San Francisco — a city battling crime, drugs, and homelessness — apologizes for racism: 'We still have a long way to go'

The city of San Francisco issued a formal apology to black residents on Tuesday for racism.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors — which is officially nonpartisan but is composed of 11 Democrats — unanimously passed a resolution apologizing to black residents for racism.

The apology reads:

On behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors offers its deepest apologies to all African Americans and their descendants who came to San Francisco and were victims of systemic and structural discrimination, institutionalize (sic) racism, targeted acts of violence, and atrocities.

Specifically, the resolution apologizes for redlining policies, razing black neighborhoods, and enacting policies that "systematically robbed Black San Franciscans of opportunities to build generational wealth," among other discriminatory policies that bolstered "structural racism."

Supervisor Shamann Walton, who introduced the resolution, celebrated its "long overdue" passage — but said it's not enough.

"We still have a long way to go, however this is a first step to commit to the restoration of the ways racism has caused insult to Black humanity including San Francisco making a commitment to substantial ongoing, systemic, and programmatic investments in Black communities to address historical and present harms," she said.

San Francisco now joins Boston in having issued a formal apology for racism.

The apology is the first step in San Francisco's reparations process, which is directed by the city's African American Reparations Advisory Committee.

That committee has proposed that every eligible black resident should receive a $5 million, one-time, lump-sum cash payment as redress for racism.

The head of the committee, however, has admitted there is no math justifying the eye-popping figure.

"There wasn't a math formula. ... It was a journey for the committee towards what could represent a significant enough investment in families to put them on this path to economic well-being, growth and vitality that chattel slavery and all the policies that flowed from it destroyed," chairman Eric McDonnell admitted last year.

San Francisco leaders, meanwhile, have not apologized for the city's open drug markets, homelessness crisis, and crime epidemic.

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