Letters to the editor: Views on California reparations; lying Fox News

Issues with reparations plan

I have not been hesitant to criticize the center-right moderates of the Republican Party when they have remained silent in the face of actions or rhetoric from the right fringe that provide more fodder for division in our country. Think, for example, “stop the steal.”

I can be no less critical then of my fellow citizens on the far left of the Democratic Party with regard to the California and San Francisco proposals for significant financial reparations for the descendants of slavery, ranging from $250,000 to $5 million per eligible citizen. I believe that slavery was truly America’s original sin, and I am committed to efforts of moving forward “towards a more perfect union” in ways that will level the opportunity and quality of life for all. Any thoughtful plan to level the playing field should, however, be a nationally conceived and funded plan and a plan that would unite us in our efforts.

The San Francisco and California plans will, I predict, deepen our divide and forestall or kill any energy towards goals that are actionable by majority consensus for leveling the economic playing field. The far left and far right must stop working in echo chambers where the feedback loop is only similar thinking people. I challenge my far-left citizens to ask a centrist what they think of a reparation plan funded by city and state taxes absent any national agreement or commitment. I think I know what you’ll hear, and it will be in stronger terms than expressed by this centrist.

Robert Fraisse, Newbury Park

Reparations good for everyone

California’s Reparations Task Force provides white people a chance to repair the society built on white supremacy. Even if my ancestors were still in Europe during slavery, they were wearing garments of cotton and smoking tobacco farmed by the enslaved. When my European ancestors came to the U.S., they entered a system built for them. They didn’t just pull up their own bootstraps.

Headlines when another bad apple police officer kills another innocent black person are upsetting because it feels like there’s nothing I, as a white person, can do to fix that system.