Half a mil to put their thumbs up their asses instead of just literally giving that money directly as reparations 
Edit: I want to clarify, I fully support reparations, I'm just extremely frustrated knowing that, under liberal/bourgeoisie democracy, these types of efforts tend to get bogged down with means testing, and sometimes outright turn into thinly-veiled handouts to private corporations. All while the police budget is still increasing YOY.
That said, Evanston (city on Chicago's northern border) did actually manage to distribute "...$25,000 in no-strings-attached direct cash payments for those eligible. Black residents who lived in Evanston during a 50-year period of discriminatory zoning laws and their direct descendants receive priority for eligibility." So I don't want to encourage further reactionary criticisms such as mine towards this specific subcommittee if they are able to achieve at least some form of direct payments similar to Evanston's program.
Why does this website have to be so weird about race??? These people call people crackers constantly but most of them are crackers when push comes to shove.
I apologize for not being more careful with my words. I do believe in race-based, direct cash-payment reparations, I was just being flippant at the idea of liberal democracy spending $500k + a year of deliberation just to likely end up with a means-tested program, and then I was taking the position that such amount of money would be put to better use literally just being given away rather than being burned on consultant fees or w/e (but I recognize that such a giveaway would still not be reparations).
But even that was ignorant of me, because:
So maybe there's hope for this Chicago program, as well. Again, apologies for my flippant comment, I meant to direct my criticism solely at liberal democracy historically doing poorly-implemented, means-tested "assistance programs," not the idea of doing reparations itself.
Cash payment doesn't seem like a good solution compared to the "40 acres and a mule" (i.e. means of production) line. Scholarships are alright but feel a bit like a trap when you consider the barriers poor people face in succeeding in college even setting aside tuition.
Nonetheless, on mass line principles, we may as well try and fail this approach since it's still a small expenditure compared to the MIC and a lot of other bullshit the US has infinite pocket depth for. After it fails, it will have still directly done some good and then the need for a more systemic solution will be made obvious to virtually everyone.