A Tampa man has demanded that the city hand out $3 million in reparations to every black resident — just days after Squad members pushed for a $14 trillion federal payment.
The unidentified man said at a Tampa City Council meeting Thursday that black people “don’t care about nonsense like police brutality and homelessness.”
He said, “No black cares about speed bumps or parks and recreation — what black people care about is our reparations.
“This city owes us every black person in the city of Tampa at least three million in reparations and that’s what’s important.”
His remarks come just two days after Democrat Congressman Cori Bush introduced a resolution to revive a push for federal reparations, which would amount to more than half of US GDP.
The unidentified man said at a Tampa City Council meeting on Thursday that black people “don’t care about bullshit like police brutality and homelessness”
Currently, Tampa does not have a recovery committee, unlike the California task force set up by Gavin Newsom and a similar movement in Chicago.
City hall officials thanked the man at the end of his speech after labeling their discussions as “nonsense.”
He said, ‘All that nonsense, homelessness, all that other garbage. Police brutality and all – nobody cares about that.
‘Can’t anyone worry about that. We care about our reparations. And we need to notify white people that we want our reparations.
“That our ancestors and us, we didn’t work for free and underpaid and all that nonsense and the whites get away with it.
“No, we want our reparations $3 million dollars per person here in this city, that’s all black people care about.”
Florida reparations have been discussed, with former GOP candidate Nikki Fried supporting reparations during her 2022 campaign.
In January, Republican governor and 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis blocked a proposed course focusing on African-American studies because reparations were on the list of subjects.
His remarks come just two days after Democrat Congresswoman Cori Bush introduced a resolution to revive a push for federal reparations
Newsom said he felt there were better ways to address systemic inequality than handing out money
When he rejected the course, his officer argued that the study of reparations “had no critical perspective or balanced opinion in this lesson.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Bush, a Democrat, held a press conference to unveil her Reparations Now resolution.
She said the US has a “moral and legal obligation to make reparations for the enslavement of Africans and the enormous damage to the lives of millions.”
The suggestion is that the total amount would be at least $14 trillion in reparations, which she says is the wealth gap between white and black people.
America’s total GDP was $25 trillion in 2022 and is currently $31.4 trillion in debt.
Lawmakers are currently engaged in tough negotiations over where to cut the budget so they can raise the debt limit.
She spoke with fellow Squad members Jamaal Bowman, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee and Senate candidate Rep. Barbara Lee.
Bush said, “Black people in our country can no longer wait for our administration to begin addressing… all the damage it has done since its inception and continues to perpetuate every day in our communities, across this country.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman also spoke at the event, saying ‘Trauma lives in the black body’
A final report detailing the proposed pay is expected to be released by the task force on July 1 in California
“Let’s say this truth, uncomfortable as it may be, our country is not founded on the principle that all men are created equal.
“It was founded at the cost of the life, freedom and well-being of black people, African people they stole.”
Bowman added, “Trauma lives in the black body. Research has shown that from generation to generation trauma lives in the body and lives in the blood vessels and lives in the DNA and the cells and the mind.”
A leading member of the San Francisco reparations task force has proposed taxing billionaires to fund payments of $5 million for every black resident.
Rev. Amos Brown, who has led the Third Baptist Church in the Fillmore district since 1976, said he was “very, very cautiously optimistic” that officials will make some form of reparations.
Reverend Amos Brown (pictured outside City Hall in San Francisco in March) is the vice chair of Gov Gavin Newsom’s nine-member reparations committee — and also serves on the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC)
“Out of all these billionaires in San Francisco, you could create a recovery fund,” he told The New York Times.
Brown serves on both the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee (AARAC) and a California committee founded by Gavin Newsom.
San Francisco regulators backed the idea of black reparations in principle in March, but the details — including the $5 million lump sum — have yet to be approved.
In 2020, California became the first state to create a reparations task force, and has suggested that the settlement would bring the state about $800 billion — more than their $300 billion annual budget.
The task force has a July 1 deadline to submit a final report of its reparations recommendations, which would then be turned into law for consideration by lawmakers.