Slavery Reparations and The Political Machine

Quantitative reparations research and implementation is the best, most honest, most serious, and healthiest way for us Americans to finally address our country’s history of racial exploitation. When it comes time to get serious about something, we express ourselves in numbers, and thus we should — cheerfully, if possible — negotiate and argue over numbers.

Many activists and regular voters in the 55th, the most historic Black district in California, have keenly followed the dramatic events of the legislature and the California Legislative Black Caucus ever since the concluding moment of the legislative session, midnight Pacific Time on Saturday August 31, 2024.

Why didn’t the Assembly vote on the much-anticipated SB1331 and SB1403? The answer depends on how deep you want to go. Instead of pointing fingers at hard working individuals who did their best to deliver for the Black community, including my own political opponent Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, I think it would be most productive to go as deep as possible and examine the Los Angeles Political Machine that reigns supreme. Like my home town of New York City, and famously like Chicago, Illinois, most political scientists would agree that in LA, for better or for worse, we inhabit a Political Machine. Our County and City governments are dominated by one political party, there is an absence of full-on political competition, money and jobs are allocated from a centralized command-and-control, and there is a blurred distinction between Government and Party (wait … there’s a distinction?!). Full-on politics is always messy, whereas the machine is streamlined. What could go wrong? What can citizens expect from such a system? We can expect elected officials who might be nice people but who have been pre-vetted to be cooperative with that machine, who have no real independence from that machine, and who therefore cannot be expected to be accountable to their voters, since they were installed by the machine and their political fate depends on the machine. This is conducive to business-as-usual and can look very happy, unified and, especially, predictable (what special interest doesn’t love donating lots of money to a guaranteed-to-win candidate?), but it is not conducive to a profoundly controversial, transformative, hundreds-of-years-in-the-making, Biblical, even, political project like slavery reparations.

Political questions we might ask ourselves about the 12 elected legislators who make up the CLBC, who are all registered Democrats:

• What is the total number of public debates held that featured one of the 12 members of the CLBC, debating his or her most recent general election runoff opponent?
• What is the total number of such public debates that were held where one of the 12 members of the CLBC debated an opponent from a party other than Democratic?
• How much community demand has there been for such debates? Any outcry?

Beginning with an impromptu 4-minute interview recorded in the Center for Black Power building, 3423 W 43rd Place in Leimert Park (in the 55th, of course), I have made a series of public media statements declaring my confident and enthusiastic support, as a November 5, 2024 general election candidate, in favor of slavery reparations for FBA/ADOS.

List of Candidate Keith Cascio media appearances that include political statements about slavery reparations (we will update this list with the latest media) (last updated: 2024-10-12):

1. Sept 5 video interview 🎥🎙️ (4m23s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1833626656789172385
2. Sept 7 X Space interview 🎙️ (54m10s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1833143320245321773
3. Sept 15 church speech 🎥🎙️ (8m2s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1836306821814137276
4. Sept 19 podcast interview 🎥🎙️ (37m46s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1836861650537771513
5. Oct 12 town hall speech 🎥🎙️ (9m27s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1845343716992745504
6. Oct 16 KLRJ Oklahoma radio Jam OKC 86 🎥🎙️ (1h34m57s begin at 36m1s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1846651150864420923
7. Oct 16 podcast interview 🎙️ (1h57m34s, begin at 47m49s): x.com/keithcascio4ca/status/1848424013825183944

List of meetings regarding reparations attended by Candidate Keith Cascio (we will update this list with the latest meetings) (last updated: 2024-10-12):

1. May 23 LA City Civil Rights Reparations Advisory Commission Zoom meeting [IG][X]
2. Sept 5 BLM Grassroots Emergency Town Hall at The Center for Black Power [IG][X][livestream]
3. Sept 8 BLM Grassroots weekly meeting at The Center for Black Power [X]
4. Sept 11 Coalition For A Just & Equitable California (CJEC) Zoom [X]
5. Sept 12 LA City Civil Rights Reparations Advisory Commission Workshop #2 of 3, Michelle and Barack Obama Sporting Complex [web]
6. Sept 14 LA City Civil Rights Reparations Advisory Commission Workshop #3 of 3, South LA Constituent Services Center [web]
7. Sept 15 NAACP LA General Membership Monthly Meeting, Fox Hills Mall Headquarters [X]
8. Sept 18 Dr Julie Farnam: The White Power Movement: Its History, Threat and What You Can Do About It Zoom by the Dock C Bracy Center for Human Reconciliation [X][EventBrite][livestream]
9. Sept 18 National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants (NAASD) Zoom [X]
10. Sept 20 South LA Solid, The District Restaurant, Crenshaw Blvd [no link]
11. Sept 21 Supervisor Holly Mitchell Racial Justice Learning Exchange (RJLE), Environmental Justice Policy Summit, Mock Board of Supervisors Meeting, Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration [X]
12. Oct 12 EECI Gardena/CJEC Reparations Now Panel and Town Hall [X]

For more information on the California State Reparations Task Force, impaneled September 30, 2020:

• AB 3121: Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans
• Reparations Task Force Members [archived]
• June 29, 2023 Reparations Task Force Reports, a 1080-page PDF and a 74-page PDF