While San Francisco-area banks like Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic are reeling from the consequences of their bad management decisions that prioritized woke policies over sound banking principles, the City of San Francisco is considering a proposal that would give a $5 million lump sum payment to each eligible black resident of the city and county.
The proposal, originally recommended to be drafted in 2019 by the San Francisco chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to the Board of Supervisors, says the City and County of San Francisco should pay the debt it owes to black residents for “generations of disinvestment and displacement.” Subsequently, the draft of the plan was completed by San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee and was prepared by the Human Rights Commission.
Board of Supervisors President Shamann Walton introduced a resolution supporting the creation of a San Francisco Reparations Plan, and the Board of Supervisors approved the plan.
“This prescient resolution was adopted in August 2020, in the same year as a litany of events that would change national reparations discussions, namely the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests following the police murder of George Floyd by in Minneapolis, Minnesota. These events brought nationwide attention to the ways in which city and state actors have historically played a role in driving institutional anti-Black racism at a systemic and policy level. In addition to shining a light on the way that disproportionate policing impacts Black communities and how global health events had disproportionately fatal outcomes for Black people, 2020 illuminated other ways that government agencies have either passively or actively contributed to unjustifiable socioeconomic, health and educational disparities along racial lines,” according to the draft recommendation.
Over the course of a two-year term, the 15-member committee was tasked with developing a San Francisco Reparations Plan that addresses the “institutional, City-sanctioned harm that has been inflicted upon African American communities in San Francisco. The legislation specifically prioritizes improving education, housing, workforce development, economic opportunities, financial stability, small businesses, transit access and food security while reducing violence, health disparities and over-criminalization experienced in our city’s Black communities.”
The committee was made up of:
Seat 1: An individual who works for a media outlet that principally serves the African American community, is a storyteller of African American stories, or is a historian with expertise in African American history.
Seat 2: An individual who has been displaced from San Francisco due to gentrification (residency in San Francisco not required).
Seat 3: An individual with expertise in private equity, venture capital, or fundraising in the financial industry.
Seat 4: An individual who is 65 years of age or older and who has lived in a predominantly African American community.
Seat 5: An individual who has been incarcerated.
Seat 6: An individual who has experienced discrimination in the workplace.
Seat 7: An individual who has experienced or is experiencing homelessness.
Seat 8: An individual with expertise in the impact of redevelopment activities in the Fillmore District and the Western Addition on Black communities.
Seat 9: An individual with experience as a small business owner principally serving the African American community.
Seat 10: A person who is employed by or in a leadership position in a charitable, social service, or religious organization principally serving the African-American community.
Seat 11: A person who works in the technology industry with experience in the field of technological equity.
Seat 12: A person who is between the ages of 14 and 24, inclusive, with experience working with community groups serving the African American community.
Seat 13: A person representing the sectors served by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (construction, building and trades, hospitality, and medical sectors) with experience working in predominantly African American communities.
Seat 14: An individual with experience as a parent or caregiver of a child or children experiencing barriers to or disparate treatment in education.
Seat 15: An individual who has lived or is currently living in public housing.
The reparations report can be accessed at this link.
