Attorney General Rob Bonta. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
CA Attorney General Rob Bonta Announces New ‘Racial Justice Bureau’
‘We are in the middle — nationwide, statewide — of a racial justice reckoning’
By Evan Symon, May 12, 2021 2:56 pm
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday he would be creating a new “racial justice bureau” within the California Department of Justice “for a virtual convening against hate crime with California’s Big City Mayors.”
“Too many Asian, Latino, Black, Native American, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh Californians all across the state are hurting,” Bonta said at Tuesday’s press conference, and in his official press release.
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According to Bonta, who unveiled the new bureau at his first press conference since being sworn in in April, the bureau will initially have six attorneys and a new assistant attorney general to run it. The bureau will work closely with both community groups, as well as state and local level law enforcement.
The new bureau will cover many race based issues and crimes including hate crimes, the investigation into white supremacist and other racial hate and extremist organizations, advising law enforcement agencies on implicit/explicit bias and other race issues in policing, reviewing and issuing new guidelines for law enforcement organizations, helping with campus climate issues, and looking into reparation proposals for black residents.
Language is also a concern, with the bureau also planning to look into ways for non-English speaking residents to better report violent incidents and to better alert non-English speaking residents on such incidents.
While the new bureau is expected to bring on many more positions within the California Department of Justice, it was not revealed on Tuesday how much the new bureau would cost.
“All of our communities deserve to to be valued, to be protected,” said Bonta on Tuesday. “We are in the middle — nationwide, statewide — of a racial justice reckoning. It is very important that we all see the longtime, very detrimental and debilitating effects of racism in all its forms, in all the places it exists.”
The motivation behind the new bureau is largely due to the increased national focus on racial justice. Specifically, calls for more police accountability in racially charged incidents stemming from the George Floyd incident last year, and a large increase of violent incidents against Asian Americans were cited for influencing Bonta, an Asian American himself, for the bureau’s creation.
“Taking on hate crimes will always be one of my top priorities as the people’s attorney,” added Bonta. “No part of California is immune to hate. This is a beginning. We’re staking our claim, planting our flag, committing to this area of work.”
The lack of any centralized bureau that tackles racial justice or racially charged incidents was also cited as a reason for the need for the new bureau.
“Right now, the California DOJ is pretty scattered when it comes to addressing issues like the police killing an unarmed black man or dealing with racial hate,” explained Paul LaVont, a Los Angeles community activist who has assisted several Asian Americans in tracking down those that had acted violently against them. “This bureau is going to fill in that gap. It’s been a long time coming.”
Racial Justice Bureau proposal meets mixed reception
The new bureau received a mixed reception on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Many minority groups and lawmakers applauded the new bureau’s announcement, saying that it was needed now more than ever, especially with Anti-Asian American incidents only increasing since the beginning of the year.
“We know that hate and racism is not just an issue for the Asian community but for all communities,” noted Senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) on Tuesday. “We have a rise in white supremacy, a rise in violent incidents across the country, we have insurrection at the Capitol and on and on. Certainly, to have something like this in California will make a huge mark.”
However, many others, including some law enforcement support groups, challenged whether the bureau was even needed.
“All of what they want done can be done by other bureaus, or in the case of reparations, another department entirely,” Len Anthony, a Chicago-based lawyer who has assisted in legally challenging state Department of Justice expansions nationwide, explained to the Globe on Wednesday. “It’s not really needed, per se, but it would be very hard to challenge due to the current climate. Too much has happened since George Floyd to really call for this not to happen right now. They knew what they were doing in finding the right time to announce this.”
While the bureau will likely be set up soon, the CA DOJ will begin to make racial strides later this month by having a group of California Mayors come together to discuss their local priorities on racial justice matters.
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Interesting, so how will a place like Oakland handle “racial justice”. Will those who perpetrate the knock-out game and grab and go crimes against the Asian and Caucasian communities get a hate crime attachment tacked on to their sentence, if they are EVER tried?
Excellent point. But we won’t expect anything reasonable like that, will we?
Unfortunately I am so completely jaded about this stuff that every time some politician puts together a task force or a bureau or a commission or whatever I only think there is either a slush fund involved, a bunch of new employees to unionize, that it’s a phony “see, we’re doing something” move, or that it will function as a rubber stamp for some odious deed the politician wouldn’t otherwise be able to get away with. You know, as in “don’t look at me, the new ‘racial justice bureau’ recommended it.”
Bottom line is that this kind of nonsense is not in the CA Attorney General’s job description, is it.
Spot on @ShowandTell! They have to spend the surplus on something to help bloat the government yet they want to defund the police! Makes perfect sense in the progressive mind!
“…only think there is a slush fund involved AND a bunch of new employees to unionize,AND that it’s a phony “see, we’re doing something” move AND that it will function as a rubber stamp for some odious deed the politician wouldn’t otherwise be able to get away with.”
FIFY
Thank you — you’re absolutely right.
Just what we need another bureau or commission. Isn’t California great.
“Too many Asian, Latino, Black, Native American, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh Californians all across the state are hurting”. Apparently whites need not apply. The new KKK is here by the same management team.
I’m a racial and religious minority and believe the creation of this bureau is just plain stupid.
So whites are on the hit list for everything now. They better be careful of what they think or say because I doubt there will be any prosecutions of those on the protected list even when they are the perpetrators of such crimes. I see an even larger number of more whites leaving this once wonderful state as it Further disintegrates.
Woke tyrants tell us that ANYTHING and EVERYTHING a white person says or does is a hate crime. Things are remarkably like Europe was back in the 1930’s and we know how that ended.
Asian, Latino, Black, Native American, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh Californians – makes up approximately 65% of the state’s population and includes Latinos at 38% alone as the highest percentage of the population.
The ‘white’ segment of the Caucasian race (at 35%, the 2nd highest percentage of the state’s population) being specifically omitted from the focus of the “racial justice bureau” paints them as a ‘devil white race’. This is making them a target for retribution in the form of a reciprocal ‘hate crime’. And therefore, since not provided for by the focus of the “racial justice bureau”, omits recourse for victims. This bureau’s policies will make ‘whites’ an acceptable target.
That is exactly the plan.
Just like the ussr, more unelected bureaucrats to lord over us. And no opposition of course, god forbid anyone oppose the tyrants.
“Too many Asian, Latino, Black, Native American, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh Californians all across the state are hurting,” Bonta said at Tuesday’s press conference, and in his official press release.
Weird – it’s almost as if by naming every single group except one – that they think that one group is solely responsible for all racism and hate crime. I’m TOTALLY sure that type of mentality isn’t going to lead to like… .anything bad for that one group or anything…..