Black woman wearing colorful coat by Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, USA
Updated 3/18/23 at 8:00am ET
This isn’t an exercise: San Francisco is taking serious steps towards redress, and the payout could be huge — about $5 million per person.
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On Tuesday, members of the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee presented their draft reparations proposal to the city’s board of directors.
The board unanimously approved the draft plan, which includes a list of 100 recommendations ranging from offering homeownership grants to black residents to providing a $5 million lump sum.
But before we rush out and plan a move to San Francisco, it’s worth diving into the details. First and foremost, the board has time to reject or change some or all of the recommendations of the indemnity committee.
It’s also worth noting that under none of these plans would all blacks currently residing in San Francisco be eligible. The criteria the committee established included length of stay in the city and being a victim or descendant of a victim of the Drug War.
Of course, the plan has some serious opponents who argue the city can’t afford reparations. Others argued that California was technically one of the “free states” and should be exempt. However, if you dig a little, you’ll find that slavery certainly existed in California.
Eric McDonnell, chair of the Reparations Committee, did not hold back when discussing criticisms of the plan: “There’s still a veiled perspective that frankly, black people don’t deserve this. The number itself, $5 million, is actually low considering the damage.”
The fight for reparations across the country
San Francisco isn’t the only place looking for reparations. The Boston City Council voted unanimously to create a task force in December to deal with reparations.
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The economic disparities between black and white Bostonians are pretty bad. The median net worth for black Bostonians in 2015 was $8 compared to $247,500 for the average white family. And the new task force will examine how decades of slavery, discrimination and prejudice got history to where it is today and what reparations could do to fix it.
Detroit, Michigan also joined the reparations train to form its own task force. In Amherst, Massachusetts, the city council voted to provide a total of $2 million in reparations over the next decade.
It seems unlikely that black residents of San Francisco or any of those cities will see $5 million in their bank accounts anytime soon. But the demand for reparations has undoubtedly come a long way in recent years.
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