The Greenberg Brief: San Francisco’s Meaningless Apology

Last Tuesday, February 27th 2024, Shamann Walton, member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (our eleven-member city council) proudly proclaimed the city of San Francisco has officially apologized for systemic racism and past atrocities perpetrated against Black residents and business, claiming an apology was historic and long overdue, and further, the city will commit to addressing historic and present harms.  His words, and those of his colleagues on the Board were indeed insincere.

“We” as a city have not apologized. The people of San Francisco indeed owe no apology. There are no present harms.

When current mayor London Breed, together with Mr. Shamann Walton conferred in 2020 to launch the concept of a San Francisco Reparations in earnest, it was begun under the shadow of an extreme, hot-topic: the murder of George Floyd – and resulting Black Lives Matter fervor.

That December of 2020 the full San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved establishment of, and framework for appointing, fifteen commissioners for an African-American Reparations Advisory Committee, which got to work relentlessly. Assembling anecdotal evidence while constructing their plan of remedies, they prepared a vision for atonement for sins perpetrated systemically by the city.

In January 2023, the committee presented their sixty-two page report and action plan – with raucous and lengthy sessions of televised public comment – given to the full Board of Supervisors, to the delight of a mere few, and the disgust by the majority of locals while earning national ridicule.

Beyond the fiscal impossibility of it all, (five million dollars to each eligible Black resident), the committee’s more than one hundred proposals constitute astoundingly flagrant violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ignoring of the California state and federal constitutions and disregard for United States Supreme Court rulings.  The committee’s solution for reparations is, unfortunately, an espousing of Black-on-everybody-else racism and racial bias, the creation of a super-privileged Black class including segregation in a fiscal if not physical manner.

There has been massive pushback over what this Reparations Plan committee came up with, made the more sour at the revelation committee members were actually collectively paid over two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars of taxpayers money, for work towards a vision of what amounts to a neo-Apartheid San Francisco.

Mayor London Breed, the eleven-member Board of Supervisors, and the Reparations Plan committee were served with a Cease & Desist, putting them on notice their plan is grossly violating a slew of aforementioned state and federal laws, spelling it all out in great detail.

Did this stop them from continuing their violating law? Yes and no.

The release of the Reparations Plan, and now, the “apology,” has come at a time San Francisco is facing major budget shortfalls. Just this past December 2023, Mayor Breed directed all city departments to immediately cut operating budgets ten percent, and clarified there will be no money to establish an anticipated “Office of Reparations.” Many observers believe this was indeed a way out for her, since city-wide, Reparations is a very unpopular topic.

In reality, if there is a will, there’d be a way for Breed to find the funding. But to date, she has not.

As apparent consolation, the architects of San Francisco Reparations then introduced a resolution in the Board of Supervisors, with Shamann Walton taking the lead. Billed as an official apology made on behalf of by San Francisco.

We San Franciscans do not and have not owned slaves, and the aggrieved Black residents were not themselves slaves. However, the Reparations committee expanded their reach; they claim the city’s Black residents have been historically and systematically harmed over decades by racist policies on housing, business, banking, education, loans, medical care – claiming these as cause leading to much of the outmigration and economic oppression they experience today.

Again, neither I nor anyone I know here in San Francisco or elsewhere, harmed any Black San Franciscans nor have we discriminated in housing banking, education etc. The Reparations Committee via painting with a broad brush places their blame on a whole group of alleged participants. Painting everyone not them as guilty and liable? That’s racist; that’s bigotry. No court of law would allow this type of accusation, trial, conviction and sentencing to proceed.

There is a plethora of concurring definitions for the word “apology,” which include not only an expression of regret for a wrong but an implied admitting of fault or guilt and ultimately making a confession.

Walton, et al make a false, insincere and coerced apology. This, while attempting to bind those accused to be held liable.

How do we respond to Shamann Walton and his colleagues on the Board? We San Franciscans should respond thusly: Collectively, we do not accept blame; we point out the Board’s clear insincerity; we condemn their bias, bigotry and division; we condemn their Reparations Plan itself; we again point out the plan’s Constitutional violations and the Supreme Court rulings; finally, we must question their overall motive. Avoidance of the elephant in the room is reprehensible.

At the present, across America, our Black population has experienced historic growth in wealth, education, health care, and overall standard of living. The concept of Reparations is backward-looking, shockingly dangerous for our society as a whole, and highly suspect, especially during an election year.