What the fuck?!?
The Trump administration, which has vowed to eliminate government programs that promote racial equity, is trying to kill Evanston’s reparations program before similar ones take hold in other cities. In June, the Justice Department announced it would join a conservative group’s lawsuit alleging that the city’s plan is racially discriminatory because only Black people qualify.
It’s a stark illustration of how the Trump administration is trying to radically reshape the role that government plays in fighting discrimination and addressing long-standing racial inequities.
“What’s happening in Evanston is the most important civil rights story that no one has heard of,” said Alvin Tillery, a professor of race and politics at Northwestern University.
This city led the way on reparations for Black people. Trump is trying to stop it
As a child in the 1960s, Allie Zemtseff saw how her mother, a Black woman, was turned away by landlords while apartment hunting in white neighborhoods. So she was incredulous when the Trump administration this summer accused the city of racial discrimination because of a program it created to compensate Black residents for past housing segregation.
“I thought, ‘How ridiculous,'” said Zemtseff.
Through Evanston’s reparations program, the first in the U.S. to compensate Black people for historical discrimination, Zemtseff got an apology from the city for its role in keeping Black people out of white neighborhoods decades ago, and $25,000, which she used to renovate her kitchen.
“Of course it’s only for Black people,” she said, “because we were the ones affected by the discrimination.”
Since the city approved reparations payments in 2021, it has given $25,000 grants to more than 300 people and injected new life into the long-stalled movement to pay African Americans reparations for slavery and other forms of discrimination.
But now the Trump administration, which has vowed to eliminate government programs that promote racial equity, is trying to kill Evanston’s program before similar ones take hold in other cities. In June, the Justice Department announced it would join a conservative group’s lawsuit alleging that the city’s plan is racially discriminatory because only Black people qualify.
So, okay Tony’s Kansas City, answer me this. Where in the entire article does it mention Kansas City? Last I heardm Kansas City wasn’t giving ‘reparations’ so how could they be threatened? Yes, there is a tendancy by the city to favor the Black and Illegal Immigrant community over the remainder of it’s citizens, that is why I don’t live inside Kansas City. So, how could Trump be threatening Kansas City Reparations, unless you see this as a means of preventing a travesty that shouldn’t happen?
Yes. I am against Reparations. Yes, it was unfortunate, a miscarriage of how we treat each other regarding Discrimination, Racism, and Slavery. But Black Americans were not the only “Slaves” in the United States. A good hard look at American History will show that a number of cultures suffered one form of slavery or another inside the United States.
So, how about we stick to the facts? Yes, this does threaten any City of which does what Evanston Illinois did, but there are no Reparations in Kansas City to be threatened. And as far as I know, there are not resolutions promoting Kansas City to pay said reparations like Evaneston Illinois has.
