San Francisco’s $5m reparations for black residents. By Adam Creighton.
A proposal to pay $US5m ($7.2m) each to black American in San Francisco as compensation for slavery and “systematic repression”, a move that would cost more than $US50bn ($72bn), has drawn harsh criticism from leading black politicians.
The reparations committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, in a lengthy document that could influence future reparations debates in Australia, has proposed to wipe all debts, provide an annual stipend of $US97,000 ($139,000) for the next 250 years, and bestow a one off lump sum of $US5m to each individual eligible.
“While neither San Francisco, nor California, formally adopted the institution of chattel slavery, the tenets of segregation, white supremacy and systematic repression and exclusion of black people were codified through legal and extra-legal actions, social codes, and judicial enforcement,” the draft, dated December, stated.
“San Francisco’s international reputation as a shining progressive gem in the west is undermined by its legacy of mistreatment, violence towards, and targeted racism against Black Americans,” it added.
Eligible residents would need to have claimed African American heritage for at least 10 years and satisfy at least two of eight other criteria, including being “personally or the direct descendant of someone, incarcerated by the failed War on Drugs” or being a “descendant of someone enslaved through US chattel slavery before 1865.” …
Well that act of exuberant racism is really going to raise the bar for anti-white politics. How will Australia respond?
Details of the Australian government’s voice proposal, to be put to a referendum later this year, remain as yet undefined, but could culminate in demands for similar reparations to indigenous Australians based on the argument British settlers stole their land in the 18th century without compensation.
All in the name of anti-racism.
Btw, California and Australia are two of a rather small number of places that have never had slavery.
