Black residents of San Francisco, California, have received an official apology from the city for decades of institutionalized racism.
Following a unanimous vote by all eleven board members, the city supervisors formally apologized on Tuesday through a resolution.
City policies that made it harder for black people to build wealth that would last generations were all brought up in the resolution. Eleven of the board members voiced their hope that this resolution would be the first step toward restitution for the city’s black citizens.
The one black board member, Walton, acknowledged that much work remains but saw the apology as a positive development.
The city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee presented a list of recommendations last year, and an apology was issued in response to those suggestions.
In addition to a formal apology, the proposals called for guaranteeing nearly $100,000 in yearly income for each individual and a one-time payment of $5 million to all adults who qualified.
The resolution draws its model from the nine states that have made comparable apologies for slavery in the past. Boston, another American city that has formally apologized for past racial acts by its administration and police force, is also compared.
Even though slavery was never officially sanctioned in San Francisco, reparations organizers contend that the city’s long history of discriminatory laws had a devastating effect on the economic well-being of black inhabitants.
The public apology is the first step in implementing over a hundred recommendations by the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee. On top of that, it’s the most cost-effective choice.
As stated in previous articles, the original estimate for the amount that San Francisco would pay out to eligible black residents was more than $100 billion. In light of the projected budget shortfall in 2024, Democrat Mayor London Breed has cut the Office of Reparations. But with the city’s economic woes and internal strife, the exorbitant price tag was seen as too much.
The African American Reparations Advisory Committee’s chair, Eric McDonnell, admitted that raising money for the payments was not a top priority for the group. He said they weren’t planning on assessing their mission’s feasibility.
