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Madison Alvarado\/San Francisco Public Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tinisch Hollins, with a copy of the draft reparations report, is one of 15 members of San Francisco\u2019s Reparations Advisory Committee, which has been meeting on a regular basis for the past two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
07.10.2023 (SFPublicPress.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0|\u00a0by\u00a0\u00a0MADISON ALVARADO<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0|\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Just over a week after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in college admissions, San Francisco took a major step in the other direction by advancing a plan to repair historical harms by the government against Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After dozens of meetings over two years, the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee released its final recommendations<\/a> to the Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond policy ideas in a December 2022 draft report<\/a> such as $5 million cash payments to qualifying Black San Franciscans, the committee added dozens of new recommendations such as the creation of a \u201cBlack card\u201d program offering free access to city services and discounts at businesses. The proposal would also further shake up politics, adding two Board of Supervisors appointees to the Police Commission, including someone who has been incarcerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final plan altered qualifications for reparations programs. For example, now participants have only to prove one \u201charm\u201d to be eligible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the \u201cwhat\u201d of the recommendations did not change as much as the \u201cwhy.\u201d The authors added much detail to their analysis, expanding discussion of injustices committed by government and private actors against Black San Franciscans, growing the report from a 60-page draft to almost 400 pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It takes pains to point out a precedent for local reparations: compensation by federal and San Francisco governments for Japanese Americans imprisoned during World War II. The movement for Black reparations gained momentum in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minneapolis police in May 2020, and was accelerated by racial disparities in the effects of the coronavirus pandemic<\/a>. In San Francisco, reparations advocates, such as the local NAACP branch, had long denounced discrimination in housing, economic opportunity, disparities in health outcomes for Black residents. They also pointed to disparities in education outcomes \u2014 a greater challenge now than before the Supreme Court signaled a further curtailment of affirmative action nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe court\u2019s ruling,\u201d observed James Lance Taylor, a professor of political science at the University of San Francisco who sits on the Reparations Advisory Committee, \u201csaid \u2018No, we want to go back to old America.\u2019 And reparations is saying, \u2018We don\u2019t want to be broken anymore as a people, we want to go into the rest of the 21st century somewhat whole.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The committee\u2019s draft plan drew national attention by advocating for the $5 million payments, as well as other policies<\/a> such as selling public housing units for $1 each, establishing a historically Black college or university campus in the city, building neighborhood health clinics in African American neighborhoods and supporting Black cultural institutions. These provisions remain in the final version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Board of Supervisors plans to hold a public meeting on Sept. 19 to discuss the final plan\u2019s ideas, including presentations from several reparations committee members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though critics question the need for reparations in a city where slavery was not formally adopted, the report notes: \u201cThe tenets of segregation, white supremacy, separatism, and the systematic repression and exclusion of Black people from the city\u2019s economy were codified through legal and extralegal actions, social codes, and judicial enforcement. The legacies of these actions bear true to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The local report comes on the heels of a parallel effort in Sacramento. The California State Reparations Task Force on June 29 submitted its findings<\/a> for consideration by the Legislature. Recommendations include a formal apology for \u201cgross\u201d human rights violations against enslaved African people and their descendants, cash payments, restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people, tax relief for Black families in neighborhoods where the government participated in discriminatory lending, a K-12 Black curriculum, and eliminating toxic waste near federally assisted housing and other areas with high concentrations of African Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On June 29, several San Francisco supervisors reached an agreement with Breed to include $4 million in the city\u2019s two-year budget for an Office of Reparations. That sum was a far cry from the $50 million that Supervisor Shamann Walton, who proposed the reparations committee, advocated in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walton told the San Francisco Examiner<\/a> he was \u201cdefinitely disappointed we didn\u2019t get $50 million, definitely disappointed we didn\u2019t get $10 million, but most certainly positive and optimistic that we\u2019re moving forward and there will be a positive outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taylor said $4 million was \u201cnot a small amount of money\u201d and expressed guarded optimism that reparations would move forward with an office. \u201cI\u2019m encouraged because of recent developments, but we\u2019re still up against the tide and have a long way to go and a lot of people to, you know, to meet and persuade,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A June 5 San Francisco Budget and Legislative Analyst report<\/a> estimated that the office would require $1.6 million over two years for administration. The office could use remaining funds to search for eligible applicants, develop policy proposals, create pilot programs and set investment criteria. But more funds would be needed for bigger goals, such as cash payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though the funds have been secured, Breed \u201chas not agreed\u201d<\/a> to allow her administration to spend the money, mayoral spokesperson Jeff Cretan told the San Francisco Chronicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an email to the Public Press, the mayor\u2019s office wrote that Breed believes reparations, including cash payments, is an issue best handled on the national level. However, \u201cwe are always interested in reforming local policies to address systemic issues that impact our communities, including the African-American community,\u201d her office wrote. \u201cWe will be reviewing the report to understand what is included, and will work to implement policies and programs that deliver on that commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full board must vote twice to finalize the budget before Breed signs it by August. The board unanimously endorsed the draft reparations plan in March in a nonbinding vote, but its recommendations can still be amended or set aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To qualify for reparations, applicants must meet criteria the board recently amended in part to align with language in the California State Reparations Task Force\u2019s report<\/a>. Participants must be either African American descendants of an enslaved person, descendants of a free Black person prior to the 20th century, or have identified as Black or African American on public documents for 10 years. They must also be over 18 and have been born in or migrated to San Francisco before 2006, with 10 years of residency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan requires participants to have suffered harm, and several examples were added to the list and others clarified. Additions include documented injury by law enforcement, lending discrimination and substandard living conditions in public or subsidized housing. Instead of proving two harms as in the draft plan, participants now need prove only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four subcommittees of the Reparations Advisory Committee added dozens of new recommendations in the past six months, as well as historical discussion and contemporary study findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Policy additions include a Black legal defense fund to help city workers facing discrimination, a genealogy testing fund and housing opportunities for Black seniors and LGBTQ+ people. Another suggestion: using money from cannabis taxes and restitution from drug-related class action lawsuits<\/a> to fund Black businesses, education and homeownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final report cites findings by several academic and governmental groups. A Law and Policy Lab report<\/a> from Stanford Law School details disinvestment in San Francisco\u2019s African American community between 1970 and 2022. An independent reviewer from Stanford University documented barriers in the city\u2019s recruiting, hiring and advancement of Black workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also included are a community-led oral history guide from students at Stanford Law School, findings from interviews and focus groups<\/a> by students at the University of San Francisco and a socio-spatial analysis of Black San Francisco and a survey analysis by Kerby Lynch, senior program manager for Ceres Policy Research, a policy-oriented research group focused on alternatives to the current justice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report acknowledges that the movement will need backing from the community and elected officials. State residents \u201cexpress significant support for reparations measures for eligible Black Californians,\u201d though it varies by characteristics like race and age, according to a study<\/a> from the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. The survey shows that 87% Black Californians support cash payments, while only 47% of white people and 46% of Asian Americans do. Overall, cash payments attracted the least support \u2014 63% \u2014 of any of the provisions surveyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But advocates note that many ideas once considered radical have come to fruition. \u201cMomentum is in our favor,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI\u2019m most proud that we have inspired people to believe that this is theirs, that they deserve it. It is not welfare, it is not affirmative action, it is not Black begging. It is the result of actual harm that the state did to them as a population.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Madison Alvarado is a reporter based in San Francisco who is interested in California’s housing crisis, environmental justice and structural inequities. In addition to her reporting on public housing and rent relief at the Public Press, she has covered issues related to the coronavirus pandemic, housing and city government for San Francisco news site Mission Local.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With $4 million secured to manage the program, supervisors will now consider cash payments, investment in African American neighborhoods and a wide range of other proposals Madison Alvarado\/San Francisco Public Press Tinisch Hollins, with a copy of the draft reparations report, is one of 15 members of San Francisco\u2019s Reparations… Continue reading Committing Resources<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Question of Eligibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Additional Policies and Findings<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
ABOUT MADISON ALVARADO<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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