Equity Atlas: emerging Neo-Marxist redistribution tool
Source: PolicyLink Facebook
President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (AKA ARP) earmarks an unheard-of $130 billion in flexible grants to cities and counties with the implicit objective of racial equity. Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made it explicit by creating the Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (AKA TACRE) to promote equity justice policies. The goal is to create a permanent mechanism advancing discrimination to achieve collectivism.
ARP legislation provides broad authority on how cities and counties can use the funds, creating a political environment promoting and rewarding cultural in-groups. Funding economic justice projects will result in malinvestment and fraud, waste, and abuse. Count on it, just like the massive PPP loan fraud. Also, non-profits, partisan contractors, and temporary bureaucrats administering ARP funding will permanently metastasize on city and county government budgets.
Radical PolicyLink
PolicyLink’s CEO Michael McAfee anchors TACRE. PolicyLink, a fanatical non-profit organization, advocates for wealth redistribution and reparations. Partnering with USC Equity Research Institute created the National Equity Atlas as a model for municipalities to use to track, measure, and redistribute resources. PolicyLink is supported by generous grants from the Bill Gates, Ford, Packard, W. K. Kellogg, Target, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations.
PolicyLink’s fingerprints are all over San Antonio, with the City’s former Chief Equity Officer previously employed by PolicyLink. The City hosted the launch of PolicyLink’s inaugural All-In Cities Chief Equity Officers Policy Network to embed racial equity into public policy.
San Antonio’s Equity Atlas
At the TACRE launch, panel member Ron Nirenberg, Mayor of San Antonio, pitched (45 sec. clip) City’s first-of-its-kind Equity Atlas as best practice in advancing equity justice. (Nirenberg is a former Director of the far-leftist Annenberg Foundation.) Progressives refer to the Equity Atlas concept as “democratizing data,” a contrary term that is an affirmative action contrivance.
Mayor Nirenberg at TACRE launch with CEO of Stacy Abrams’ Southern Economic Advancement Project.
The City assigns equity scores by census tracts and then aggregates by districts. Census tracts can earn a favorable score based on the higher percentage of people of color, Spanish as a first language, high illiteracy, and below-median household income. Census tracts with high scores prioritize resource allocations—violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and Article 1 of the Texas Constitution.
San Antonio Equity Map, dark shades (75%) have high priority for resources.
During the 2022 bond hearings, Neo-Marxist Nirenberg remarked with indignation, “We wouldn’t be able to correct 40 years, 50 years, 75 years of inequity….our goal is to move deliberately in this community towards equity anytime we allocate a resource.” The Mayor’s warped equity lens targets not only the City’s 23% non-Hispanic white minority population but those that successfully lifted their living standards as the oppressors.
San Antonio has a staggering $6 billion in needed infrastructure repairs (i.e., 458 miles of failed streets) and improvements. The $1.2 billion 2022 bond is woefully inadequate, with only a third dedicated to roads. The City can use its $326.5 million ARP funds for infrastructure. In contrast to other cities, the City did not appropriate funds for infrastructure, based on the Equity Atlas’s Simon Says.
Open Records Request
I filed An Open Records Request for my census tract, asking for the data sources, data, and the calculation for race, income, education, language, and combined components. The census tract has one of the lowest equity scores in the City, with one out of a possible five. The low score means that the census tract and, indirectly, the district, have the lowest priority for resources.
The City responded with the citywide Equity Atlas in an Excel workbook which you can download HERE. The calculation for the four components relying on government statistics has a high margin of error ranging between 13% and 16%. The high margin of error indicates the probability that the data reported is flawed and may not reflect the whole population.
Neo-Marxist Mantra
“Racial equity justice” is the Neo-Marxist mantra, a term not found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is a euphemism for resource redistribution and reparations. Personal and economic freedom can lead to inequitable outcomes based on an individual’s abilities, intellect, deferred gratification, and motivation. Yet, it creates a more dynamic and affluent society. Equity redistribution is utopian socialism destroying personal responsibility and property rights leading to impoverished living standards.
Bob Bishop is Essayist, Digger, and Forensic Investigator specializing in Nonprofit Organizations. Find him on LinkedIn, YouTube
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