San Francisco’s panel on reparations explained on Tuesday how it came to its recent recommendation that qualifying Black residents should receive $5 million each.
The city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee unveiled its recommendation in January, arguing that the city owed compensation to Black residents for decades of discrimination. The committee’s chair, consultant Eric McDonnell, now says the $5 million number came as a result of a “journey” rather than a “math formula.”
“There wasn’t a math formula,” McDonnell told The Washington Post. “It was a journey for the committee towards what could represent a significant enough investment in families to put them on this path to economic well-being, growth and vitality that chattel slavery and all the policies that flowed from it destroyed.”
While slavery was never legal in San Francisco, reparations activists say the city imposed decades of racist policies that economically harmed Black residents.
City supervisors say the proposal is unrealistic given the city’s budget, however. While not all the city’s 50,000 Black residents would qualify for the full $5 million payment, the expense would nevertheless be untenable.
“I wish we had this kind of money in San Francisco’s general fund but if we want to maintain the services that exist today, we do not,” San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen told The San Francisco Chronicle last month.
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Another official, Supervisor Shamann Walton, told the newspaper that some San Franciscans had suggested using revenue brought in by the city’s Cannabis Business Tax to help fund reparations. That tax, which had been suspended for years, and was recommended for another suspension through 2025, would not come even close to covering it. The San Francisco Standard reported that, according to the city’s budget office, the tax would only raise about $10.25 million annually.
In addition to the $5 million payments, the proposal also called for debt forgiveness. To be eligible for the proposed program, an applicant must be 18 years old and have identified as Black or African American on public documents for at least 10 years.
They must also prove at least two of eight additional criteria, choosing from a list that includes, “Born in San Francisco between 1940 and 1996 and has proof of residency in San Francisco for at least 13 years,” and/or, “Personally, or the direct descendant of someone, incarcerated by the failed War on Drugs.”
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.