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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
LA Political Machine

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:

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Shoes to Fill: Fifty-Six Glorious Years of FBA/ADOS Superstars in the Culver-Crenshaw District

We acknowledge we are running a White candidate for a traditionally Black seat.

The politico-demographic equivalent of today’s 55th assembly district — let’s call it the “Culver-Crenshaw” district — has existed for eight decades, and it hasn’t been represented by a Republican in 67 years (and he wasn’t exactly exemplary, having resigned after being convicted of selling illegal liquor licenses). Beneficially for racial justice, equal representation and lawmaker diversity, the Culver-Crenshaw district has been represented exclusively by African-American assemblypeople for the past 56 years, all Democrats, beginning in 1967 with Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

One might wonder, was Burke the first African-American elected to the California State Assembly? No! The first ever Black assemblyperson, elected 48 years before Burke, Frederick Madison Roberts, was a Republican, represented part of Los Angeles for 16 years from 1919 to 1935, and was also the first person of African-American descent to be elected to any major public office among the states on the west coast, and who thus became the namesake of the California Legislative Black Caucus Policy Institute’s (CLBCPI) scholarship.

The acronym FBA means “Foundational Black American”, a descriptive term, an ideology and a movement, originated by Los Angeles-based independent filmmaker Tariq Nasheed in 2019.

The acronym ADOS means “American Descendants of Slavery”, also a descriptive term, an ideology and a movement, originated by Los Angeles-based legislative aide Yvette Carnell and Los Angeles-based defense attorney Antonio Moore in 2018.

Assembly seat history across 84 years and 7 redistrictings:

AssemblypersonNumTime in officePartyEthnicityMap
Isaac Bryan55Jan 1, 2023 – presentDFBA/ADOSM
Isaac Bryan54May 28, 2021 – Dec 31, 2022DFBA/ADOSM
Sydney Kamlager54April 16, 2018 – March 11, 2021DFBA/ADOSM
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas54December 5, 2013 – December 31, 2017DFBA/ADOSM
Holly Mitchell542012 – September 26, 2013DFBA/ADOSM
Holly Mitchell47December 6, 2010 – 2012DFBA/ADOSM
Karen Bass47December 6, 2004 – November 30, 2010DFBA/ADOSM
Herb Wesson47December 7, 1998 – November 30, 2004DFBA/ADOSM
Kevin Murray47December 5, 1994 – November 30, 1998DFBA/ADOSM
Gwen Moore47December 7, 1992 – November 30, 1994DFBA/ADOSM
Gwen Moore49December 4, 1978 – November 30, 1992DFBA/ADOSM
Julian Dixon491974 – November 30, 1978DFBA/ADOSM
Julian Dixon63January 8, 1973 – 1974DFBA/ADOS__
Yvonne Brathwaite Burke63January 2, 1967 – January 3, 1973DFBA/ADOS__
Don Allen63September 13, 1956 – January 2, 1967DWhite__
G. Delbert Morris63November 25, 1947 – February 29, 1956RWhite__
Don Allen63January 2, 1939 – June 20, 1947DWhite__
“Culver-Crenshaw” district assembly seat history across 7 redistrictings since 1939

Notice any huge Los Angeles political names there? Bass (current, 43rd, Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, 26th Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, 67th Speaker of the California State Assembly), Mitchell (Member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from the 2nd District, former Chair of Los Angeles County), Wesson (65th Speaker of the California State Assembly and Former President of the Los Angeles City Council and 16-years Member of the Los Angeles City Council from the 10th district). It’s no coincidence.

California Journal was a monthly publication dedicated to California politics and public policy issues [OAC], founded in 1970 by Fazio, Hoeber and Evans (it ceased publication in 2005 due to lack of funds [Biz Journals]), which often published detailed technical comments on California’s legislative districts. After the 1990 redistricting, the California Journal published the following summary of the new District 47, which was the redrawn Culver-Crenshaw District 49 represented at that time by Assemblywoman Gwen Moore:

“District 47 (73% D – 13% R) – MAP
This district includes the Culver City and Crenshaw areas of Los Angeles, is solidy Democratic and is one of five districts the Court drew with the intention that it be represented by an African-American. Overall, the district is more than 70 percent minority, with about 40 percent of the population Black. The Court’s guidelines called for a district population to be between 35 and 40 percent Black to ensure that the group elects one of its own to office.” [Statewide Database] (emphasis mine)

The “Culver-Crenshaw” district area had already been represented by an FBA/ADOS assemblyperson since 1967, even though the district lines were not, until 1990, as far as we know, deliberately drawn to guarantee an FBA/ADOS assemblyperson. That means 23 years of FBA/ADOS assembly representation occurred naturally without any explicit intention.

Culver City was founded in 1917 (two years before the groundbreaker of groundbreakers, exemplary Republican and all-around bad-a** Frederick M Roberts was elected to the California Assembly). So that means Culver City existed for 50 years with a sequence of white and other ethnicities of assemblypeople and then, since 1967, has been represented exclusively by an FBA/ADOS assemblyperson for the past 56 years. In other words, in the entire history of Culver City, the (current) period of uninterrupted FBA/ADOS legislative representation is longer, by 12%, than the period of mostly white representation that preceded it. How many of our AD55 readers knew about this dazzling magnitude of Black achievement?

Yes, this is a district that has been represented by FBA/ADOS elected officials for 56 consecutive years, and yes in 1990 this district was likely redrawn specifically in order to guarantee FBA/ADOS representation for the foreseeable future, and yes the unparalleled City of Los Angeles, specifically, is the birthplace, in 1919, of FBA/ADOS political achievement West of the Mississippi (which, emphatically, boasts a wonderfully Republican pedigree), and yes candidate Keith Cascio is a European-American person (born in Brooklyn, NY, to a father who emigrated to the USA from the Italian island of Sicily in 1953, and a mother whose maternal grandparents emigrated to the USA from England in 1912), and yes we do honor and celebrate the district’s history of FBA/ADOS representation, and yes we do consider it an essential duty and an essential priority of any 55th district assemblyperson, Black or White, to protect, nurture and advocate for the Los Angeles FBA/ADOS community, and so, it is with full respect and gratitude, that in 2023 we enthusiastically offer this FBA/ADOS community a new direction of legislative representation.