I can understand that they hope to reduce the income gap between different races, but I don't understand why that means the selection criteria should include race.<p>I would think that it makes more sense to select based on 'wealth' (income, capital, etc.) instead. Since people of colour are disproportionately represented in the poorer population, this would help to reduce the income gap between races (since more people of colour are accepted into the program), without excluding the few white families that could also really benefit from this.
I'm worried that this will just breed deeper resentment among a socially fractured lower class that would be stronger were it more unified. I'm white though, I know what my thoughts on these issues are worth.
Stupid people seem incapable of understanding how color-blind solutions are able to still address racial disparities.<p>If you were to, say, implement a program to help poor people, rather than "people of color," then to the extent that "people of color" are overrepresented among the poor, then so, too, would the solution disproportionately assist "people of color."<p>The benefits would be:<p>1.) we don't enter an infinite teeter totter of people arguing on behalf of the victimization of their identity groups<p>2.) we actually arrive at an equilibrium more rapidly<p>3.) we don't institutionalize the concept of race, and reinforce the idea that the color of your skin is a concept worthy of being categorized by<p>4.) we stop treating race as a proxy stand in for privilege, or competence (which is exactly what racists do), and instead target the direct thing that race was proxying<p>5.) by targeting the actual thing we're trying to remediate, we help all people affected by it, rather than limiting ourselves to the identity groups with the best PR. we also don't unnecessarily target people who belong to those identity groups and aren't actually in need of assistance, but are perceived to be simply by association through the color of their skin<p>Just to reiterate: assume 1/6 people in a city were "people of color." Assume that 4/6 people who were poor in the city were "people of color." If you add a policy to help the poor, without considering race <i>at all</i>, 4/6 of the people that you help are going to be "people of color," despite them only being 1/6 of the population. It automatically targets the people who are affected disproportionately...
Please don't do this to our language<p>> Guaranteed income is often used interchangeably with Universal Basic Income (UBI) — the difference between the two is that *guaranteed income has qualifications* or requirements to participate.
I feel like the Bay Area consistently has the resources and brainpower to do the right thing, yet it always does the exact wrong thing with the best intentions.<p>A fundamental issue with UBI is getting broad support for it. The U part of UBI is universal for a reason. By making the income universal you get broader support. All human beings want the guarantee of some baseline support to fall back on in bad times ... even the wealthiest people can imagine losing everything. That's why they would support UBI.<p>But if you make the U stand for "Us Only" as in some small chosen group ... then there will not be broad support. It will literally be seen as taking from Sean to pay Shanice. It won't be sign as a baseline right for everyone.<p>Oakland has basically set back UBI by doing this nonsense. First of all, I'd like everyone to stop calling Oakland's program UBI. Its not UBI. Its just a bribe to shore up this particular politicians base in a city that is majority Black voters.<p>I'm so glad I've moved away from the Bay.
Sidestepping the obviously controversial bit, a big problem with doing this is that UBI is relatively new and not well-understood, so so a program that targets a specific group is bad for both itself and the concept of UBI because it only collects very specific data that are easily dismissed because of selection bias.
This sounds bad, I agree. But let's take a look at the program's website, a primary source, instead of relying on reporting alone. [1]<p>Tl;dr It's funded by private donations, run by local organizations, and is a pilot to conduct research. It's not taxpayer money being handed out preferentially, and it's not UBI.<p>"Oakland Resilient Families is 100% funded by philanthropic donations. To date we have raised $6.75 million, at least 80% of which will be distributed directly to families over the next 18 months."<p>"Is this the same thing as a Universal Basic Income (UBI)?<p>No. UBI is meant to go to everyone and provide enough of a payment to cover all basic needs, whereas a guaranteed income is meant to provide an income floor but not meant to be a replacement for wages and can also be targeted to those who most need it. UBI would provide everyone - regardless of income - with equal cash support (often instead of existing social benefits). Oakland Resilient Families is intended for low-income BIPOC families and therefore is by definition not “universal.” Additionally, a central research focus for this project is to determine how a guaranteed income can enhance and expand the existing social safety net rather than replace it."<p>"The 600 randomly selected families will fall into two groups. Both groups will receive the same amount of money, participate in optional research surveys and interviews, and measure a similar set of outcomes related to economic and household wellbeing. The primary differences between the two groups lie in how they are structured in terms of location, income level, and research design."<p>The headline is carefully crafted to generate maximum outrage. I don't agree about aid being based on anything other than need. But at the same time, it's not for me to say how other people spend their money.<p>[1] <a href="https://oaklandresilientfamilies.org/about" rel="nofollow">https://oaklandresilientfamilies.org/about</a>
This is explicitly racist. It discriminates based on race, which is the only acceptable definition of “racist”. The city of Oakland should not be involved in this program at all and I hope someone takes them to court over it.
It distresses me that many of the comments here lament this UBI program because it targets POC and I think, perhaps, they are looking at this situation as if it were somewhere else in the country/world, or they don't live/haven't lived in a minority community. As a current and longtime resident of West Oakland, who grew up in the city next door, I find nothing wrong with targeting this towards POC in the city, because, as the mayor framed it, this is about promoting equity in the city: a city that has, historically, seen many awful things done to their minority communities (by all levels of government and private enterprise).
What kinds of things am.I referring to? Here's a cursory list:<p>1) White flight take jobs and money out of the area, into towns and cities over the hills, and also into more affluent parts of the city
2) "Redevelopment" carves up the neighborhood: hwy 980 isolates West Oakland from downtown; 880 (former Cyprus Freeway) slices the neighborhood in half; BART lops off an additional portion near the port. (I can't emphasize how badly this messed up the neighborhood.)
3) The Black Panthers started a few blocks from here, on Peralta Street, as a way for the residents to defend themselves from police abuse and empower the community; they are all but destroyed by the Feds' COINTELPRO.
4) Not specific to the neighborhood, still The War on Drugs is worth mentioning. Need I say more about that?<p>These things that happened a generation or two ago, they still resonate down through to the present in this community. I see it outside my window: my black and brown neighbors scrape to get by. This UBI program isn't supposed to fix it all, it's just a small step in the direction of balance.