Conservative TV and radio host Larry Elder on Thursday took aim at a new proposal by San Francisco’s reparations committee to pay each Black longtime residents $5 million – while warning that the movement in support of reparations is growing as young people are being "indoctrinated" into its supporting narrative.
"I think the movement is growing," Elder told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Young woke people are being indoctrinated into believing that systemic racism, structural racism, historical racism is why black people are underachieving."
Elder, who previously ran for governor of California, was reacting after the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee, which advises the city on developing a plan for reparations for Black residents, released its draft report last month to address reparations for what it considers 300 years of repression and discrimination for which Black Americans deserve compensation. It cites government policies, Jim Crow laws and redlining for causing the wealth gap between white and black communities.
"While neither San Francisco, nor California, formally adopted the institution of chattel slavery, the tenets of segregation, white supremacy and systematic repression and exclusion of Black people were codified through legal and extralegal actions, social codes, and judicial enforcement," the draft states.
SAN FRANCISCO REPARATIONS PROPOSAL MAKES WAVES: 'AMERICA MUST ADMIT ITS SIN'.
The draft plan includes a long list of financial recommendations for Black San Francisco residents, including a one-time, lump sum payment of $5 million to each eligible individual.
While there has been significant outrage over the proposal, Elder was not surprised by the plan originating in San Francisco.
"My first reaction is ‘what would you expect from that city?’" he quipped
Elder defined reparations as a "fraction of money from people who were never slave owners to be given to people who were never slaves." He also highlighted the connection between Democrats and both slavery and oppressive systems like Jim Crow.
"They were also the party of Jim Crow. All of the Southern governors and senators were the ones supporting Jim Crow…A greater percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act in the House and the Senate than the Democrats. Democrats founded the KKK, I don’t say the Democratic Party, but Democrats founded the KKK. So Democrats are the ones who ought to be apologizing for slavery, for Jim Crow not anybody else."
Elder argued that the money would do nothing to solve the underlying issues facing Black Americans, such as the breakdown of the family, and would only serve to exacerbate racial disharmony.
"So the money won't do anything other than anger people who are on the hook for paying them with nothing to do with the conditions I just mentioned and will create a great deal of racial strife and tension in America and will create a desire for other people who feel they've been warned for money as well."
He noted that women could have a case for reparations due to their exclusion from the right to vote until the 20th century.
"You could argue that women were shafted out of a lot of social benefits and financial benefits by not having the right to vote until early in the 20th century. So virtually every group can make a case why that group is entitled to something. When do we stop? How do we stop? Where do we stop?"
He noted that reparations were once a fringe idea that has caught on dramatically in recent years, along with other ideas to rectify past wrongs: "Whoever said compound interest is the greatest force in the universe, never encountered white guilt," he quipped.
As for how people can be helped to succeed in life, Elder's advice was simple:
"For the most part, if you work hard, invest in yourself, avoid the criminal justice system, don't have a kid before you’re 20, get married first -- you will not be poor. And that's what we ought to be telling people instead of ‘you’re owed something even though you're not the one who picked cotton, you're not the one who suffered because of Jim Crow, you certainly we're not the ones who were slaves.
"The mentality is you are entitled to something. You are owed something. And that's probably the most damaging thing of all."
Fox News' Jessica Chasmar and William La Jeunesse contributed to this report.
