What is the cost of racism? More lawmakers are embracing reparations for Black people

As President Joe Biden and Congress have failed to deliver on promises of police accountability and amid a conservative-led backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion policies, many Black Americans are uplifting a centuries-old debate around reparations for slavery as the clearest pathway to racial equality.

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday, more than 45% of Americans said racism is a big problem or the biggest problem facing the United States, according to a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll. About 38% of respondents said racism is a problem but not one of the biggest facing the nation. Only about 14% of Americans said racism is not a problem.

The poll comes during what many see as a racial crossroads for the country, spotlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday that banned affirmative action in college admissions.

"There's almost a cold war in America over the future of the country, and central to that debate is the issue of race and ethnicity, not only Black people but all nonwhite peoples," Marc Morial, president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, told USA TODAY.

Morial said the USA TODAY polling data represents a tension in a country whose face is rapidly changing and was exemplified by an electorate that swung from Barack Obama's historic election in 2008 to elevating Donald Trump eight years later.

Black Americans' views differ greatly from those of whites, Hispanics

Race has already been tossed around in the early stages of the 2024 presidential campaign as Republicans Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, both of South Carolina, have trotted out their ethnic heritage as examples of how far the country has come.

"When I hear people telling me that America is a racist nation, I've got to say − not my America, not our America, not the United States of America," Scott, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, said at a Fox News town hall in June.

But what’s clear is that as the United States becomes more diverse, how Americans rank racism as an issue is largely determined by their heritage.

An overwhelming 79% of Black Americans said racism is either the biggest problem or a problem in the United States, according to the USA TODAY/Suffolk University survey. That far exceeded the 39% of whites and 46% of Hispanics who said the same.

On the flip side, 17% of whites said racism isn't a problem, joined by 13% of Hispanics.

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Astoundingly, the pollster said, not a single Black respondent said racism was not a problem in the survey.

“Usually you get someone, somewhere in a demographic group to either be not sure or say not one of the categories," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

"No Black voters are undecided, and no Black voters said not a problem," he said. "So this issue is really a black and white issue."

Why do many Black people want reparations?

Polling shows reparations for slavery is just as divisive as other issues along lines of race, but in recent years the subject has been injected with new vigor from activists exhausted with being ping-ponged between protest and vote strategies.

Pia Harris, a Black activist and program director for the San Francisco Housing Development Corp., said reparations are necessary to compensate for the lack of progress made in housing discrimination and other areas.

“We’re just trying to be brought to the same point as everyone else. We really are at a disadvantage and not at a starting line,” she said.

Cities such as Evanston, Illinois, are making reparations through a housing restorative program or a direct cash option to qualified Black residents. There is also California’s first-in-the-nation reparations task force seeking legislation, and in New York, state lawmakers recently passed a bill to consider reparations.

“The conversation is front and center now,” said Kamm Howard, executive director of Reparations United, a Chicago-based organization.

The national discourse on reparations is "a consequence of renewed energy to see a 157-year-old justice claim and unpaid debt finally met," said William Darity, a Duke University economist who co-wrote the 2020 book "From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century."

"I don’t think there is any greater degree of frustration today than there was 30 years ago, but there was not the same level of activity around reparations at that time," Darity told USA TODAY.

He said the federal government should pay at least $14 trillion in reparations to Black Americans "to equalize the average level of wealth between Black and white Americans."

'Black America is watching' California’s reparations plan

Supporters for reparations also point out the trajectory of opinion among whites has improved over the past two decades.

At the start of the century, a University of Chicago study examining attitudes toward reparations found only 4% of white Americans endorsed the idea. But a 2023 survey by University of Massachusetts at Amherst researchers places the level of white support closer to 30%, including 57% of Americans who are 18 to 29 years old.

"This is a dramatic change in white attitudes, signaling an opportunity to build the social movement that will pressure Congress to legislate a comprehensive plan for reparations for Black Americans who had ancestors enslaved in the United States," Darity said.

Advocates want Biden to create a federal reparations commission through an executive order. Howard said no action at all could cost the president his reelection given how crucial Black voters were to Biden's victory in 2020.

In California, activists such as Cheryl Grills, a clinical psychologist and member of California’s Reparations Task Force, said Black Americans should be paid for the ongoing legacy of harm left by slavery.

"Those include eminent domain, redlining, the quality of schools and trying to get employment," Grills said.

California Assembly member and fellow task force member Reginald Sawyer-Jones said Black America is watching what transpires: "As so goes California, so goes the nation."

The nine-member task force approved 100 recommendations that economists suggested could add up to as much as $1.2 million per eligible Black resident. On Thursday, the task force submitted a 1,100-page report for state lawmakers to consider.

The report recommended cash payments, providing policies for opportunities and free college tuition as examples. But the report doesn't issue a specific dollar amount owed to residents, and the state Legislature won't discuss any reparations-related bills until 2024.

State Sen. Steven Bradford, a task force member, said any reparations cost will be high, but harm to Black Californians has been "just as high."

State Attorney General Rob Bonta also urged legislators to proceed with reparations. "They are necessary. They are warranted. They are needed," he said. "It's time for remedying."

Contributing: Marc Ramirez and Kayla Jimenez

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is racism a big problem? Black and white Americans don't agree