Walking our dog at Fort Funston back in the day we had some great conversations with our regular “pack” of dogwalkers and if we were later than usual there were a few stragglers we’d walk and talk with. One man, John, a sweet curmudgeon, was on the opposite side we held on most issues, but fun to banter with. One Monday he asked how we had spent the weekend. “We helped build a Habitat for Humanity house!” we said. He responded “That really ticks me off. No one ever gave me a free house.” We pointed out that folks who earn Habitat homes pour in tons of sweat equity, and pay a low or no interest mortgage for that house, but he wasn’t having any of that. “Freeloaders!” He called them.
“You own your house John, right?” He responded “Damned right!” I said “You paid for it, right?” He agreed. “Did your parents help with the down payment?” He said, “My father worked for years to come up with some savings and yes, he helped.” Wow. “Your dad was a veteran, right?” Yes. And he used his veteran’s benefits to get a house in Daly City. “Serve your country, work hard, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, no handouts like your Habitat stuff.”
Wow. Good thing John’s father was white. Among our usual pack was a Black woman with a dog named Bailey. One morning she told us she had needed to do some family estate paperwork which included her house. “There was a covenant in the deed that prohibited anyone from selling the house to anyone Black.” She told us. Crazy, we thought. Believe it or not, though illegal, covenants like that are still in place around the country, including in the Bay Area, because the process of undoing them can be costly and arduous. And, the impact of redlining, covenants, low-ball appraisals, and other ways of holding people of color back are still debilitating today.
Imagine a Black family coming out of World War II and a white family. The white father goes to college with his veteran’s benefits, gets a great job and buys a house with a low down payment and a low interest rate. That family is able to build wealth over decades and use that wealth to send children to college, make down payments on children’s houses, send grandchildren to the best schools and on and on. The Black veteran is blocked from going to many colleges, blocked from living in white neighborhoods and redlined from buying property using those same veteran’s benefits. His family can’t and doesn’t accumulate the wealth that white families do. Bootstraps? More like ankle weights.
In his groundbreaking book, “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” Richard Rothstein documents how Black Americans were denied the American dream and how policies kept generation after generation of people of color not just steps, but miles behind whites. As a bookseller at a Rothstein event, I was horrified to learn that my Daly City home was part of that historical stain. “The federal government required Doelger (the developer of thousands of homes) to refuse to sell homes to African Americans and to put a clause in every deed that prohibited the owner from reselling to African Americans or renting to African Americans.”
Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, covenants, segregation, hate, fear and low-ball appraisals have been our neighbor’s daily bread for over 250 years. Oh, but John would argue, “It’s a level playing field now!” Really? Level? Hmmmm ... Are people who have built wealth for three or four generations versus people who have been blocked from doing the same really playing at the same level? No. Should John be punished or shamed for the sins of his ancestors and government? No. Should we, government, nonprofits and individuals do something to repair the damage that centuries of slavery, violence and discrimination have caused? I believe we should.
Today, California has a reparations task force studying what, if anything, our state can do to repair the long-term damage slavery and discrimination have caused to black people. Some will cry “Our state was a FREE state!” and “Don’t punish me for the sins of the past.” My answer, as it was to John, is that you rightfully enjoyed benefits that were nevertheless unfairly denied to others and this has resulted in a largely unjust economic playing field. It is reasonable to correct this injustice. I ask my neighbors in Daly City, the county and the state, to give this task force a chance to make their recommendations for reparations, and, if you have a spare day, bang a few nails or make a donation to Habitat for Humanity.
Craig Wiesner is the co-owner of Reach And Teach, a book, toy and cultural gift shop on 25th Avenue in San Mateo.
(13) comments
Good morning, Craig, and Happy Third Day of Christmas to you!
As I mentioned in a post following Terence's comments, I have a different take on this topic. First, we cannot brush aside John's comments so easily. Our history shows us that California rejected slavery in its Constitution before it became a state in 1850. So, why would a state that outlawed slavery almost 175 years ago pay reparations now? Well, you are correct to point out that discrimination in the form of redlining continued 70 or so years after the Civil War. Fortunately, that policy and other discriminatory practices became unlawful in the 1960s. That's a good thing, but do those past practices justify reparations?
I have shared this story before during a discussion about migrant farm workers. Both sides of my family came to California in the 1930s à la the migration described in "The Grapes of Wrath." My mother's family initially lived in a tent on the banks of the Kern River. My father's family crowded ten people into a very small rented home while the adults and teens worked in the fields. Just so you know, Okies were being redlined before it became a policy of the FDR administration to target blacks. WWII rolled around and my father and three uncles volunteered to serve their country. Later, my father was able to use a CalVet program to secure a loan but he worked 2-3 jobs to save for a down payment, and he continued working more than one job to make monthly payments. With those commitments, he was not able to use the GI Bill of Rights to pursue a college education.
When 12 million Americans entered uniformed service during WWII, there was a shortage of farm workers in California. The Bracero program was introduced to bring workers to California to plant, cultivate and especially harvest crops. Big Ag in our state flourished due to migrant workers... white and brown... in the fields. Both faced discrimination. As a result of low pay, harsh working conditions, and profits made by Big Ag, do the descendants of those Okies and Braceros qualify for reparations now?
No one disagrees that discrimination has, in part, led to disparities. Trillions have been spent to create opportunities to help shrink the gap. About $20 trillion was spent over the 50 years following laws passed in the 1960s to address discrimination. Now, California's governor wants to pay large sums of money to persons with a lineage that connects them to Southern slavery of the 1800s. Given that almost 27% of California's population is foreign born... why would those folks... many of them born in Asia... be expected to pay for reparations?
There is no question African-Americans have suffered pain, sorrow, and sadly… death due to discrimination. We should not minimize those injustices. However, are reparations the answer? Should this be a ballot issue in 2024? This is not an easy topic. Thank you for writing about it.
Thanks for sharing your story! I am very curious to see what the task force comes up with and the discussions that will be sparked by their recommendations.
This particular thread has many well written features with facts stated without replies that are usually full of vitriol based entirely on political party lines, and that made me exhale and smile.
What does bother me, if I will, is the lack of the % of various ethnicities in California.
Black or African American alone, percent(a) 6.5%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent(a) 1.7%
Asian alone, percent(a) 15.9%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent(a) 0.5%
Thank you, Mr. Wiesner, for your very necessary reminder of the incredible injustice done to colored soldiers, who had fought as bravely as white soldiers, and suffered just as much during WWII. It is very difficult to understand how such grave discrimination could be justified, - I am tempted to call it criminal. Despite being as Nordic white as I am, I was once mistaken for being colored, due to my deep suntan, - and did I get it! My goodness, this piece of white scum knew everything about me, without even having met me. Based on a small photo on a right-wing website, where I had highlighted some truth about Trump, he just knew I was an unemployed, uneducated burden on society that he was paying for, while I was living in the basement of my unwed mother, using any money given to me to buy drugs and get drunk. Racism? Yes, my goodness, thick and heavy. On the other hand, I have benefitted enormously by a black American soldier, who risking his own life, saved the life of the then 17-year-old future grandfather of my now great son-in-law during WWII, - having been forced into a war he didn’t believe in.
But of course, Mr. Wiesner, there will always be someone not mentally equipped to understand what is so painfully obvious to the rest of us.
And Jorg - your condescending point is?
Nothing of the sort intended, Dirk! Just a simple statement of the fact that there are people among us who are rather dense when it comes to tragic discrimination, like denying colored soldiers GI-benefits, housing and job discrimination, and anything from pinning KKK and Jim Crow on today’s Democrats, to blatant idiots running around as Holocaust deniers. What would you call such idiocy?
Jorg - the KKK and Jim Crow were an offshoot of the Civil War results and were instituted by Southern Democrats. That is the link. The most violent opposition to any civil rights bills came from the same Southern Democrats well into the 1960s and 1970s. I agree that blatant idiots are everywhere and are entitled to First Amendment protection, just like you and me.
Re reparations: There was no GI Bill during the Civil War. Make it apply to all descendants of Union vets.
Sorry, Mr. Wiesner, but this wealth redistribution scheme, based on historical lies is discriminatory. For a more realistic and reasoned take on the ill-advised reparations scheme, I’d recommend the following links from Katy Grimes of the California Globe:
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/california-reparations-plan-is-rooted-in-stupidity-and-historical-lies/
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/californias-ludicrous-slave-reparations-bill/
Ms. Grimes has a great idea at the end of her article – Southern California Democrats should be responsible for any reparations. Actually, I’d expand the responsibility for all reparation payments to Democrats who founded the KKK and Jim Crow laws - now those actions were discriminatory. Or, open a GoFundMe account to gauge how much support there is for this reparations wealth redistribution scheme.
Good morning, Terence
I did not read Kathy Grimes' articles, and I have a little different take of Craig's column. You have laid the disparity between whites and blacks at the feet of the Democratic Party. Craig decries... rightfully so... redlining and its effect on home ownership. The Democratic Party created redlining almost 90 years ago and now a Democratic governor wants to undo the effects of that discriminatory policy. Is that progress or is merely "progressive"?
Craig - not all white folks built up financial means over generations. I for one, and there are many others, came here with $300 in my pocket and my head full of dreams. Yes, and I bought our first house with GI Bill assistance. I was not aware that there were some areas where even Latinos or Asians were not welcome. My wife, who is Latina, and I were looking at a house in Westlake, Daly City, in 1974 and the realtor did all she could to discourage us to even place a bid. Her excuse was that we would probably not fit in. Our decision was simple, we looked for an area where such attitudes and restrictions did not exist and turned our back on that condescending neighborhood. Assuming Blacks had the same financial means, they could have bought in areas as we did. After all of these years one cannot keep on coming up with excuses for not being able to find a house to buy.
Thanks, Dirk, for a classic illustration of why systemic racism is so entrenched and insidious. One can always find examples of African Americans and who have became wealthy or of white Americans who have faced financial hardship and succeeded in spite of it; and then point to the data on the gigantic wealth and social justice discrepancies and pretend it doesn't exist and wasn't influenced by discriminatory policies. Gut feelings vs. facts.
Yes to all of the above, but I think that often "the gut feeling" is the right one. I can think of two major post WWII "discrimination" stories on the Peninsula that still receive some mention in the public prints. One involved a Chinese couple who couldn't buy a house in South SF. The other was about a black veterans home that was burned while under construction. What is left out of most contemporary accounts is that the community rallied to the aid of the victims. In both cases, my "gut feeiing" was one of hope - that things would get better.
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