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San Francisco is discussing reparations proposals, but they're a long way off
While many cheered the possibility of a huge financial windfall for the city's
Black residents, one civil rights leader says the proposal is a distraction from
tangible efforts to redress racism.


RACE


SAN FRANCISCO WILL DISCUSS REPARATION PROPOSALS — BUT EVEN SUPPORTERS ARE SPLIT

March 18, 20236:00 AM ET

Vanessa Romo

Enlarge this image

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which meets at City Hall, accepted a
draft plan of more than 100 recommendations for reparations to eligible Black
residents. But the move was largely procedural and doesn't bind the city to any
of the proposals. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images


The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which meets at City Hall, accepted a
draft plan of more than 100 recommendations for reparations to eligible Black
residents. But the move was largely procedural and doesn't bind the city to any
of the proposals.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors have signaled they're ready to right racist
wrongs of the past — at least in spirit.

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the 11 members accepted a draft plan of more
than 100 reparations recommendations for the city's eligible Black residents.
Those proposals include a whopping one-time payment of $5 million to each adult
and a complete clearing of personal debt — including credit cards, taxes and
student loans. Black residents would also be able to collect an annual income of
at least $97,000 for 250 years and buy homes within the city limits for $1.

The move by the board was largely procedural – an intermediate step in a much
longer process. It does not bind the city to any of the ideas presented in the
60-page proposal by the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory
Committee, which in 2020 was tasked with addressing "the institutional, City
sanctioned harm that has been inflicted upon African American communities."

"We are not here today to say what recommendations we will be supporting or
moving forward with. There is still much work that needs to be done," the bill's
sponsor, Shamann Walton, stipulated before the vote during the 7 1/2-hour
meeting.

Sponsor Message



A final report that includes feedback from the Board of Supervisors is due in
June. The board is set to meet again on the issue in September.

Still, the vote was met with fanfare by residents and the large cash payout made
national headlines. But some longtime civil rights and reparations activists
were critical of the board and the committee's financial restitution figures,
calling it political theatrics designed to delay meaningful change.


SOME ACTIVISTS CRITICIZE THE PLAN AS UNREALISTIC

"This Black community does not need to be set up for trickery and for failure.
Their hopes should not be raised up by just words, words, words," Rev. Amos
Brown told NPR a day after the meeting.


RACE


HOW CAN CALIFORNIA PROVIDE REPARATIONS? A NEW REPORT SUGGESTS SEVERAL WAYS

In addition to being a lead pastor at Third Baptist San Francisco, the city's
oldest Black church, Brown is president of the San Francisco NAACP. He said he's
"been in the civil rights struggle for 68 years" and learned from Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.

Frustrated and fuming, Brown noted that he had urged the board to reject the $5
million payment proposal ahead of the meeting.

To be clear, Brown said he expects monetary restitution to be part of any
reparations package by the city, the state and the federal government. But
first, he said, officials must focus on the future and the best path forward
toward equality and justice. For Brown, that means investing in housing,
education, healthcare, economic empowerment and cultural centers for San
Francisco's dwindling Black community.



At its peak in the 1970s, African Americans made up about 13.5% of the city's
population. As of 2022, the number dropped to 5.7%. That makes it one of the
biggest cities in the nation with one of the lowest shares of black residents.

"There should be deliberate action to stop the hemorrhaging of this black
population if we want to have any Black people left to give reparations to,"
Brown said.

Brown also noted the city's budget deficit. "They know there's no money to pay
for it," Brown said. "So all they did was just give lip service. It's not fair.
It's not honest."

By voting to accept the proposal without any indication of how they'd fund it,
politicians get to have it both ways, according to Brown.

"They offer low hanging fruit that seems like a victory but you know will only
[lead to] more studies. And that's another game. Another delaying tactic. That
gets people frustrated until things dissipate and then self-destruct. We've got
to stop that. It's time for America to pay up and deal in substance, with
integrity and with accountability," Brown said.

During Tuesday's meeting, one of the plan's authors explained that the
"committee was not charged to conduct a feasibility study. The charge was to
chronicle the harm and determine the value."


RACE


ILLINOIS CITY'S FIRST-IN-THE-NATION REPARATIONS PROGRAM DRAWS COMPLICATED
REACTIONS


NATIONAL


11 U.S. MAYORS COMMIT TO DEVELOPING PILOT PROJECTS FOR REPARATIONS


OTHERS BELIEVE THE PROPOSALS ARE AN IMPORTANT FIRST STEP TOWARD JUSTICE

Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies race and
structural inequality, has written about the government's obligation to pay
reparations. He disagrees with the idea that San Francisco's big ticket items
are a red herring.

"That argument of whether or not this is a distraction or not doesn't
necessarily hold up to me because in so many instances, I hear people say that
very serious ideas around reparations are fantastical or foolhardy. So I don't
necessarily jump when I hear a big number anymore because people often make the
same arguments to very rigorous analysis," Perry told NPR.



"Just the idea of reparations is impossible for many."

Perry hasn't yet read through the details of the San Francisco draft proposal.
But he said most often the experts drafting plans that include large cash sums
are "acknowledging the depth of discrimination and the collective economic
impact that many different discriminatory policies can have on a person over a
course of not only their lifetime, but their family's lifetime."

So even when it may appear to be next to impossible for any one municipality to
pay that sum out, it is imperative to have a record of that assessment, he
added.

He acknowledges that Brown's concerns are grounded in lessons from the failures
of other efforts by the federal government and municipalities.

"In a place like San Francisco, you have largely what is, and I'll put this in
air quotes, a progressive city in a quote-unquote 'progressive state.' And so
much of what can be presented can be just placating to the fantasies of a
progressive left as theater," Perry said. "And that doesn't do anyone a
service."

But Black communities seeking justice can't operate from a place of fear, he
said.

Other groups of people have succeeded in creating systems of redress for
egregious injustices. In the U.S., Native Americans have received land and
billions of dollars for being forcibly exiled from their lands. Japanese
Americans incarcerated during World War II were eventually paid $1.5 billion in
restitution. And the American government played an instrumental role in ensuring
that Jews received reparations for the Holocaust.

If the proposal in San Francisco advances, it will join other cities in taking a
first step towards some form of local, state and federal reparations, Perry
said.

"Exclusive, discriminatory policies did not start in Washington. They started in
local municipalities," he explained. 'Things like redlining started in
Baltimore, and they were eventually codified by the federal government. But they
started locally. So it's important that local governments also start to develop
their reparative policies that will work their way up to Washington, D.C."

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