In California, calls for reparations are getting louder: A state task force just released an $800 billion estimate for reparations for Black state residents, while earlier this month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors expressed support for $5 million payments to every eligible Black adult in the county.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday supplied a fresh victory for advocates of the growing movement to compensate Black people for generations of systemic racism, with the board voting unanimously to create a committee that will study reparations for Black residents.
But the meeting also provided a look at just how ugly this fight could get.
Although all four supervisors offered support for the study, the level of vitriol expressed against the very concept of reparations showed that, at least in corners of the mostly blue Alameda County, the issue is deeply divisive.
Although a majority of residents stood in support of the measure, a vocal minority was vehemently opposed. Over the course of an hour-long public comment session, reparations was referred to as a “ponzi scheme,” a “robbery,” “an insult to the Black community,” “an insult to Martin Luther King, “Marxist”, a way to “monetize the victim mentality” and even a path to “further enslavement.”
“Reasonable people will disagree,” Supervisor Nate Miley, who is leading the push for reparations, said after the public comments concluded. “But I’ve got to say this: As an elected official, sometimes we have to listen to fools and idiots, unfortunately. We did have some of that today.”
Prior to the public comments, Supervisor Keith Carson laid out in vivid detail the importance of reparations for the Black community in what Miley described as a “mic drop” moment. He described how 400 years of slavery and prejudice have created a situation in which Black Americans face discrimination on many fronts — they have worse health outcomes, higher percentages of unhoused people and lower pay than white Americans, among many other examples.
“We live under the shadow of slavery,” Carson said. “It wasn’t 150 years ago, it wasn’t 200 years ago — it continues to persist today.”
The vote came the day before members of a first-of-its-kind state task force discussed an estimate that reparations for Black residents could cost California more than $800 billion. That number dwarfs the state’s annual budget and calls into question how such a program could ever actually be funded.
Supervisor Miley, in an interview after the board’s vote, said he doesn’t believe cash payments are the most effective way to provide reparations to the Black community.
“Quite frankly I think that’s not the lowest hanging fruit,” Miley said. “My feeling is, trying to get a check in the hands of African Americans is going to be a steep hill to climb.”
Polling on the issue indicates there is less public support for cash restitution, so finding consensus on the issue means it will likely take other forms, Miley said. In a previous interview, Miley cited property tax credits, funding of educational opportunities and the return of property as alternatives to cash payments.
The county’s committee is expected to be assembled by July 1. After that, they’ll spend a year developing recommendations for the Board of Supervisors to consider. Those recommendations will then be discussed and put up to voters. When that happens, it’s likely the same criticism will reappear. It may be even louder.
“I don’t think we’re going to eliminate all opposition,” Miley said. “I’d love for that to happen. But as a philosophy, I know we’re living in the world as it is, not the world as it should be.”
“We’ll never get to a place where we have universal understanding, but I think we can get further along this continuum.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com