[ A city-appointed reparations committee is also considering
guaranteed annual incomes, wiping out personal debt and tax burdens,
and homes for just $1 a family.]
[[link removed]]
SAN FRANCISCO CONSIDERS $5 MILLION REPARATIONS PAYOUTS TO ELIGIBLE
BLACK ADULTS
[[link removed]]
Janie Har
March 15, 2023
Associated Press
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
_ A city-appointed reparations committee is also considering
guaranteed annual incomes, wiping out personal debt and tax burdens,
and homes for just $1 a family. _
Pia Harris, with the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation,
second from left, and her mother, Adrian Williams, listen to speakers
at a reparations rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco on
Tuesday., VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Payments of $5 million to every eligible Black
adult, the elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, guaranteed
annual incomes of at least $97,000 for 250 years and homes in San
Francisco for just $1 a family.
These were some of the more than 100 recommendations made by a
city-appointed reparations committee tasked with the thorny question
of how to atone for centuries of slavery and systemic racism. And the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors hearing the report for the first
time Tuesday voiced enthusiastic support for the ideas listed, with
some saying money should not stop the city from doing the right thing.
Several supervisors said they were surprised to hear pushback from
politically liberal San Franciscans apparently unaware that the legacy
of slavery and racist policies continues to keep Black Americans on
the bottom rungs of health, education and economic prosperity,
and overrepresented in prisons
[[link removed]] and
homeless populations.
“Those of my constituents who lost their minds about this proposal,
it’s not something we’re doing or we would do for other people.
It’s something we would do for our future, for everybody’s
collective future,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district
includes the heavily LGBTQ Castro neighborhood.
The draft reparations plan, released in December, is unmatched
nationwide in its specificity and breadth. The committee hasn’t done
an analysis of the cost of the proposals, but critics have slammed the
plan as financially and politically impossible. An estimate from
Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which leans conservative,
has said it would cost each non-Black family in the city at least
$600,000.
Tuesday’s unanimous expressions of support for reparations by the
board do not mean all the recommendations will ultimately be adopted,
as the body can vote to approve, reject or change any or all of them.
A final committee report is due in June.
Some supervisors have said previously that the city can’t afford any
major reparations payments right now given its deep deficit amid a
tech industry downturn
[[link removed]].
[A crowd listens to speakers at a reparations rally outside of City
Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday.]
A crowd listens to speakers at a reparations rally outside of City
Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday. VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tinisch Hollins, vice-chair of the African American Reparations
Advisory Committee, alluded to those comments, and several people who
lined up to speak reminded the board they would be watching closely
what the supervisors do next.
“I don’t need to impress upon you the fact that we are setting a
national precedent here in San Francisco,” Hollins said. “What we
are asking for and what we’re demanding for is a real commitment to
what we need to move things forward.”
The idea of paying compensation for slavery has gained traction across
cities and universities. In 2020, California became the first state to
form a reparations task force and is still struggling to put a price
tag on what is owed
[[link removed]].
The idea has not been taken up at the federal level
[[link removed]].
In San Francisco, Black residents once made up more than 13% of the
city’s population, but more than 50 years later, they account for
less than 6% of the city’s residents — and 38% of its homeless
population. The Fillmore District once thrived with Black-owned night
clubs and shops until government redevelopment in the 1960s forced out
residents.
[Supervisor Shamann Walton speaks at a reparations rally outside of
City Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday.]
Supervisor Shamann Walton speaks at a reparations rally outside of
City Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday. VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fewer than 50,000 Black people still live in the city
[[link removed]],
and it’s not clear how many would be eligible. Possible criteria
include having lived in the city during certain time periods and
descending from someone “incarcerated for the failed War on
Drugs.”
Critics say the payouts make no sense in a state and city that never
enslaved Black people. Opponents generally say taxpayers who were
never slave owners should not have to pay money to people who were not
enslaved.
Advocates say that view ignores a wealth of data and historical
evidence showing that long after U.S. slavery officially ended in
1865, government policies and practices worked to imprison Black
people at higher rates, deny access to home and business loans and
restrict where they could work and live.
Justin Hansford, a professor at Howard University School of Law, says
no municipal reparations plan will have enough money to right the
wrongs of slavery, but he appreciates any attempts to “genuinely,
legitimately, authentically” make things right. And that includes
cash, he said.
[People react to speakers during a special Board of Supervisors
hearing about reparations in San Francisco on Tuesday.]
People react to speakers during a special Board of Supervisors hearing
about reparations in San Francisco on Tuesday. VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
“If you’re going to try to say you’re sorry, you have to speak
in the language that people understand, and money is that language,”
he said.
John Dennis, chair of the San Francisco Republican Party, does not
support reparations although he says he’d support a serious
conversation on the topic. He doesn’t consider the board’s
discussion of $5 million payments to be one.
“This conversation we’re having in San Francisco is completely
unserious. They just threw a number up, there’s no analysis,”
Dennis said. “It seems ridiculous, and it also seems that this is
the one city where it could possibly pass.”
The board created the 15-member reparations committee in late 2020,
months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a statewide task
force amid national turmoil
[[link removed]] after
a white Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, a Black man.
The committee continues to deliberate recommendations,
including monetary compensation
[[link removed]],
and its report is due to the Legislature on July 1. At that point it
will be up to lawmakers to draft and pass legislation.
The state panel made the controversial decision in March to
limit reparations to descendants of Black people who were
[[link removed]] in
the country in the 19th century. Some reparations advocates said that
approach does take into account the harms that Black immigrants
suffer.
Under San Francisco’s draft recommendation
[[link removed]],
a person would have to be at least 18 years old and have identified as
“Black/African American” in public documents for at least 10
years. Eligible people must also meet two of eight other criteria,
though the list may change.
Those criteria include being born in or migrating to San Francisco
between 1940 and 1996 and living in the city for least 13 years; being
displaced from the city by urban renewal between 1954 and 1973, or the
descendant of someone who was; attending the city’s public schools
before they were fully desegregated; or being a descendant of an
enslaved person.
The Chicago suburb of Evanston became the first U.S. city to fund
reparations
[[link removed]].
The city gave money to qualifying people for home repairs, down
payments and interest or late penalties due on property. In December,
the Boston City Council approved of a reparations
[[link removed]] study
task force.
* reparations
[[link removed]]
* San Francisco
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT
Submit via web
[[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]
Twitter [[link removed]]
Facebook [[link removed]]
[link removed]
To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]
