Reparations Town Hall Focuses on Equity, Opportunity
Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley hosted a virtual town hall meeting last Wednesday to discuss with experts how to right the historical wrongs waged against black, indigenous, and other people of color—a term Miley collectively calls BIPOC.
The meeting is the first in a series of public forums on the civil rights issue of reparations, which includes providing equity and opportunity for families of former slaves who were blocked socially and financially through gerrymandering and redlining as well as through discriminatory policies in policing and criminal justice.
“I believe that the push for racial justice is one of the greatest opportunities to create lasting impacts on the overall quality of life for black, indigenous, and other people of color.”
“I believe that the push for racial justice is one of the greatest opportunities to create lasting impacts on the overall quality of life for black, indigenous, and other people of color,” said Miley who oversees District 4 (Oakland, Hayward, Pleasanton, Castro Valley, Ashland, and Cherryland). “While the County, local jurisdictions, and the State have made tremendous steps to support our BIPOC residents, far too many individuals still suffer from the historical impacts of slavery. Over the last five years, many jurisdictions have begun pursuing reparations efforts for African Americans.”
The town hall follows the release of a 500-page report this past June by the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. The interim report recommends creating a state-subsidized mortgage program to guarantee low rates, as well as free health care, free tuition to California colleges and universities, and four-year scholarships for African Americans. A final report is due to the California legislature in 2023.
During the town hall, members of the State of California’s Reparations Commission as well as representatives from Oakland, Hayward, and San Leandro took turns touting how their groups are addressing their past indiscretions. Examples include state-sanctioned discrimination of residents in Russel City (a historic area within western Hayward), relocation of families to make way for the BART tracks through West Oakland, and San Leandro's history of racial redlining and blockbusting.
And while each city acknowledges its past, all panelists said their jurisdictions are united in solving the issue, which is being compared to the cooking of a gumbo.
“One of our interviewees used the metaphor of reparations as a gumbo. He said that gumbo ingredients will tend to vary by region and by availability,” said Amy Ferguson, a UC Berkeley graduate student of the Goldman School of Public Policy, who is helping Oakland with its reparations program. “Reparations should be local, dependent on the local histories and the local conditions. He said reparations shouldn't come from only one ingredient; you know. It needs multiple strategies.”
Those strategies are very unlikely to include direct financial restitution as payments for harms done considering the budget constraints of all the cities and even the county, according to Darlene Flynn, Oakland's Director of the Department of Race and Equity. Instead, the collective influences are focused on providing awareness, inclusion, equity, fostering diversity, and improving opportunity.
“The medicine necessary to address the very serious conditions that our communities are suffering from is a very big pill for us collectively to swallow,” Flynn said, adding that one possible source of funding for reparations could come from taxes levied on the legal marijuana industry, which historically negatively impacted communities of color.
Miley said his office will be sending out a survey to District 4 residents so the County could gather more information about both the understanding of and need for reparations, as well as what people would like to see done. Another town hall on reparations is tentatively scheduled for later this year.