Last night, San Francisco held a public board meeting to discuss the issuance of reparations to African American citizens. That's correct - the city currently overrun by needles and crime is considering reparations for its citizens. The plan would award every black resident $ 5 million, wipe their personal debt, guarantee $97,000 in income for 250 years, and create $1 homes. The only problem? No one knows how to pay for it.

But that didn't stop residents from emotionally expressing just how needed this plan is. One person sang a verse from the 1964 Civil Rights anthem, "A Change is Gonna Come." Sergeant Yulanda Williams, president of the police association Officers for Justice, said, "My dad always taught me never to beg. And I am not begging you today. It is time for you to do the right thing and provide us with reparations: make us whole."

Tinisch Hollins, vice-chair of the African American Reparations Advisory Committee, "I don’t need to impress upon you the fact that we are setting a national precedent here in San Francisco. What we are asking for and what we’re demanding for is a real commitment to what we need to move things forward."

So this is a plan they think should be adopted nationwide. Wonderful. To be eligible for the $5 million + benefits, a resident must be over 18 and "have identified as black/African American on public documents for at least 10 years". I really don't know what it means to identify as black, but that seems like a loophole that could cause some problems down the line. Oh, and of all the eleven members of the board, only one of them is black. And they were unanimously supportive of the plan last night.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, but my guess is, they won't be able to scrape up $5 million for each and every resident. Just a hunch.