Black attorneys have criticized San Francisco’s Reparations Committee for its proposal to give every longtime black resident a $5 million summer payout.
Leo Terrell and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder called the proposal “outrageous, unconstitutional and unlawful” and even racist in an interview with Fox News’ Hannity Monday night — and vowed to fight it.
They wanted to know who will fund the big payout – which is estimated to cost the city at least $50 billion – and discovered that California was never a slave state.
But the awakened city is already preparing to move forward with the proposal, with the Redress Committee saying it will present the plan to the Mayor of London Breed, the San Francisco Board of Directors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June.
Black lawyers in an interview Monday night in Hannity criticized San Francisco’s proposal to provide $5 million for every black resident as racist
Under the proposal announced Monday, anyone who has identified as Black in public records for at least 10 years and is at least 18 years old qualifies for the $5 million payout.
They must also qualify for two of several requirements, including being born or immigrated to the city between 1940 and 1996 and then having lived there for 13 years.
But the $5 million payout is just the beginning of the draft’s proposals.
It would also include a lump sum payment to “compensate the affected population for the decades of damage they have suffered and will compensate for the economic and opportunity losses suffered collectively by Black San Franciscans as a result of both intentional and unintentional damages.” ‘which are perpetuated by the city’s politics.’
The proposal also says that the income of skilled low-income households should be increased to the city’s median income — $97,000 in 2022 — for the next 250 years.
And black residents who qualify for the program can have their debts forgiven, including their housing and student loans.
A number of other proposals include investment in San Francisco’s black community, financial education, legal protections for people’s reparations, tax credits, and the involvement of black-owned banks to manage people’s money.
The proposal states that San Francisco must “issue a formal apology for past damages and commit to making significant ongoing, systemic and programmatic investments in black communities to repair historical damages.”
However, Terrell and Elder say the plan is racist — they would use taxpayer money to provide blacks with resources unavailable to residents of other races.
As Elder put it, “Reparation is the taking of money from people who never owned slaves to people who never owned slaves.”
Fox News staffer Terrell vowed to fight the proposed measure.
“It will never be implemented,” he told innkeeper Pete Hegseth. “I will be the first lawyer to fight against it.”
He continued: “This is outrageous. It’s unlawful. It’s unconstitutional. It’s racist. But it’s no surprise that it arrived from California on the day of MLK’s birthday.
Leo Terrell, a Fox News contributor, vowed to fight the proposal, which he called “outrageous, unconstitutional and unlawful.”
Both he and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder have criticized the proposal as racist and said Democrats were playing the “race card.”
“We’re talking about a racist program for people who happen to be black — $5 million,” Terrell said, noting, “California was a free state.
“Who will pay for this?” he asked. “Why should they get $5 million? Because of the skin color? It’s offensive.’
Elder, who was running for governor in 2021, also noted that California was never a slave state and San Francisco was never a slave city.
“Moreover, slavery was a democratic institution. Why aren’t the Democrats paying?’ he asked rhetorically. “Jim Crow was a democratic institution. Why aren’t the Democrats paying?’
He further claimed that “very few Republicans owned slaves” and questioned why Republicans “should pay a dime.”
‘The whole thing is absolutely insulting.’
Both attorneys accused the responsible Democrats in the woke city of “playing the racing card,” with Terrell saying, “You have to keep black people on the government payroll because without black people there is no Democratic Party.”
“They have a problem with the race card and they will never let go of that card,” he said.
“There is no systemic racism in this country,” he claimed. “That’s something in 1955. In 2023 we don’t have institutional racism.
“But you can’t do that to a Democrat.”
The proposal was put together by the Advisory Committee on African American Reparations in San Francisco, chaired by Eric McDonnell
A red card quoted in the proposal. The map was created for banks to assess the safety of loans granted to residents of specific neighborhoods. The supposedly riskiest – the red zones – were black neighborhoods
Supporters of the proposal say there is a need to right the wrongs of previous generations that still affect black communities today.
In a draft report released last month, the San Francisco Reparations Advisory Committee said the proposal will “address the public policies expressly created to subjugate blacks in San Francisco by upholding the intent and legacy of slavery and… be expanded.
“While neither San Francisco nor California instituted the institution of body slavery, the tenets of segregation, white supremacy, and systemic oppression and exclusion of black people have been codified through legal and extra-legal measures, social codes, and judicial enforcement.”
The proposal also cites a number of city initiatives from decades past that studies have shown were racially motivated and had a debilitating impact on black communities.
Some were as simple as early legal restrictions on where black people lived in the city and what types of jobs they could hold.
Others have been as far-reaching as citywide zoning measures that have effectively marginalized black communities in ghettos or completely leveled them and left them empty for years.
The proposal will be presented to the Mayor of London Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in June
People speak at a meeting of the Reparations Task Force in San Francisco in April 2022
The proposal will be presented to the San Francisco leadership in June.
“There’s so much effort that leads to incredible reports that just end up gathering dust on a shelf,” Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told the SF Chronicle.
“We can’t let this be one of them,” he added.
The proposal was put together by the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee [AARAC], commissioned by the Supervisory Board. It was first presented to the leadership in December.
“Centuries of damage and destruction to Black lives, Black bodies and Black communities should be answered with centuries of repair,” AARAC Chair Eric McDonnell told the SF Chronicle. “If you look at San Francisco, it’s very much a tale of two cities.”
The city’s proposals come in the wake of Kamilah Moore, chief of California’s Reparations Task Force, who shared her demands for repayment.
She said all black Californians descended from slaves are owed $1 million each.
Moore also said that each black resident who suffered housing discrimination from California was owed $223,500.
She claimed that redlining — the denial of credit, such as mortgages, to poorer people — kept many black Californians in poverty between 1933 and 1977.
Despite the huge cost of complying with the proposals, Moore insists they would actually benefit California’s economy by stimulating consumer spending.
Who is entitled to $5 million in reparations?
All Qualifiers must meet the following requirements at the Effective Date:
– Be at least 18 years old
– Identified as “Black/African American” in public records for at least 10 years
All qualifiers must also meet two of the following requirements:
– Be born in the city between 1940 and 1996 and have proof of residency for 13 years
– You immigrated to the city between 1940 and 1996 and have proof of residency for 13 years
– were imprisoned during the War on Drugs campaign or are directly descended from someone who was imprisoned
– Attended the city’s public schools during the period of desegregation
– Be descended from someone enslaved in the United States before 1865
– Are or are descended from someone who was evicted during the San Francisco urban renewal project between 1954 and 1973
– are descended from or are descended from a holder of a preference certificate
– Be part of a marginalized population that experienced bias in lending between 1937 and 1968 or experienced the effects of these practices between 1968 and 1968