Cori Bush demands US government pay out $14 trillion in reparations

On Thursday, Bush introduced legislation to the House calling for $14 trillion in reparations for black Americans, according to NPR.

Bush said during a Wednesday press conference: "The United States has a moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans."

She continued: "Black people in our country cannot wait any longer for our government to begin addressing each and every one of the extraordinary bits of harm, all of the harm it has caused since the founding."

"America must provide reparations if we desire a prosperous future for all," Bush said.

A Thursday press release from Bush’s office states that the Reparation Now Resolution, which seeks to advance federal reparations, "support existing reparatory justice efforts," and "provide further momentum to reparations efforts at the state and local levels," "argues why the federal government must provide reparations to descendants of enslaved Black people and people of African descent."

The resolution claims that the federal government is responsible for "failing to keep black people safe from or actively sanctioning white domestic terrorism and failing to prosecute it when it occurred."

The resolution goes over the history of slavery, segregation, and racism in the United States, stating, "reparations are fundamentally a justice and accountability process that should carry more symbolic and practical power than traditional social police."

In California, the reparations task force has recently proposed that the state government allow black people first priority when it comes to buying and renting property, which is little more than overt discrimination against non-black people. Governor Gavin Newsom, just last week, refused to agree to the reparations task force’s proposal that each black person receive $1.2 million.

Earlier this year, San Francisco’s reparations committee suggested that a staggering $5 million be given to every eligible black person, but the details of how the committee planned to assess the eligibility of possible recipients was not clear. This was confirmed in March when the committee said that they did not use a “math formula” to come up with the arbitrary number of $5 million.