is only 42%. It is a minority. And many of them can trace their lineage back to the Oklahoma diaspora of the 1930s and ’40s, when they arrived here completely destitute.
And then, in addition, we have about 15% to 16% Asian. Some of them came from horrendous conditions in Vietnam. Some of them have families that were Japanese, have received money from the government as direct compensation for property they lost during World War II during the relocations. Some of them can argue that they were oppressed from the 19th century. Leland Stanford Jr., the president of the Southern Union Pacific Railroad, used Chinese labors in a very exploitive manner.
The point is that each particular minority group will then argue that they have claims on—whom? Who is going to be the victimizer class when the so-called white population is the minority?