‘A tipping point, not a breaking point’: Mayor’s $200 million plan deserves support

Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s State of the City speech skipped the flowery rhetoric and self-congratulation typical of the genre. The mayor instead rooted his annual address in stark reality and what he called “undeniable facts.”

Among the facts he listed in a speech titled “Race, peace, justice and the death of Stephon Clark”:

▪ “Even when our young African American men don’t die, their mothers and grandmothers and aunts and friends fear for their lives when they walk out the door.”

▪ “Too many law-abiding, young African American men experience many of their interactions with law enforcement in hostile and negative ways.”

▪ “Many African American parents do in fact teach their 16-year-olds to hold the [10 and 2] steering wheel position when they are pulled over. Show your hands! I never would have thought to mention such a thing to my kids when they learned to drive.”

The death of Clark, killed last year by Sacramento police who said they mistook his cell phone for a weapon after chasing him into his grandmother’s backyard, provided a touchstone for the speech. He chose to deliver it at the Pannell Community Center in Meadowview — a mile from where Clark was killed — rather than in the downtown core.

But while speaking to the present situation and to the pain of Clark’s family, Steinberg made sure to place the tragic killing in the context of history. Steinberg said the killing had ripped open “deep wounds in our past.”

He recounted the restrictive racial covenants that once kept non-white residents out of neighborhoods like Curtis Park and East Sacramento. He repeated the story of Nathaniel Colley, Sacramento’s first African American lawyer, who had to arrange for a white family to act as “purchasers” for his home in South Land Park because no one would sell to a black family. After the Colleys moved in, someone burned a cross on their lawn.

Such racism continues, said Steinberg, but in different forms.

“In the mid-2000s, subprime lenders aggressively targeted minority homeowners with high-interest loans, even if they could have qualified for lower rates. When the recession hit, thousands of our people lost their homes,” he said.

Steinberg was storytelling with a purpose. He wanted to make it clear that today’s problems are rooted in a painful history of racism and discrimination and, as such, can’t be solved without economic redress.

“The evidence of generations of trauma and systemic poverty is beyond dispute,” he said.

Steinberg offered more than sympathetic words and history lessons. He also unveiled a proposal to put $200 million into an “economic trust fund” to “boldly invest” in some of our city’s poorest neighborhoods. The funds — $40 million a year over five years — would come from tax revenues generated by the new Measure U.

“This is not just Black History, this is our history — our shared history. We must acknowledge the past and learn from it so we can avoid repeating it.”

Mayor Steinberg is right. While reforming police practices to prevent deadly discrimination must remain a top priority, systemic racism is much more than just a law enforcement issue. It’s a deeply-rooted economic issue.

Viewed through the lens of history, $200 million is a drop in the bucket. But it’s a great start for Sacramento.

The mayor will need the City Council’s support for his plan to become reality — and, as the person who led Measure U to victory, he deserves it. More importantly, current and future generations of young people of color in Sacramento deserve the kind of care and investment the mayor is proposing.

We can neither repair nor repay those who suffered through the tragic past. We can, however, take steps to ensure that their struggles were not in vain.