Frustration and disappointment with the Democratic Party are at generational highs, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ quixotic effort to provide reparations for black Americans is a case study that illustrates why.
Almost three years ago, the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee released its first report, recommending that the city give $5 million to every eligible black adult, guarantee $97,000 in annual free income to the city after that, and allow eligible recipients to buy homes in the city for just $1.
Eligible recipients have to be at least 18 years old, born in or migrated to San Francisco before 2006, and have “identified as Black/African American on public documents for at least 10 years.” No need to prove any relationship with actual slaves. The committee did require proof of other alleged harms, however, including displacement by San Francisco Redevelopment Agency between the years 1954 and 1973, prosecution or conviction of a drug crime during “the failed War on Drugs,” any physical or psychological harm from interacting with law enforcement, or “any individual who experienced lending discrimination in San Francisco between 1937 and 1968.”…