A former Black Lives Matter activist has blasted San Francisco’s “unrealistic” reparations plan, saying it’s a strategy to “gaslight” black Americans — and accused lawmakers of being “more focused on slavery” than the homelessness plaguing town.
Xaviaer DuRousseau, a one-time BLM supporter who now works for PragerU, an advocacy group that creates videos that promote conservative ideas, said Tuesday that the costly handouts perpetuate “fraudulent narratives surrounding systemic racism.”
“That is 111 ways to gaslight black Americans into pondering that we have to be depending on a system of handouts to be able to achieve success,” said DuRousseau, who’s black, in an appearance on Fox News‘ “The Ingraham Angle.”
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday wholeheartedly embraced 111 recommendations made by a city-appointed reparations committee, including lump-sum payments of $5 million to each eligible black citizen, guaranteed incomes of $97,000 per yr for 250 years, elimination of private debt and tax burdens, and houses for just $1.
The sweeping proposal, which was recommend with no cost evaluation, is aimed toward redressing centuries of slavery and systemic racism, which supporters of the plan say have deprived generations of black residents of opportunities in most spheres of life.
One estimate figured the reparations scheme could cost town, which has a 2022-2023 budget of just $14 billion, roughly $50 billion.
In response to a calculation from Stanford University’s conservative-leaning Hoover Institution, that might require each non-black family in town to pony up a minimum of $600,000 to make the reparations a reality.
“It’s so unrealistic to think that the common family in San Francisco goes to have the option to pay $600,000 extra a bit,” DuRousseau told Ingraham.
DuRousseau suggested that what the reparations committee is proposing “won’t ever actually going to occur,” because San Francisco is already facing a serious deficit and doesn’t have the essential funds to offer out billions of dollars.
But beyond the difficulty of the plan’s economic feasibility, DuRousseau bashed San Francisco’s liberal politicians for being more concerned with historic injustices than with a crisis presently unfolding of their city.
“It’s disgusting to me that we’re more focused on slavery, which led to 1865, than we’re focused on veterans who’re on the streets of San Francisco, homeless and begging for spare change in 2023,” he said. “That’s where they need to start out sending their money.”
The Board of Supervisors won’t make any decisions regarding reparations until it releases its final report in June. The board can then vote to alter, adopt or reject all or any the 111 recommendations.
The precise variety of black San Franciscans who would qualify for the reparations is just not yet known.
In San Francisco, black residents account for lower than 6% of town’s population — that’s fewer than 50,000 people.
To be eligible, applicants have to be a minimum of 18 and have identified as black on public documents for a minimum of a decade.
They have to also prove that they meet two out of eight additional standards — including being born in or having migrated to San Francisco between 1940 and 1996, and having proof of residency for a minimum of 13 years, being personally or a direct descendant of somebody jailed within the “failed War on Drugs,” or being a descendant of somebody enslaved before 1865.
John Dennis, chair of the San Francisco Republican Party, said the conversation surrounding reparations is “unserious.”
“They only threw a number up, there’s no evaluation,” he said. “It seems ridiculous, and it also seems that that is the one city where it could possibly pass.”
With Post wires