*Lisa Cook, a Michigan State University economics professor, is one of President Joe Biden’s recent nominees to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
As expected, Cook is facing a racist smear campaign amid reports that she has called for Black Americans to receive reparations for years of economic discrimination and slavery, The Huffington Post reports. If confirmed, Cook would be the first Black woman to be part of the seven-person board.
“Everybody benefited from slavery. Everybody,” Cook said in a September 2020 “EconTalk” podcast, Fox Business reported.
“So, I think that we absolutely need some sort of reckoning with that. There are many proposals on the table to study the possibility of reparations, many economic proposals being put forward, and I think they should all be taken seriously,” she said.
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Biden announced Cook’s nomination on Jan. 14 but “Republicans are signaling a tough confirmation,” The Daily Mail writes.
“The attacks are racist, sexist and just plain dumb. But make no mistake: There’s a reason behind them that goes to the heart of the matter ― and that is, she’s good. That’s why she’s under attack,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said about Cook to HuffPost.
“This is not the place in this time of great peril for purely race-based appointments,” former Donald Trump adviser Peter Navarro told the right-wing Daily Caller. “Professor Cook is more qualified to coach an NFL team than manage what may be a looming collapse of our economy from a perch at the Fed. When that collapse comes, nobody in the financial world is going to say ‘Find Lisa Cook.’ Ultimately, this is not fair to Cook herself, as it sets her up for an epic fall.”
John H. Cochrane, an economist at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said Cook is qualified only “if the job is to bring the Administration and progressive supporters’ racial policies to the Fed.”
Meanwhile, Cook supports House bill – H.R. 40, which would establish a 15-member commission to discuss the impact of reparations and study the effects of slavery and discriminatory policies on Black Americans.
“One thing I do support is H.R. 40, which would put in place a commission to study this. I think that’s absolutely what needs to be done,” said Cook about the House bill last March at the University of California’s Haas School of Business. “It’s difficult not to comment on a particular plan because there could be many different plans to achieve the kinds of reparations that [two authors] are suggesting.”
