The reckoning: San Mateo then and now

A quote from the NY Times:

The racial restriction was signed by officers of the American Trust Company, which financed its construction. David D. Bohannon, a developer who built the largest share of homes in Hillsdale, signed similar deed requirements for racial exclusion. Although the whites-only clauses are no longer enforceable, they remain in the deeds of Hillsdale homeowners.

Mr. Bohannon became one of the biggest developers of whites-only housing throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-20th century, with significant responsibility for the segregated landscape that persists. Although many Black Americans flocked to the Bay Area to take jobs in war production during World War II, Mr. Bohannon barred nonwhites from his projects. Several Bohannon neighborhoods for workers in shipyards and supporting factories during the war were financed with loans guaranteed by the federal government from financial institutions like Bank of America and the American Trust Company, which didn’t resist the government’s policy of racial exclusion.

In 1955, when a developer attempted to create a racially integrated neighborhood in Milpitas, not far from San Mateo, Mr. Bohannon’s company sued and successfully lobbied the Milpitas City Council to raise sewer connection fees to an exorbitant level that made the project unfeasible, delaying it for years.

David Bohannon’s race policy did not make him a pariah in the home-building industry. Quite the contrary. In 1942, as he was creating Hillsdale, Mr. Bohannon served as president of what is now called the National Association of Home Builders. His contribution to racial segregation went unmentioned in 1958 when he was elected national president of the influential research group for planners, the Urban Land Institute, which praised him as “one of the West Coast’s most successful land developers and community builders.” In 1986, Mr. Bohannon was added to the California Homebuilding Foundation’s Hall of Fame for having “enriched the homebuilding industry through innovation, public service, and philanthropy,” which apparently did not extend to remedying the segregation he had enforced.

The Bohannon company continues to operate. Adjacent to its San Mateo development, it created the Hillsdale mall (open for business again after pandemic-induced closures), anchored by Macy’s and Nordstrom, and filled with upscale shops. While malls nationwide have been struggling, the Bohannon firm recently invested several hundred million dollars in the Hillsdale mall’s renovation and in the development of a nearby office park.

“Lies, dam* lies, and statistics,” is a phrase popularized by Mark Twain. I’m concerned with the latter and its implications for the former (I’ll forgo damning anyone’s falsehoods).

In Ms. Lempert's article, "The reckoning: San Mateo then and now," the data and its implications raise questions.

About San Mateo County she stated, "The Black population dropped from 6% in 1960 to 1.96% today as part of a Black exodus from the Bay Area between 2000-2010." I went to the U.S. Census and compared data from 1960 versus 2019.

In 2019, the Black population in the county was 2.8%; in 1960, the Negro population (the term used in the census) totaled 2.4%. During this time, the Black population actually increased from 1,691 to 21,464.

Next, the Black population percentage decline slightly in the Bay Area over six decades from 8.6% to 7.0%. But that was not due to a mass exodus; in fact, the number of Blacks increased by about 100,000. While the overall Bay Area population exploded in six decades by 2 million, the Black population was fairly stable.

The mass exodus was among Whites; almost a half million left (a decline from 88% to 39%). That is huge.

Asians and Hispanics, while totaling less that 100,000 in 1960, are now over 2 million. This influx is the demographic supernova changing the face of the Bay Area. These groups now comprise half of the population.

These are the facts from the U.S. Census. Are they lies, dam* lies, or statistics?

In the past I have seldom had a problem with Sue Lempert's articles, however, If Christopher Conway is in 100% agreement with her there must be something wrong with her that I am missing.

Here is a link to the NYT article, but you might need a subscription to read it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/opinion/sunday/blm-residential-segregation.html?searchResultPosition=2

People need to understand that there's a difference between having benefited from racism, and being a racist.

Sue, you most definitely benefited from racism, and pretending otherwise is not a good look. Accept it, and figure out what you want to _do_ about it.

When you moved into a nice neighborhood in San Mateo, the rising White middle class was being given _huge_ subsidies by the federal government, to promote exactly the kind of wealth-building and investment that you took part in. I don't think reasonable people blame you for that. But it's important to recognize that not everyone was given the same opportunity, and that their children and grandchildren are, as a result, starting from a different position than yours.

It's not like it was just a couple decades in the '50s and '60s where this kind of difference in opportunity and wealth-building applied. It's the entire history of our nation. And that adds up to the _enormous_ wealth gap we see today. A Black citizen could be just as smart and industrious as a White peer, but the White kid's parents are starting from a position where, say, they inherited a house in a nice neighborhood near good schools, as well as a few hundred thousand in home value, while the Black.kid's parents, after having been renters for years, finally tried to buy at one point, but got wiped out in 2008 due to abusive lending practices. ( https://prospect.org/special-report/sub-prime-black-catastrophe/ ) The Black kid lives in a neighborhood where air quality and summer heat are worse, and that makes it harder to concentrate on school work. ( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/24/climate/racism-redlining-cities-global-warming.html )

The existence of a lucky few who've risen above these problems does not make up for the big picture. People like to say they favor "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome", but the reality is that the opportunities you're offered are determined, to a huge degree, by how well you pick your parents. At this point it is probably fair to say that wealth matters more than skin color, and that interventions to create more _economically_ diverse neighborhoods -- where poor kids would benefit from the knowledge of rich parents about how to hold public officials accountable to provide good public services, including good schools -- would be almost as effective, or perhaps even more effective, than racially-targeted policies. This is why I'm a big fan of Cory Booker's "baby bonds" or "universal basic wealth" concept, which provides an investment account that starts accumulating value at birth, and then receives an annual contribution that's larger if your parents are poorer, and becomes available when you're an adult, to spend on education, housing, or starting a small business. ( https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/22/17999558/cory-booker-baby-bonds )

Has the Daily Journal provided a reprint of the New York Times article? It is apparent that Mr. Conway has not read it. As for why Black people have left the area, why not ask the few who are left in North Central? Black people have always been the first to be forced out of cities and suburbs when gentrification arrives. San Mateo became too expensive for regular white people to afford, so they started buying up the homes from elder Black people in North Central. Yet many Black people return on Sundays to attend the churches they grew up with, many from as far away as Antioch and Brentwood. Take a look at the Bayview and Fillmore districts in SF. Want an answer about the displacement? Ask the displaced.

"The Black population dropped from 6% in 1960 to 1.96% today as part of a Black exodus from the Bay Area between 2000-2010."

When I was an administrator at the San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD), I was unable to reconcile the disproportionate time, attention, and money devoted to Black students as they composed only 2% of the student population. About the same as Pacific Islanders, though few programs focused on the barriers to their achievement. In contrast, Hispanics, Filipino, and Asian students were large percentages. My questioning the conventional wisdom about our students and political orthodoxy of the administration with data was not welcome.

Why were Blacks only 2% of the student population? I later discovered the census data as reported by Ms. Lempert - African Americans were only 1.96% in the county's population. Therefore, as measured by proportions, there was equity between the county and the college population.

In this article, I learned that there has been a Black exodus from the Bay Area since 2000.

Why? Is it racism? Is it economics? It no doubt is a combination of many complex factors. I would be eager to learn about this diaspora.

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Michael B. Reiner, PhD, is a higher education consultant and educational researcher. Previously, he was a professor of psychology and college administrator at City University of New York (CUNY), Miami Dade College, the Riverside Community College District, and the San Mateo County Community College District. mreiner32205@gmail.com  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-b-reiner-phd-14057551/

Thank you Sue for defending our city from these Social Justice Warriors who are using race to divide our city. San Mateo was 95% white in 1960, it is now 46%. That is all you have to know about the huge demographic change that happened in our city and the welcoming atmosphere long time residents have held out for foreigners from different countries and people of all races. This has got to stop and that is why it is important to make sure Amourence Lee is not elected to the San Mateo city council this November. If anyone wants to govern over San Mateo and leads with racial equity and social justice, make sure they are sent back under the rock in which they came. Sue, it is so refreshing to see someone who has been in this area so long stand up and defend her, I finally get to say that I agree with you 100%.