The San Francisco supervisors are considering paying reparations to Black residents, and I'm all for it.
Reparations are one of those hotbed issues that provoke an instant negative response in some people. It's a knee-jerk reaction to the idea that anyone is entitled to cash for crimes against their ancestors or is required to pay cash for crimes they didn't commit. Let's not pretend like those who feel this way are entirely unjustified; telling a white person, "We're going to take your tax dollars and hand it over to your Black neighbor for things that happened before either of you were born," feels categorically unfair.
But it's the right thing to do.
Let's look at the case of San Francisco. Black people made up 13.4% of the population in 1970. Today, that number is under 6%. Why is that? Because the city of San Francisco kicked Black people out of their homes, as urban renewal projects in traditionally Black neighborhoods like the Fillmore uprooted thousands of households.
We see our homes first and foremost as dwellings because they're, well, homes. That's what they're built to do. But they're piggy banks just as much as they are dwellings. Every time you make a mortgage payment, you're putting that money into a piggy bank, which will eventually be cracked open again when you sell the home. You'll get most (if not all) of that money back. Every time you rent, you're burning cash. That cash is never coming back. It's no surprise that homeowners have almost 3x the net worth of renters on average.
So when the city of San Francisco forced Black residents out of their homes in the 1960s and 1970s, what it effectively did was steal their multi-million-dollar piggy banks. That's a crime. This lack of homeownership among Black Americans, which can be tied directly back to housing discrimination in the mid-20th century, is one of the primary reasons the average net worth of a white household is nearing $1 million while that for a Black household is under $200,000.
Now, who qualifies for these San Francisco reparations? It's a bit more complex than this, but at a high-level, it's Black San Franciscans who were displaced or are descendants of people displaced during one of these urban renewal projects. In essence, you qualify if either you had your piggy bank stolen or if your parents or grandparents had their piggy bank stolen.
These people deserve their money back.
Do I think the $5 million payment per person might be a bit high? Yes — I think something closer to $1.5 million would be more reasonable since that's around the median price of a home in San Francisco today. Do I think these payments should go to all residents who were involuntarily displaced and not just Black residents? Yes. But those details will continue to evolve through debate. It doesn't take away from the fact that this idea as a whole makes sense. It's correcting for past harms the government directly caused that directly impact the financial stability of some Black residents today, and I'm happy San Francisco is confronting this issue head-on.
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