‘IT’S GA$LIGHTING’
Ex-BLM activist rips San Fran reparations
A former Black Lives Matter activist has blasted San Francisco’s “unrealistic” reparations plan, saying it’s a way to “gaslight” black Americans — and accused lawmakers of being “more focused on slavery” than the homelessness plaguing the city.
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.”
“This is 111 ways to gaslight black Americans into thinking that we need to be dependent on a system of handouts in order to be successful,” said DuRousseau, who is black, in an appearance on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday embraced 111 recommendations made by a cityappointed reparations committee, including lump-sum payments of $5 million to every eligible black citizen, guaranteed incomes of $97,000 per year for 250 years, elimination of personal debt and tax burdens, and homes for just $1.
The sweeping proposal, which was put forward without a cost analysis, is aimed at redressing centuries of slavery and systemic racism, which supporters of the plan say have deprived generations of black citizens of opportunities in most spheres of life.
One estimate figured the reparations plan could cost the city, which has a 2022-2023 budget of just $14 billion, approximately $50 billion.
According to a calculation from Stanford University’s conservative-leaning Hoover Institution, that would require each non-black family in the city to pony up at least $600,000 to make the reparations a reality.
“It is so unrealistic to think that the average family in San Francisco is going to be able to pay $600,000 extra apiece,” DuRousseau told Ingraham.
He suggested that what the reparations committee is proposing was “never actually going to happen,” because San Francisco is already facing a major deficit and does not have the necessary funds.
Priority check
But beyond the economic feasibility, DuRousseau bashed San Francisco’s liberal politicians for being more concerned with historic injustices than with a presentday crisis unfolding in their city.
“It’s disgusting to me that we are more focused on slavery, which ended in 1865, than we’re focused on veterans who are on the streets of San Francisco, homeless and begging for spare change in 2023,” he said. “That’s where they need to start sending their money.”
The Board of Supervisors will not make any decisions regarding reparations until it releases its final report in June. The board can then vote to change, adopt or reject any or all the 111 recommendations.
The exact number of people who would qualify for the reparations is not yet known. In San Francisco, black residents account for less than 6% of the city’s population — fewer than 50,000 people.
To be eligible, applicants must be at least 18 and have identified as black on public documents for at least a decade. They must also 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 at least 13 years, being personally or a direct descendant of someone jailed in the “failed War on Drugs,” or being a descendant of someone enslaved before 1865.