$5 Million per Black Resident Not Enough Reparations for San Francisco Despite Never Having Slavery

There was a lot of eye-rolling in the nation after a San Francisco advisory board recommended five million dollars worth of reparation payments to qualifying Black residents. Talk of absurd sums of money for residents in a state which never had slavery seems to be another sign that progressive movements have lost their minds. The proposed figure is not supported by everyone in the City of the Bay, even the person who wrote the legislation that created the committee. Supervisor Shamann Walton National Review: This week, that five million dollars isn’t nearly enough. He may not have enough money to adequately address any complaints.

A San Francisco advisory committee’s recommendation that the city pay out Heavy reparations to the city’s longtime black residents does not go far enough toward making things right, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors told National Review Tuesday

Supervisor Shamann Walton wrote the legislation that created the committee two-years ago and stated that the $5 million per person that was proposed is in fact. “much less than a lot of the projections that people say black people should receive for reparations here in the United States.”

“You can Google a lot of the reparations work that has been done and look at the monetary formulas that people have put together and most certainly the 5 million is a very minuscule number compared to a lot of research that has been done over the past couple of decades, quite frankly,” said Walton, who has represented the city’s 10th district since 2019 and previously served as board president.

A lump sum payment of five millions dollars would then be appropriate. “very minuscule number” in Mr. Walton’s opinion. This would be a payment that is entirely funded by people who have never owned slaves and people who have never been enslaved or lived in a state where slavery was not legal. He then tries to get around this part of the argument.

It’s quite simple. He claims that this really isn’t about slavery. When asked why the payments were made, he replied that he didn’t believe slavery was involved. “taking someone from their country, raping and pillaging their communities, not allowing them the chance to reproduce.” This sounds very much like slavery to me. However, he claims that Black families are found in San Francisco. “were not allowed to be taught,” While still having to pay taxes in order to fund “the education of white children.” Is there anyone who is alive today that lived in a time when Black students were not allowed into a city’s schools?

Even if reparation payment caps were set at “only” The entire proposal is laughable, at five million dollars each. As noted in the linked report, if only half of the city’s Black residents qualified for the proposed reparations, the total bill for the city would come to more than $112 billion. San Francisco’s entire budget for the year is $14 billion. In fact, the reparations would add up to more than one-third of the entire state’s annual budget.

Although the idea of reparations is absurd, it would make sense if it was to be beneficial to historically financially disadvantaged communities. This plan would see approximately 20,000 people receive a five-million dollar check, which they would undoubtedly enjoy greatly. They would be forced to live in a city with no services and that is bankrupt. Everyone who was able to move would do so, leaving behind a ghost city.

Is this the left’s idea of what “social justice” What was it supposed to look? I think it could qualify at least as one type. “equality,” Since everyone would end up being equally poor. But for some of these activists, perhaps that’s the endgame in their version of the American dream.

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