Billionaire presidential candidate Tom Steyer recently jumped to 15 percent in the Democratic primary in South Carolina, according to a recent poll by Fox News. The leap makes Steyer – who is pro-reparations for descendants of slavery – second only to frontrunner Joe Biden and ahead of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the state.
According to the World Population Review, over 27 percent of South Carolina’s residents are Black and statistics show 75 percent of Blacks are in favor of reparations. Steyer has been intentional about consistently courting the Black vote.
During campaign stops and visits to shows with significant Black audiences like “The Breakfast Club,” Steyer has not wavered from his pro-reparations stance.
When asked his stance on reparations during a campaign stop last October in South Carolina, Steyer had no qualms about unequivocally stating he was in favor of them.
“Let me start by giving a simple answer, which is I’m for reparations,” Steyer said. “And let’s talk about what that really means because in the United States we’ve never really been willing to face the truth, as God says, not just of the hundreds of years of enslavement, we’ve never been willing to face the truth about the hundred years of Jim Crow and so there’s a history here that has been a denial of the truth for literally 400 years.”
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During another meeting with supporters that was captured in a YouTube video, Steyer’s support of reparations remained consistent. “Think about this for one sec: 400 years of legalized discrimination and unfairness, did the deepest injustice. There’s never been an apology. … I mean it’s amazing,” Steyer said.
He added that late South African President Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu inspired him to search for seek both “truth and reconciliation” because much of America still doesn’t know the truth.
“I think as part of reparations, to figure out how best to do this, it’s important that we retell the story of America, we retell the story of the contributions and leadership of the African American community in America. We make it, I think, who built America. Where has the moral leadership for America come from? Not just from Dr. King, but for hundreds of years [before] and subset after Dr. King. When I think about reparations, I think about a deep retelling of this story. … There been a false story about this country for 400 years. The first step is to retell the story truthfully,” Steyer said.
