Hollaback News! Race/Social Justice: Why Are Black Folks Leaving San Fran?
Monday, May 11, 2009
Hollaback! News: Race/Social Justice:
Why Are Black Folks Leaving San Fran?.
Click the link below to view the full story from TheRoot.com:
http://www.theroot.com/views/why-are-black-folks-leaving-san-francisco
My commentary on this topic: If ever there were a time to begin another serious discussion about the need for reparations it is now. If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t there a time when the American Government used to set aside land for White soldiers who came home from the war so that they could build a house, and get a leg up on building a life for their families?
Well, it’s time to dust off the books and re-examine that sort of policy again. I mean, isn’t that how this separation in class got set up in the first place? America is the land of the “hook up”. The whole notion of the “suburbs” was a hook up, all suburban land was set aside to create the sprawl that we now see happening even further and further out, even into the rural areas surrounding most major large cities. The more sprawl, the more those left in the inner concentric circles, aka, “the inner city” get left behind. Then when you have cities like San Francisco or a Harlem, in states like CA or NY, the likeliehood, to me anyway, is that those places that Black folks once lived comfortably, will then be up for sale without any say so from the people that already live there, because those who live outside of the established Black communities, decide what industries will be hot, who will recieve the education for such industries, and who will then live and operate these industries and usually, as in the case of San Fran, with technology, or even in the case of real estate, as in DC and in Harlem, the real estate power brokers, decide when and where land will be used and for what. In my opinion, this is part of the reason we have the subprime/foreclosure fiasco that we have now.
Again, reparations needs to be discussed again and not just handing out land, but handing it out in a structured manner. Yes, certain income levels need to be met, certain programs need to be set up, certain criteria need to be met, but the goal would be for those who are not in the power player seats who still control most of the land, most of the industries, etc. If something like reparations is not re-visited, we will continue to create an even wider divide between the haves and the have nots and Black folks will continue to make up a large portion of the have nots.
Photo from The Root.com, San Francisco.
