San Francisco Council President Shamann Walton
California was never a slave state, but the San Francisco “Reparations Committee” is proposing to pay each longtime black resident $5 million and grant them total debt forgiveness for suffering decades of “systemic repression.”
“While neither San Francisco, nor California, formally adopted the institution of chattel slavery, the tenets of segregation, white supremacy and systematic repression and exclusion of Black people were codified through legal and extralegal actions, social codes, and judicial enforcement,” the proposed draft says.
“A lump sum payment would compensate the affected population for the decades of harms that they have experienced, and will redress the economic and opportunity losses that Black San Franciscans have endured, collectively, as the result of both intentional decisions and unintended harms perpetuated by City policy,” the draft says.
The committee is also proposing the debt forgiveness plan because “Black households are more likely to hold costlier, riskier debt, and are more likely to have outstanding student loan debt.”
The reparations committee is also planning to supplement lower-income blacks so they can afford housing.
“Racial disparities across all metrics have led to a significant racial wealth gap in the City of San Francisco,” the draft says. “By elevating income to match AMI, Black people can better afford housing and achieve a better quality of life.”
San Francisco Council President Shamann Walton says the millions of dollars in reparations, debt forgiveness and supplemental income is not enough.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors met on Tuesday to review the committee’s plans to pay reparations to black residents.
“An estimated 50,000 Black people live in San Francisco, but it’s unclear who among them would be eligible for reparations. Under the committee’s draft reparations plan, a person must be at least 18 years old and identified as “Black/African American” in public documents for at least 10 years. Eligible people must also meet two of eight other criteria, such as living in San Francisco during a certain time period or descending from someone incarcerated for the police war on drugs.” Fox News reported.
The Board of Supervisors will vote to accept all or parts of the reparations committee’s recommendations.
Fox News reported:
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is meeting Tuesday to review a proposal to dole out $5 million each to qualifying Black residents in reparations as a way to make amends for slavery.
At the board meeting, the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee will present the controversial idea, along with dozens of other recommendations from its draft reparations plan released in December.
The other recommendations range from offering grants to buy and maintain homes to exempting Black businesses from paying taxes. But the $5 million lump-sum payment has garnered the most attention — and controversy.
The Board of Supervisors can vote to adopt all, none, or some of the committee’s recommendations and even change them. Tuesday’s hearing was originally scheduled for last month but was postponed.