Carroll Fife sat down with her pencil and came up with a great new idea: Put every resident of Oakland, every man, woman and child—some 434,000 in all—on the hook for $11,520, for a total of $5 billion. Then give that money to Black people in the form of reparations.
Well, to be honest, I don’t think Fife has fully fleshed out her idea. But she did retweet a tweet from her good friend, Cat Brooks, to wit: “Here in Oakland, @carrollfife requested research on reparations for Black. It found that the economic impact of racist housing policy denied Black people potential wealth from $4.9 to $5.2 billion dollars. This is JUST looking at 5,100 homes the city demolished in West Oakland.” So I guess we’ll have to see what our new super-progressive City Council does, under the lashing of Cat Brooks’ whip.
The reparations Fife is pushing for are all part of her erstwhile “Black New Deal,” which seeks to undo what she calls “historic and current public policies [that] have negatively impacted Oakland’s Black residents,” including “redlining…ongoing gentrification, and the impacts of urban renewal development projects.” In her statement about her Black New Deal, Fife promised “to research funding sources”; apparently the $5 billion would be an adequate down payment.
This is neither the time nor place to get into the logic or illogic of reparations. The State of California itself, under Gov. Newsom’s auspices, has formed a statewide panel “to study and recommend ways to implement reparations for Black Californians.” Sometime this coming year (2023), the panel will issue its report. Whatever its conclusions are, they’re bound to be controversial, especially in America’s current political climate. So it would be premature to suppose that Fife’s plan—whatever it turns out to be—will take precedence over whatever Newson’s plan turns out to be, or if the two plans will even be compatible, or Constitutional.
But we do have to expect, here in Oakland, that the most radical City Council in our history, presided over by the most radical mayor in our history, will take some pretty radical steps to address what they consider racial injustice. The question is, How far do they intend to take their crusade? There are certain lines that traditionally have not been crossed by radical politicians, particularly those involving violence. But in post-Trump America, it seems that all the old lines have been erased.
Fife has shown a propensity for extremism. Her combativeness and aggressiveness in propounding her causes are well-known; she’s been largely sidelined for the last two years because a moderate mayor (Libby Schaaf) and some moderates on the City Council (Loren Taylor and Treva Reid) kept her in check. But all the moderates have been purged now, and there’s nothing stopping Carroll Fife from imposing her will on the rest of us. In a tweet on the recent school closures in Oakland, which prompted such blowback from parents, Fife seemed to incite the protesters to violence: “Since things have definitely escalated, the organizing/organizers must do the same.” What does that mean? We can only infer Fife’s true intention, but to me her version of righteous indignation indicates a powerful politician hell-bent on revenge, on getting her way by any means necessary.
I hope I’m wrong. At a moment in history when the rest of America, including most of its deep-blue cities, are breathing in the calming air of moderation, Oakland has turned to firebrands like Carroll Fife, who now feel empowered to stir the political pot and damn the torpedoes. It’s possible, I suppose, that, in her victory lap, she may pause for a moment of serious reflection, and realize that it’s never a good time to tear a city to shreds. I, myself, am praying for Carroll Fife to govern responsibly, to consult with Loren Taylor and others who will caution her to moderation. I’m also praying that Sheng Thao—now that she’s achieved her lifelong dream—will also turn to moderation as a means of holding our city together.
Steve Heimoff