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:

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?

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.