Reparation payments must be distributed
Regarding “Oakland barb shows president’s true colors” (June 29) and “Fix economic realities of U.S.” (Letters, July 1): As Otis R. Taylor Jr. so succinctly explained in a recent Chronicle column, disparity in income and economic opportunity has plagued people of color in the United States since our country’s inception.
Without the opportunity to gather equity in property or other forms of prosperity and security, African Americans have been prevented from being partners in America’s growth and promise.
As a previous letter to the editor pointed out, this is a hard and painful acknowledgment for me, my family and other middleclass white Americans. That fact acknowledged, reparations to African Americans must happen. The California Assembly has started the process by passing a bill to study how reparations could be implemented. This work must be advanced with all due speed.
In the place of the sorrow and longstanding hardship of our country’s history of economic inequality, let’s start to make amends by finding a way to start reparations this year!
Jaye Erickson, Albany
Maximized profits
Regarding “U.S. is slammed for hoarding virus drug” (July 2): Why should anyone be surprised that our government has made an agreement with Gilead Sciences of Foster City to make almost all of its production of remdesivir, a drug used to treat COVID19, exclusively available to Americans during the next three months? After all, current Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar previously served as the top lobbyist and then president of U.S. operations for drug maker Eli Lilly.
Helping companies like Gilead Sciences to maximize their profits in our country, especially during a health crisis, is practically written in Azar’s DNA.
Ezra Steindler, San Francisco
Pleased with makeup
As someone who considers themself gender neutral, I was both pleased and amused to read “Men’s makeup goes mainstream with CVS” (Business, July 2). Why shouldn’t men, women and gender fluid or neutral people consider wearing makeup to feel and look better?
The notion that concealer, foundation or even mascara is only a female product is an antiquated stereotype from the 1950s. My advice to everyone in 21st century America (unlike First Lady Melania Trump’s illnamed “Be Best” campaign promoting wellbeing for youth) is this: Be Fabulous!
Blake Kennedy, San Jose
Landlords aren’t victims
Regarding “Landlords sue to block new city law on evictions” ( July 1): The landlord associations responsible for this lawsuit are trying to appeal to our smallbusiness values when Janan New, their representative, refers to momandpop landlords. They hope we will have mercy on the ignorant perpetrators of class/racebased housing privileges.
Landlords, however, are not the victims. This lawsuit reveals that privatized housing is not exempt from systemic classism/racism. Landlords are announcing that their own capital gain is more valuable than people by taking legal action to reinstate their ability to terminate shelter.
News perspective is akin to sympathy for a slaveowner’s loss of property after emancipation. Shelter for one’s body is a person’s inalienable right to life, and is consistently referred to as a basic need. While landlords may not be the modern version of slave owners, there are similarities in their authoritative ownership and control over one’s basic human rights.
If you’re sympathizing with the landlords, remember that in “Abolition as Market Regulation,” Caitlin C. Rosenthal reveals that after the Haitian Revolution, the former slaves paid reparations to France to compensate their former masters. Maybe you’d like to use this precedent to compensate our local landlords.
Liam Hardison, Oakland
Verify the curricula
Regarding “Tough textbook market” (Letters, July 2): Having been responsible for leading school district teams in the selection of texts and other materials to support established curricula in the district’s secondary schools, I cannot agree with the author’s suggestion to let K12 educators create their own classroom materials.
What makes one believe that teacherselected materials would be biasfree, balanced, and factually based? While I’m certain many excellent instructors would come up with creative and worthwhile materials, how would the public know they support the adopted curricula?
I’ve witnessed abuses of this so many times, I’ve lost count. So many of us (myself included) have specific interests we would love to dwell on that are tangential to the subject studied. For instance, I recall one history teacher with a fascination for weaponry spending weeks on bringing his musket replica to school and taking his students outdoors to learn how to fire it. The curriculum he deleted in order to make room for his pet exhibit was simply dropped.
Or another teacher who chose to focus on her favorite historical century, skipping the others. I suggest allowing teachers to create their own materials, but running them through verification for approval.
Evie Groch, El Cerrito
Don’t stop building
Regarding “City OKs modular housing project” ( July 2): As it is now becoming increasingly apparent to millions of Americans that overly powerful police unions are inextricably complicit in the perpetuation of institutionalized racism, the article shed light on the next ugly scab that has to be peeled back: the role of the building trades unions in the perpetuation of institutionalized homelessness. The building trades unions inevitably push back against any form of architectural or manufacturing innovation that could substantially reduce the perunit cost of construction.
The proffered reasons? Lower wages for union members, reduced quality, and (of all things) an imperiled apprenticeship program.
Spare me. Only one of those is the truth and I’ll leave it to the readers of this letter to guess. Too many Bay Area low and moderateincome residents have for years been just a paycheck or two away from winding up on the streets.
And with the economic free fall, the crisis is even scarier. The time has come for cops to stop using choke holds on citizens. So, too, the time has come for the building trades unions to stop using a choke hold on the development of housing for the millions of Bay Area residents who aren’t wallowing in money.
Joe DiPietro, Oakland
Grocery bag tip
Regarding “Grocery store debacle” (July 2): I learned from a grocery checker that many customers are bringing bags to leave in their cars. At checkout, the bagger just loads the groceries back into the cart, which the customer then wheels out to the car to load into his/ her/their own bags.
It’s a little more work for the customer, but it certainly makes one appreciate the skill involved in filling a nicely balanced bag!
Karin Burger, Petaluma